INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK OF URBAN EDUCATION

Springer International Handbooks of Education

VOLUME 19

A list of titles in this series can be found at the end of this volume.
International Handbook of
Urban Education

Part One
Editors
William T. Pink
Marquette University, U.S.A.
and

George W. Noblit
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, U.S.A.

Section Editors
Africa
Kevin Brennan
Julius Nyang’oro
Asia Pacific
Masturah Ismail
Allan Luke
Europe
Elisabet Öhrn
Gaby Weiner
Latin America
Belmira Oliveira Bueno
North America
Michele Foster
United Kingdom
Carol Campbell
Geoff Whitty
A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface xi
Introduction xv
George W. Noblit and William T. Pink
Part One
Section 1 Africa
1 Urban Education in Africa: Section Editors’ Introduction 3
Kevin Brennan and Julius Nyang’oro
2 Urbanization and Schooling in Africa: Trends, Issues, and
Challenges from Ghana during the Colonial Era 23
Kwabena Dei Ofori-Attah
3 Language Education in Cameroon: From the Colonial Era to
the 21st Century 49
Funwi F. Ayuninjam
4 The Politics of National Culture and Urban Education Reforms
in Post-Independent Zimbabwe 75
Douglas Mpondi
5 Reforming the City School in South Africa: Mapping the History
from Apartheid Durban to Post-Apartheid eThekwini 91
Jenni Karlsson
6 Urban Primary Schooling in Malawi: Opportunities and Challenges 115
Samson MacJessie-Mbewe and Dorothy Cynthia Nampota
7 Ethnicity, Politics, and State Resource Allocation: Explaining
Educational Inequalities in Kenya 129
Alwiya Alwy and Susanne Schech
8 Dimensions of Diversity: Educating Urban Township Learners,
a Case of Umlazi Township School in Durban, South Africa 145
Thabisile Buthelezi
9 The Middle School Climate in Senegal: The Case of the Diourbel
Middle School 183
Abdou Karim Ndoye

v
vi Table of Contents

10 Urban Education Differentials and Marginalization: The Case

of Educating the Youth in Nairobi’s Informal Settlements 205
Kinuthia Macharia

Section 2 Asia Pacific

11 Urban Education in Asia Pacific: Section Editors’ Introduction 221
Allan Luke and Masturah Ismail
12 Urban–Rural Disparities in Educational Equality: China’s Pressing
Challenge in a Context of Economic Growth and Political Change 231
Rui Yang
13 Equity and Social Justice in Australian Education Systems:
Retrospect and Prospect 249
Jill Blackmore
14 The Urban and the Peripheral: New Challenges for
Education in the Pacific 265
Priscilla Qolisaya Puamau and G. Robert Teasdale
15 Ducked or Bulldozed? Education of Deprived Urban Children in India 285
Anita Rampal
16 Withering the State? Globalization Challenges and Changing Higher
Education Governance in East Asia 305
Ka Ho Mok
17 Madrasah and Muslim Education: Its Interface with Urbanization 321
Sa’eda Buang
18 Women in East Asian Education and Society: Whose Gains in
Whose Perspectives? 343
Grace C. L. Mak
19 Framing Lives: Longitudinal Research on Life Planning and
Pathways in Singapore 359
David Hogan, Trivina Kang, and Melvin Chan
20 New Urban Terrains: Literacies, World Kids, and Teachers 381
Karen Dooley, Cushla Kapitzke, and Carmen Luke

Section 3 Western Europe

21 Urban Education in Europe: Section Editors’ Introduction 397
Elisabet Öhrn and Gaby Weiner
22 Globalisation and Glocalisation in Northern Spain:
Urban Education, Ethnicity and Multicultural Issues 413
Benjamín Zufiaurre and Alicia Peñalva
 Table of Contents vii

23 School Differentiation and Segregation in the Parisian Periphery:

An Analysis of Urban Schools’ Logics of Action and their Effects 431
Agnes van Zanten
24 Urban Citizenship 447
Tuula Gordon
25 Territorial Stigmatisation, Hip Hop and Informal Schooling 463
Ove Sernhede
26 Between the Road and the Town: An Ethnographic Study of the
Education of Traveling Attractionists 481
Francesca Gobbo
27 The Limits of Compensatory Education in Spain: A Comparative
Analysis of Some Autonomous Governments 505
Xavier Rambla and Xavier Bonal
28 Dutch Urban Schools and Teachers’ Professionalism 523
Yvonne Leeman
29 Urban Regions and their Potential for Teacher Education:
The Hamburg Example 539
Eva Arnold, Johannes Bastian, and Wilfried Kossen

Part Two
Section 4 Latin America
30 Urban Education in Latin America: Section Editor’s Introduction 561
Belmira Oliveira Bueno
31 History of Brazilian Urban Education: Space and Time
in Primary Schools 581
Luciano Mendes de Faria Filho and Diana Gonçalves Vidal
32 Learning Cycles: Transition Policies for a New Logic of
Compulsory Schooling in Brazil 601
Elba Siqueira de Sá Barretto and Sandra Zákia Souza
33 School Failure and Public Schools: Theoretical and Pedagogical
Challenges in Brazil 619
Denise Trento Rebello de Souza and Marilene Proença Rebello de Souza
34 Chilean Educational Reform: The Intricate Balance Between a
Macro and Micro Policy 641
Dagmar Raczynski and Gonzalo Muñoz-Stuardo
35 Public Policies and Educational Equity in the City of Bogota 665
Gloria Calvo
viii Table of Contents

36 Primary Education: Changing Mainstay of Uruguay 685

Juan A. Bogliaccini
37 Educational Policies and Realities: Teachers’ Initial Education
in Mexico 705
Etelvina Sandoval
38 Learning to Work in an Industrial Mexican City in Transition
(1990–2000) 727
María de Ibarrola
39 The Fragmented Composition of the Argentinean Educational System 747
Guillermina Tiramonti

Section 5 North America

40 Urban Education in North America: Section Editor’s Introduction 765
Michele Foster
41 Imagining the Urban: The Politics of Race, Class, and Schooling 779
Zeus Leonardo and Margaret Hunter
42 Persuasive, Pervasive, and Limiting: How Causal Explanations Shape
Urban Educational Research and Practice 803
Joseph Flessa and Diane Ketelle
43 The New Immigrants: Shaping the Urban Educational Landscape 825
Lisa Konczal
44 Urban Schooling in Suburban Contexts: Exploring the Immigrant
Factor in Urban Education 841
Carl E. James and Roger Saul
45 Urban School Reform: To What End? 859
James H. Lytle
46 Success Stories in Urban Education: A Critical Look at the Ethic of
Care in Programs, Projects, and Strategies that Work from the
Classroom to Community 883
Tryphenia B. Peele-Eady, Na’ilah Suad Nasir, and Valerie Ooka Pang
47 Rebuilding Schools, Restoring Communities: A Vision of
Urban Educational Evaluation 905
Rodney K. Hopson, Jennifer C. Greene, Katrina L. Bledsoe,
Trinidad M. Villegas, and Tanya A. Brown

Section 6 United Kingdom

48 Urban Education in the United Kingdom: Section
Editors’ Introduction 929
Carol Campbell and Geoff Whitty
 Table of Contents ix

49 History of Urban Education in the United Kingdom 943

Gary McCulloch
50 Urban Education Theory Revisited: From the Urban Question
to End of Millennium 959
Gerald Grace
51 Combating Racism in Schooling: A Critical Perspective on
Contemporary Policy and Practice 979
David Gillborn
52 Reforming Urban Education Systems 1007
Martin Johnson
53 Urban Learning and the Need for Varied Urban Curricula
and Pedagogies 1027
Richard Riddell
54 Leading Schools in High Poverty Neighborhoods: The National
College for School Leadership and Beyond 1049
Pat Thomson
55 Urban School Improvement 1079
Barbara MacGilchrist
56 Urban Schools: Performance, Competition and Collaboration 1105
Philip A. Woods
57 The Governance of Urban Education in the UK: A Public,
Private or Partnership Future? 1123
Carol Campbell and Geoff Whitty
58 Multi-Agency Working in Urban Education and Social Justice 1139
Lyn Tett
59 Future Directions for Urban Education in the UK 1157
Leisha Fullick and Tim Brighouse

Coda
60 Coda: An Urban Education Dystopia 1175
George W. Noblit and William T. Pink
61 Urban Education Dystopia, 2050 1177
Allan Luke
62 Urban Education Dystopia, 2050: A Response from Africa 1183
Kevin Brennan
63 Urban Education Dystopia, 2050: A Response from the
Asia Pacific 1187
Masturah Ismail
x Table of Contents

64 Urban Education Dystopia, 2050: A Response from Europe 1191

Elisabet Öhrn and Gaby Weiner
65 Urban Education Dystopia, 2050: A Response from Latin America 1195
Belmira Oliveira Bueno
66 Urban Education Dystopia, 2050: A Response from North America 1199
Michele Foster
67 Urban Education Dystopia, 2050: A Response from
the United Kingdom 1203
Carol Campbell and Geoff Whitty

Biographical Statements 1207

Subject Index 1229
Author Index 1241
PREFACE

Urban education, as a field of study, has been plagued by a social problems orientation.
Urban areas are often seen as collections of problems and urban schools are as well.
The sad reality is that urban areas are full of both poverty and wealth and the educa-
tional system reflects both of these. In practice, urban schools are often segregated by
class, caste, and race. Such schools are also segregated because public policy allows
this to be true. Policy creates the schools that serve young people who are marginal-
ized and for whom life is difficult and unforgiving. Such schools make it difficult for
students to use education to alter their life chances.
The field of urban education emerged precisely to highlight the above and to argue
that such students and families, and the schools that serve them, deserve better. The
field itself has led to many new understandings about how to improve schools and how
to better serve such students and their families. These are great accomplishments but
they are also always limited by the asymmetry of possibilities created by social stratifi-
cation, segmentation, and segregation. Urban schools that are created to reflect divided
societies cannot significantly improve without the dismantling of the schools that serve
those that derive considerable benefits from the stratified society. In turn, this would
seem to require dismantling the wider societal stratification systems. The field of urban
education then exists both as an amelioration in such societies and as a moral con-
science – calling attention to effects of racialization, class formation and maintenance,
and patriarchy. This moral conscience is never far from the research in urban education
whether it be in service of improving schools or critiquing policy and practice.
Across the globe we have been experiencing a steady process of urbanization. Yet
urbanization takes on different forms given different social and cultural histories. In
many parts of the world, the poor are not in the central cities but in rings around the city.
The schools that serve them (if there are schools that serve them) share the challenges
of all schools that serve the urbanized poor. This Handbook enables the reader to com-
pare the different forms of urbanization and urban education and to make some funda-
mental comparisons about what is different and what is the same about urban education
xi
xii Preface

across the globe. We encourage a critical reading of these works. Readers should delve
deeply into the chapters and into the myriad issues evident. In doing so, the editors and
authors of these works invite you to reconsider the lenses you use to understand urban
education. If these chapters do nothing else, they should make it clear that context is
almost everything in urban education. Urban schools contain a society’s hopes and lim-
itations. In declaring the schools to be problems, we blame the victims for what others
have done to them. The charges should be leveled not at the victims but at the perpetrators.
Who set in motion rural destabilization such that migration to the cities becomes the
only option for the displaced? Who created an economy that leaves so many impover-
ished, unemployed and/or underemployed? Who created residential segregation? Who
promotes stratification and segmentation of a society’s people? Who set up educational
systems that cannot meet the needs of people who must rely on them? Who is culpable
for the draining of resources from urban schools? Who is responsible for not address-
ing these and other issues? We have emphatically stressed who because social science
along with those with power have created a language that suggests processes and fac-
tors that are beyond the control of people. This creates an image of inevitability and, of
course, leaves the poor to exist as an unfortunate fact of life.
Globalization is a phenomenon that some portray as a process or force that has an inde-
pendent existence. It permeates the chapters in this volume. Every local scene is inter-
penetrated with an economy that spans national borders. Every urban area, every urban
school, finds itself subject to economic shifts connected to the global economy. This said,
it is also true that the global economy was and is being created and recreated every day by
the actions of business leaders and policymakers. It is inevitable only because these lead-
ers see benefit in it for themselves and for global trade, which in the end benefits the dom-
inant classes worldwide. If this is who, then the question becomes how do we hold them
accountable for increasing poverty? For a centralization of wealth that has all but
destroyed the middle classes? For displaced populations that are now urbanized and mar-
ginalized? The only mechanisms that have some history are governmental or involve the
universal politics of protest and insurrection? The former seems all too compromised
to act definitively, while the latter has an unfortunate history of demagoguery and anti-
democratic effects. Thus globally, this could be a turning point in governmentality – one
where potentially both the economy and the population exceed the reach of the state. In
this, it seems clear that urban areas will be the terrain of struggle. Hope must be possible
for the alternative is devastation. We offer this volume in service of hope.
This project began over 7 years ago as it became apparent that globally urbanization
was proceeding at a remarkable rate, and that, in both policy and popular imagination,
urban education was the locus of the action. As we thought through the volume’s ori-
entation, this became increasingly true. Riots in Paris immigrant suburbs, the bulldoz-
ing of squatters villages in Africa, and the exportation of school reform ideas from the
West to the world all increasingly signaled the centrality of urban education in the new
world order.
We began the substance of the work by engaging lead scholars from across the globe
in discussions about the way the world was organized and divided, especially in regards
to urban education. From these emerged, the sections of this book and the invitations to
section editors. We wish to be clear that the sections of this book are not meant to be
 Preface xiii

some definitive statement about the way the world is partitioned. Rather our discussions
yielded this organization as a heuristic to begin to understand urban education as a
global phenomenon. It was more a way to come to understand than the sense that this is
the way to understand urban education globally. We are convinced that now, after we
have assembled some semblance of what is known about urban education around the
world, we would want to reconsider the sections and potentially change them in funda-
mental ways. For example, we were unable to organize a section on what used to be
called Eastern Europe but this is clearly an arena that needs to be investigated. We
wonder about the wisdom of going with continents like Latin American and Africa.
There is much variety as well as similarity across these continents. They deserve addi-
tional consideration. We have the US, the UK and Europe as sections. We were all aware
from the beginning that these sections reflect Western dominance in global affairs (and
not inconsequentially the major book markets). This deserves even more interrogation.
The Asia-Pacific reflects a more recent understanding of how the old “East” is now a set
of emerging economic and political relations. This heuristic seems to be productive here
but is it the best way to organize our understanding of urban education or, as impor-
tantly, will it be as useful in the near future? In future volumes, we will take on these and
other tasks, but for now we revel in what has been revealed by the heuristic we did
employ. The sections and chapters create a knowledge base that has never before
existed. It will be studied as the state of the art in the field of urban education and serve
as the starting point for a new research agenda for this century, this world.
This accomplishment should be credited, not to us, but to the entire team who made
it possible. The section editors conceptualized their sections, sought out who they
thought to be the best thinkers and scholars in the regions to write chapters, diligently
and doggedly worked with the authors to produce high quality pieces, and wrote the
section introductions. The authors had the major responsibility for conducting the nec-
essary primary and secondary research, for conceptualization and writing, and finally
for the quality of the chapters themselves. We have been fortunate to work with some
of the best scholars in the world and this volume demonstrates how impressive their
collective work can be. It is important for the reader to be aware that just as urban edu-
cation varies so do the practices of scholars. You will note variations in research and
writing practices across the sections and even between nations or regions within sec-
tions. Some of this is really about the limits of translating into English, but less than
might be presumed. We have learned much about scholarship internationally by work-
ing through this volume, and in particular learned to acknowledge the differences in
practices but even more so to respect what the practices yield.
A number of the section editors were able to meet together at the American
Educational Research Association conference in San Francisco, California in April of
2006. The others were consulted with via email and in-person meetings in other ven-
ues. In these discussions, we worked on pulling the volume together. One key item was
how to end the volume. It seemed to all involved that there was no sensible way to
write a conclusion to the volume. Yet the section editors thought that there was value
in some novel way of pulling the work together. In the end, Allan Luke offered to write
a dystopia that would allow the section editors to envision the future from where they
were now in each region. This became our way to push the volume beyond what was
xiv Preface

known to what could be. Time and events will tell, of course. But we think this ending
has both practical and pedagogical merit. It allows readers to move outside the box of
current understanding and to think broadly about the forces that will affect urban edu-
cation in the future. It also provides a teaching tool for those who teach courses in
urban education. Moving from what is known to what is not is always the challenge of
teaching. We hope these brief excursions will help students think their own way free of
current assumptions.
As the overall editors of this volume, we have spent several years thinking, reading,
discussing and arguing with each other, the section editors and contributors. We have
been exceedingly fortunate in all this. We hope that all scholars have the opportunity
we have had, largely made possible by the smaller world created by internet technol-
ogy. All the work for all these years has been worth it in so many ways. We think this
work obligates us and, we hope, all readers, to seek to change the world in which we
live to benefit all its peoples. This is not an issue of simple will. It requires all of us to
think more deeply about how we are quick to judge and slow to understand. It pushes
all of us act more inclusively and less selfishly. It demands courage and diligence. It
takes both knowledge and moral conscience. We hope we are up to the challenge and
that you are as well.

George W. Noblit
and
William T. Pink
Introduction

URBAN EDUCATION IN THE

GLOBALIZING WORLD

George W. Noblit* and William T. Pink†

*
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, U.S.A.;
†
Marquette University, U.S.A.

Urban education has long been viewed as a localizing endeavor, placing education into
a specific geographic context. From this perspective, schools belong to the city and
usually a specific city. The schools of London are different from those of Chicago,
which are different from those of São Paulo, which, in turn, are different from those of
Singapore. The generalization that these are all urban is actually not about the nature
of the cities, for that would be a foolish abstraction that belies the real differences in
region, nation, peoples, culture, and even climate. Urban, rather, is a generalization as
much about geography as it is about the idea that urban centers have problems: prob-
lems of too many people, too much poverty, too much crime and violence, and ulti-
mately too little hope. Cities, of course, are also about the mirror image and this is
signaled by the term “urbane.” In this term, we see the city as the locus of high culture,
sophistication, and an area with a population with the means to participate in what was
once known as a “cosmopolitan” way of life (Merton, 1957).
Urban-urbane is a problematic that drives this book, an exploration of the state of
urban education across the globe. As an International Handbook, the goal has been to
capture much of the range of perspectives from around the globe. Yet, of course, this
can only be a partial accomplishment, for no book can truly hope to capture the full
range of perspectives around the world about any topic. Scale defies scope, while
extent exceeds range. Nevertheless, the International Handbook does achieve more
than any other has in this regard and requires us to explore the limits of our traditional
understanding. We must push urban beyond a locale and explore its global nature. In
doing so, we do not reject the notion of a city as a locale, rather we stress a conjunc-
tion as in the popular claim that the local is global – the global is local (Gibson-
Graham, 2002). This “glolocal” conjunction points to a meaning for urban that is as
expansive as it is significant. Yet, to date, this conjunction only heightens the prob-
lematic of urban-urbane by adding an additional dimension. This dimension may be
seen in the cosmopolitan idea – one that has changed the world, making a new class
that is beyond a locale. This upper class has long moved between cities and nations and
xv
xvi Noblit and Pink

now it is a force in globalization. Their social, economic, symbolic, and cultural capi-
tal (Bourdieu, 1986) spans the globe, making the world smaller, and more interde-
pendent, even as it increases the dependency of working classes that are subject to the
economic forces of globalization. In ways never imagined even in the industrial era –
when immigration was a vehicle to create both the needed workforce and sufficient
surplus labor to suppress wages – global capital now sees labor as almost infinitely
mobile, subject to the whims of capital as it seeks the lowest cost production and
services. This almost infinite mobility is both real and virtual.
As with industrialism, the real mobility of labor fuels immigration and diaspora.
African labor is spread across Europe and North America. Latino immigration is
mostly to the United States at this time but that is likely to be temporary. Asian labor
(both physical and intellectual) is dispersing across the globe to countries with domi-
nant positions in the international economy and with well-developed educational sys-
tems, especially higher and graduate education. The new “creative class” (Florida, 2002)
is also moving, but in opposite directions to oversee plants (and design processes and
technology) with low labor costs in Costa Rica and China, for example.
Virtual mobility, of course, is made possible by the expansion of computer-based tech-
nology and, literally, the world-wide web. Some workers are able to work from home or
off-site because their work does not require face-to-face interaction. It is computer medi-
ated at the minimum. While many in the West joke about technical support for their com-
puters being based in India or other nations, this is only the first move. India is outsourcing
this work as well, to places with even lower wages. What we once so definitively referred
to as the Third World is now an ever-shifting landscape that capital slides through extract-
ing profit before moving on in search of ever more profit. Indeed, this International
Handbook can be seen as an example of virtual mobility. The book is written in English
by many people whose first language is not English. This is because the largest market for
books is in English speaking nations and/or educational systems that are based wholly or
in part in English. The chapters were written wherever and sent via e-mail to the United
States and then once organized and edited sent on to the European publisher, Springer.
From here the text was transmitted to India where it was put into production, which
resulted in authors receiving page proofs as PDF files. With virtual labor mobility, the
worker stays in one place while her/his production travels to where it makes the most
profit for global capital and the urbane class.
Education takes place in urban, suburban, and rural areas and, while none of these
can escape the forces of globalization, the urban schools are the ones most caught up
in the urbane-urban problematic. There are many reasons for this, including that urban
educational systems are part of the social problem side of the conjunction. Clearly,
urban centers have highly prestigious schools and universities, sometimes private, but
the bulk of the population in cities is relegated to schools that are as stigmatized as the
people who attend them. It is no wonder then that students escape them by dropping
out, but this is usually after the school has already made clear that the institution is so
devalued that it cannot deliver on its promises of an education that will enable students
to change their life circumstances. Urban schools also fail such students by pushing
them out because the institutions cannot survive in their current form by having stu-
dents who understand how things actually work (Fine, 1991). Put directly, they must be
 Urban Education in the Globalizing World xvii

put out to save the myths that allow the institution to survive: we continue to blame the
victim not the school for the large-scale academic failure of urban students.
This means that urban as an adjective to education also is not only about geography.
This adjective covers a host of sins, one might say. In economically dominant nations,
urban education is about stratification in its most distasteful form. The prevalent myth
is that schools stratify either in the name of mobility or meritocracy, but urban schools
can promise neither (Anyon, 2005; Bowles & Gintis, 1976; Oakes, 1985). They are more
closely connected to welfare and criminal justice agencies than they are to institutions of
higher education, or even to employing organizations. In dependent economies, urban
education is almost the only hope for any education even if this education has little cur-
rency beyond the low probability of minimal employment (which is, of course, a step
above abject poverty). Urban education adds to the problematic its own contradiction:
urban education is all about hope and the thwarting of hope. This is not to say there are
not exceptions to this conception of the problematics of urban centers. As we note in
this volume, European cities are decidedly urbane and education in urban schools is
less problematic than in the United States. In these cities, the immigrants and poor are
systematically pushed to the suburbs and the schools there take on both the stigmati-
zation and the learning challenges of the people they serve. Even in the United States,
there are moves in this direction as central cities are “gentrified” and public housing
demolished in favor of high-end housing and amenities. Nevertheless, the problematic
remains because it is not fundamentally about geography but rather about the con-
junction of high culture and low classes.
The International Handbook of Urban Education cannot be guided by simplistic
definitions of terms that easily demark what is and is not urban education. Indeed, in
Mexico, the problem of insufficient teachers for rural areas, for example, is driven by
teaching being more attractive in the cities. Sandoval (Latin America Section) in her
chapter entitled “Educational Policies and Realities: Initial Education in Mexico,”
notes that because the teacher education system in Mexico is large, diversified and
uneven in quality this presents problems with respect to the ability of teachers to teach
diverse students in an intercultural context. Some argue that urban can be demarked by
the size and density of populations, which, while true, misses the mark entirely. If
urban is a context, it is a context that is nested, constrained, and constructed. It is
nested in that urban must always be relative to suburban and rural. A city is nested in a
state, a state in a region, a region in the world. It is constrained in that an urban area is
usually bounded by other geopolitical borders. It is also constrained by cultural and
economic assumptions about what the city is and how life proceeds therein. It is con-
structed in that any city is made over time by people and by power. Cities are con-
structed by the deep-seated beliefs of residents and dominant classes and by multiple
and intersecting forces of change. It is nested, constrained, and constructed in and by
local interests, public policies, worldviews and ideologies, global capital, and most
importantly, by the necessities of everyday survival. The urban context so defined
offers little definitiveness – it remains a problematic to be studied, to be interrogated,
and hopefully to be transformed.
This is how we recommend the reader approach this volume. It should be read not
as a set of facts, although it is full of them, rather it should be read as an intellectual
xviii Noblit and Pink

project. This intellectual project should be as constructive as it is critical, as efferent as

it is aesthetic (Rosenblatt, 1978), as scholarly as it is activist. Our primary motivation
in conceptualizing this International Handbook was to stimulate and guide transfor-
mative thinking that would lead to improved education for all citizens living in urban
centers worldwide. To this end, we worked hard to recruit both section editors and con-
tributors who are as committed as we are to constructing a text that both interrogates
current thinking about and practice in urban education and problematizes how that
thinking and practice might be reformed in the future. In short, we are all committed to
the project of the International Handbook leading to new possibilities for the globaliz-
ing world. To this end, we invite you, the reader, to read with six concepts or analytic
lenses in mind. Each concept or lens tries both to embrace all that is included here and
to speak to the urban-urbane problematic. The six concepts are: multiplicity, power,
difference, capital, change and intersectionality.
A useful analogy here is the visit to the optometrist for a periodic vision check. Once
you are seated in the chair and a vision chart is projected onto the screen, the optometrist
proceeds to slide different lenses into the frame covering your eyes. The question posed
each time is, “Is this better or worse?” Your task is to tell the optometrist if the symbols
on the vision chart are made clearer as each lens is inserted. This process is repeated, “Is
this better or worse?” until the best clarity is achieved. Using this analogy, we suggest
that the following six concepts or analytic lenses can be used to help bring urban educa-
tion into sharper focus. The last concept or lens, intersectionally, lays out the necessity for
looking through multiple lenses at the same time in order to bring urban education in the
sharpest focus possible: it is this multiple “causality” argument, of course, which suggests
that the reform of urban education, independent of context, must rest on multiple rather
than single interventions.

Multiplicity
As we read the draft chapters, we were drawn all too naturally into seeking patterns
across chapters, nations, and regions. There was so much richness that capturing such
patterns would have required a strategy to make all the complexity manageable.
Reducing it all to themes that could stretch across the chapters revealing similarities and
differences is a common process for researchers and one that seemed productive when
we started out. Yet we ultimately found this to be a poor plan for understanding the com-
plexity that these chapters present to us. This process also has a tendency to strip the
context from the individual themes, leaving the themes to largely stand on their own. As
scholars, we know that there are ways to deal with this when engaging in a qualitative
research project. Even attempts to synthesize studies have techniques to counter the con-
text stripping of thematic analysis (Noblit & Hare, 1988; Patterson, Toren, Canam, &
Jillings, 2001; Thorne, Jenson, Kearney, Noblit, & Sandelowski, 2004). Yet as we read
deeper it was apparent that our natural inclinations were leading us astray. A text such
as this has such range and diversity in topics as well as locales that the thematic
approach ultimately fails. We suggest that context (culture, nation, and region) is so
central to understanding urban education that a better approach is to read each chapter
 Urban Education in the Globalizing World xix

so that themes are embedded in the specific context and subsequently to work hard to
understand how the linkages between themes can be clearly understood.
We understand that the typical approach for a reader to make sense of a book of this
size is to develop a way to think about the mass of pieces as a whole: to construct, if
you will, normative patterns or statements. But we argue that a better way to approach
this is not to summarize and construct generalizations, but rather to recognize and
embrace multiplicity. The differences between nation and region, and even within
nation and region, deserve to be respected. This, in turn, means that instead of seeking
some unifying process, we suggest that the reader is better served by embracing the
formulation that the nature of urban education in a global sense is multiple. Urban edu-
cation really is different in different places and thus understanding the many meanings
of urban education is the educative goal. Importantly, we think this approach is also
more likely to lead to ideas about change in any one part of the world. Through com-
parison, it is possible to reconsider the meanings, social practices, and policies of
urban education in your own nation or locale. Indeed, we hope that embracing multi-
plicity will lead to transformative efforts based on the idea that there are many ways to
conceive of and enact urban education that can provide alternatives to the prevailing
and frequently restrictive local conceptions and enactments.
Thus we recommend that you, the reader, begin this International Handbook of
Urban Education accepting multiplicity as a key concept which must be both under-
stood and embraced. Many questions arise from such a fresh perspective, including
(1) “How is it that there are multiple forms of urban education, multiple interpreta-
tions, multiple arenas and multiple actors?” (2) “What can we learn about our own set-
ting from seeing a wide variety of settings?” and (3) “What strategies enable us to
consider multiplicity as an asset for change and for empowerment?”
We do not wish to predetermine the answers for these questions and would also note
that it is indeed a mistake to attempt to anticipate either the questions or answers for
parts of the world we have not inhabited. Yet we can offer an example of the kind of
thinking that we recommend. As two scholars with a long-held interest in school
improvement and who reside in the United States, we naturally read the chapters that
follow asking in what ways they can inform our own conception of reform for urban
schools in the U.S. Using a chapter from this Handbook should suffice to illustrate the
approach we recommend for the reader with respect to the concept of multiplicity.
In the Europe Section, Francesca Gobbo offers an intriguing chapter on Italian cir-
cus people entitled “Between the Road and the Town: The Education of Traveling
Attractionists.” Gobbo offers considerable insight into the lives of circus folk who
carry both their education and their homes with them as they move around from work
site to work site. Clearly, there are circuses that travel the United States and who edu-
cate the children of circus employees. Gobbo’s chapter from Italy, we suggest, while
clearly situated in a particular social and cultural context, can help us understand the
education of circus children in the U.S. Since there is little educational literature in the
United States on the education of circus children, there are good reasons to use this
study from Italy to open up that line of study here. However, in suggesting this we also
want to remind the reader that we want to push this work beyond merely noting the sim-
ilarity and difference to be found in the two contexts. This chapter, for example, has real
xx Noblit and Pink

power because it forces us to consider how education tends to be fixed to a site, a school,
and a community. Pushing this further, we wonder how education the United States
might be different if schools were not tied to fixed geographies. That is, if education
was mobile would it also be possible to escape the stigmatization attached to education
in cities? This also makes us rethink Castells’ (1979) key argument about the urban cri-
sis in the United States. He argues that there is, in fact, no crisis because what is
defined as a crisis is long-standing and because it is better understood as a crisis of a
specific form of capitalist accumulation, consumption, and reproduction of the social
order. Moreover, he argues that instead of understanding urban areas as having prob-
lems based on what is there (e.g., poverty, underemployment, crime, deteriorating
buildings), it is more useful to understand these problems as products of what has left
(e.g., capital, the upper and middle classes, political control of the city). This leads us
to ask if education is not already mobile for people of privilege? The upper and mid-
dle classes, for example, have long had the resources to relocate to areas with the most
desirable schools. While school desegregation efforts that transported African-
American students to White schools certainly had elements of mobility, what was
missing, of course, was the option for the African-American families to also move
their residence and place of employment. As a consequence, they could never belong
to the new school in the same ways as White families did. Gobbo’s chapter on the edu-
cation of circus children also leads us to consider how education might be different
when the community itself provided it, rather than the state (see Shujaa, 1994). This
raises profound questions about the future of education in cities. One central question
we must ask is, “Is it possible to remove the blight associated with urban schooling by
moving outside the governmental system that created and sustains the inner city
schools as we know them today, by reconstituting them using a self-help logic?”
The point we are making is that reading this volume through the analytic lens of
multiplicity of conceptions and forms will enable us to reconsider the assumptions we
have about urban education in our home countries. We suggest that multiplicity both
invites and enables us to develop a key insight essential for us to gain communicative
competence (Bowers, 1984). Here, we are better able to surface and name our taken-
for-granted assumptions, understand how these assumptions constructed via primary
and secondary socialization have both a positive and negative impact on our thinking
and action, and how this insight forms a basis for an assessment of which assumptions
we should change or modify, as well as which assumptions we should keep (Pink,
2004). Our invitation to read this volume with multiplicity in mind is not, of course, an
innocent one. Put directly, we see reading for multiplicity as a key way for the reader
to imagine doing otherwise, and potentially to actually do otherwise.

Power
While there are clearly many different contexts and dynamics at play in urban education
globally, urban education cannot be understood by assuming that it has come about as
some sort of natural development. We must now acknowledge that the Hegelian-type his-
tories that show time to be moving away from a primitive state towards an advanced state
are not credible accounts of inevitable forces of development. The point here is multiple
 Urban Education in the Globalizing World xxi

as well. History does not march forward. Indeed, this linear notion of time is clearly a
Western idea, which was imposed on the wider world as part of colonialism. This linear
conception of time did, of course, enable the railroads to be built in the U.S. and to run
on a timetable. This was a rather different conception, however, from other notions of
time as spiraling or repeating in fundamental ways. It was also clearly different from
notions of time being embedded in activity, such as the farm cycle, instead of being a
measure to control activity. The point is that time simply has no meaning outside of the
interpretations constructed by humans. Interpreting history as the march of progress,
therefore, says less about history than about our cosmology and cultural beliefs. Progress
has become a problematic for a world in the face of so much destruction of human life
such as in Darfur, or Iraq, or in the face of the unfortunate fate of all too many nations
that escaped the control of the USSR and moved towards democracy only to fall victim
to despots and criminals. Francis Fukuyama’s (1992) The End of History and the Last
Man, for example, turned out to be less prescient than he had wished.
Nevertheless, urbanization is a worldwide phenomenon. The question becomes, “If
we reject the notion of history moving naturally towards life being characteristically
urban, then how are we to account for this?” Again the answer will be multiple.
Urbanization has different histories in Europe than in the United States, for example,
and certainly different from Asia or Latin America or Africa. In Europe, many urban
centers have their origins as fortifications, castles, redoubts, and the like. The centuries
of war over who was to be the dominant king, the expansion of realms in terms of
empires, and/or which was to be the dominant religion structured settlements as defen-
sive sites. With so much conflict and conquest, many farmers came to live in or near
the fledgling urban center and to leave the center for the day (or longer) to work the
fields before returning home to the security of the defended settlement. While this pat-
tern was replicated in the early settlements in the U.S., western expansion and the sys-
tematic decimation of the Native Americans who contested control over the land meant
that farmers were more widely dispersed geographically.
The Industrial Revolution changed patterns of urban life in both Europe and the
United States. In the former, factories were often set up near cities to take advantage
of labor but in the latter farmers had to be converted to urban dwellers to create a
potential labor force. As factories grew in the United States, the immigration of
Europeans came to be a policy of creating surplus labor to restrain wages, making the
cities the multiethnic enclaves that led to the phenomena of ethnically hyphenated
identities such Italian-American and African-American. In parts of Africa, by contrast,
urbanization has been fueled by both failed agricultural policies and the push to west-
ernize the economy. The chapter entitled “Urbanization and Schooling in Africa:
Trends, Issues and Challenges from Ghana During the Colonial Era” by Kwabena Dei
Ofori-Attah (Africa Section), for example, details the power of both missionary and
British colonial interventions in Ghana to shape schooling using a materialistic
European model, which showed an arrogant disregard for local practices, traditions
and customs. In the chapter by Rui Yang (Asia Pacific Section) entitled “Urban-Rural
Disparities in Educational Equality: China’s Pressing Challenge in a Context of
Economic Grown and Political Change,” the problematics of the concentration of
wealth in the urban centers of China is explored: Yang notes how these policies must
be revisited, especially in light of rapid urbanization and the growing market economy,
xxii Noblit and Pink

while arguing for the urgent need to develop the idea of social justice in education both
in the urban and rural regions of the country.
Yet the point is that the development of urban settlements is not natural but rather
can be understood as the result of contests over power. It not necessary to accept
Foucault’s (1977) notion of power being everywhere to understand how cities are the
result of struggles over who shall control the different arenas of life. Foucault offers an
interesting explanation of power though that helps us understand the link between
power and the apparent inevitability of urbanization. Power and knowledge are inex-
tricably linked in what he calls regimes of truth. Put more simply, power is based in
forms of knowledge and the exercise of knowledge legitimates and makes political
arrangements seem natural. Power also makes subjects of people because those with-
out it can be negatively characterized and treated as less deserving: women, for exam-
ple, are enslaved for sex trafficking in cities across the world, while both genders are
forced to work in factories and those who are not physically coerced may have no other
option than a sweat shop to earn even an insufficient wage for family survival. We
remain unsure about Foucault’s argument while insisting that even the enslaved have,
as Scott (1990) has argued, “arts of resistance.”
Whatever perspective the reader takes on the nature of power, it is clear that cities
come to exist and change through the exercising of various kinds of power. Similarly,
we suggest, urban education is fully imbued with power and struggle. Education itself
is always political, and when the state sponsors it or denies it to some, education is
clearly being used as a currency of power. People can be denied access to knowledge
and/or to jobs through such knowledge, or less robustly through credentialing: work in
the sociology of knowledge, for example, has argued how access is managed by the
powerful elites as a mechanism for retaining high status knowledge for those selec-
tively chosen (Berger & Luckmann, 1967). Education systems are also large employ-
ment systems themselves, meaning that the system can be used to benefit some over
others simply in terms of jobs being provided, through direct patronage or more subtly
through structuring who gets access and who can be credentialed. Education, of
course, is also a system that creates stratification both in terms of identifying who
lacks “academic ability” and ultimately who can claim credentials as professionals
(Oakes, 1985; Ogbu, 1978). Thus, education is not only structured by power, but also
acts so as to create who has access to the existing power and status structures. The edu-
cated, and here we must include all of those who have contributed to this Handbook
(and those of you reading this Handbook), enjoy the privilege of positing the reality of
things and thus creating both ideology and, through professing ideology as true belief,
hegemony. We, the educated, can create ideas that can be claimed to be facts and in
doing so make the history we noted above that, over time, comes to be viewed by others
and ourselves as both natural and inevitable. In many ways, the chapters in The
International Handbook of Urban Education serve as a corrective to such notions of
power hidden behind knowledge. Thus, we see in Latin America, for example, a con-
scious effort to identify the social movements that challenge the education being used to
primarily serve the dominant classes and the state. Several chapters in the Latin
American Section (e.g., chapters on Brazil by Luciano Mendes de Faria Filho and Diana
Goncalves Vidal, and Denise Trento R. de Souza and Marilene Proenca R. de Souza, and
 Urban Education in the Globalizing World xxiii

the chapter on Chile by Dagmar Raczyski and Gonzalo Munoz-Stuardo), for example,
interrogate how both the changing form of education in different countries, together
with a reassessment of the hegemonic power of the traditional curriculums that worked
to reify the power and status of elites and the state, is surfacing opportunities for sig-
nificant reform of urban education. In the United Kingdom, the chapter by Martin
Johnson entitled “Reforming Urban Education Systems,” creates an interesting inver-
sion by demonstrating that even efforts to improve schools have such a political dimen-
sion that they are reserved for London with its political might rather than expended, we
might say, in the provinces where the impact might escape notice. He argues that the
most important force for school reform in the United Kingdom namely, national level
policy, has been focused on urban schools with the singular intent of raising student
achievement: it is the political, economic and social capital, London, that has enjoyed
most of the attention with respect to both the reform initiatives and the available funding.
Adkins (1997) has argued that educational reform is in many ways a form of colo-
nialism, albeit a form of internal colonialism (Blauner, 1972). Her argument, when app-
lied to urban education, highlights how cities are seen by many to exist to be exploited
for economic and political gain. In noting that cities and city schools exist for reasons
that benefit the ruling classes, it is easier to understand how efforts to reform either or
both are likely to be used for similar purposes. The irony here is that while corruption
scandals signal the possibility of a remedy, the nexus of knowledge and power often
constructs inequity as natural and immutable. Thus, even those most exploited may not
be able to see how educational systems make them believe they failed, rather than under-
standing that the system was organized to make them believe this was the case (Fine,
1991). Our point here is to suggest that reading this Handbook through a power lens pro-
vides us with insight into a dynamic that is frequently hidden from sight – hidden from
sight by the explicit design of those with power to name, control and benefit from the
ways things currently work.

Difference
Power, of course, creates all kinds of difference. Put all too simply, those with power can
decide who is with them and who is against them. This two class set-up is easily elabo-
rated into a wider stratification process that controls who gains access to the spoils of
the system. Typically, these stratification systems employ sycophants, individuals not
included among the powerful but who benefit by virtue of being aligned with those in
power. These individuals are used by the powerful to serve their own interests. These
“lesser” individuals can be kept subordinated by assumed differences in class. A good
example is the role lower class Whites played in suppressing African-Americans in the
American South. Here, African-Americans were constructed by the dominant White
classes as threats to the economic position of lower class Whites. The “Lost Cause,” for
example, where Whites during Reconstruction (the period post-slavery) suppressed,
among many other things the voting rights of Blacks, ultimately led to “Jim Crow” seg-
regation of Blacks from Whites (Tyson, 2004). Here we see the former plantation own-
ers trying to impose the share-cropping system on Southern Blacks and Whites, alike.
xxiv Noblit and Pink

They tried to carefully articulate the system so that Whites saw it in their interest to
intimidate Blacks, thereby reducing the demands of both “races” on the landowners to
share their profits in ways that would enable those working the land to change their eco-
nomic and social status. This, of course, is a rural example but the urban cases are no
less heinous. The guest worker program in Germany is a good urban example. In this
case, while workers from the Middle East were given access to work in the burgeoning
German economy in the 1970s, they were systematically denied voting and other rights.
Rist (1978) documents that as a response to a worker shortage, German cities filled
with Turkish workers who did the unskilled work in factories. Ironically, we must note
that at the same time as their labor was important to the expansion of the German econ-
omy, these same workers were denied citizenship. The result of this officially sanc-
tioned second-class status is that Middle Eastern nationalities became a racial
formation – a distinction that made a significant difference in their life chances in
Germany. This ambivalence about the “other” is not an anomaly. Rather, it is the typical
pattern: cities often are full of people from different places, but this difference is strati-
fied, so that in practice some benefit from their relocation, while most do not.
Urban life has a long history of being attached to two phenomena: gesellschaft rela-
tions and difference. Toennies (1955) proposed that one key difference between
gemeinschaft (community) and gesellschaft (association) patterns of living was that
gesellschaft settings lacked the tight bonds of kinship and history in urban living.
Thus, there was a sense that in escaping these bonds the individual had the opportunity
to redefine both their belief and action. This conceptualization does seem to promise a
new sense of freedom. People move to the city to make something new of themselves.
Tönnies formulation did not directly address who would find this an attractive
exchange or whether this exchange was equally available to everyone who was drawn
into the city: the attraction being less personal relations for more possibility of redefi-
nition. We must also recognize that while gemeinschaft societies built on personal rela-
tions are not only more binding, they also worked to exclude some people and groups.
As we better understand now, community works to both include and exclude. Thus, as
we saw with the rural South in the United States, African-Americans escaped the rural
and small towns and moved to the cities in the hopes that they would be “freer” there.
In this way, relative freedom becomes an attractor for those who by caste or class are
disadvantaged by gemeinschaft life. It is essential to recognize how factors such as
class, race, gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation, are all coterminous with the
impersonality of social relations in the city.
Yet Tönnies’ distinction is also replicated in the city, but again differentially. The
wealthy can create enclaves in which gemeinschaft relations may be developed and
through their politics and economics of exclusion residential segregation can be
imposed on others. It is important to note, however, that in these barrios, ghettos and/or
neighborhoods, the gemeinschaft relations can be reconstructed. Gemeinschaft can
exist within gesellschaft or, more specifically, gesellschaft relations exist between
groups and gemeinschaft can exist within groups. In short, group identity can be con-
structed within cities and within the racial, gender, class, and sexuality divisions
imposed by the dominant groups. As noted above, these relations of difference can be
geographically marked in the U.S. In some cities, for example, poor, racial minorities
 Urban Education in the Globalizing World xxv

are encapsulated in the inner city. In France, by contrast, they may be relegated to the
suburbs. In Latin America and Africa, they may be ensconced in “squatter” settlements
that encircle the urban areas. In cities that are predominately raced, class becomes
geographically marked. Yet there remain neighborhoods or sections of cities that are
less exclusive and many consider these sites of possibility. Here, race and/or class, for
example, vary but efforts may be made to stabilize these proportionately. The term for
this in the United States when referring to race is “stably integrated neighborhoods.”
In these neighborhoods, difference is accepted, if not embraced: difference in these
settings is seen as a desired quality by the residents, rather than as a liability. At the
same time, however, we also see a growing pattern of gentrification where the wealthy
buy up property, forcing out the less affluent, in order to transform the neighborhood
into residential properties that only the rich can afford.
Our argument is that difference is a key attribute of urban areas and urban education
and that these patterns of difference make themselves a difference in the way that
urban education plays out. We suggest that it is productive for you, the reader, to keep
difference in the forefront of your minds as you read this volume: difference, in multi-
ple forms, we argue, is a key factor for an understanding of urban education in the past,
present, and future. Looking through this difference lens raises a number of critical
questions: for example, “What patterns of difference are in play in the cities, nations,
regions and educational systems discussed in this Handbook?” “How is urban educa-
tion implicated in the reproduction of difference?” “What possibilities are suggested
for how difference can make less of a difference, or better yet, no difference?” “In what
ways does difference intersect with context and with what result across the various
locations in the Handbook?” “How can schools be less reproductive of existing pat-
terns of dominance and become the center of counter-hegemonic interrogation and
change?” and finally, “What is the role of education in situations of extreme depriva-
tion and how could that role be recast to reduce or even eliminate such deprivation?”
The chapter by Thabisile Buthelezi (Africa Section) entitled “Dimension of Diversity:
Educating Urban Township Learners, a Case of Umlazi Township School in Durban, South
Africa,” on the ways students construct their own sense of safety in and around their school
in South Africa is a powerful illustration of taking up the last question that we posed above.
Using student drawings and diaries depicting their characterization of self within what are
seen as dangerous and often violent situations, Buthelezi explores how teachers and admin-
istrators can both understand themselves in these depictions and how they might reconcep-
tualize their role in changing the perceptions students’ have about their school and their
community. In short, we can see here how understanding difference, by using a difference
lens when reading these chapters, can help us develop a set of personal strategies that can
contribute to change, rather than the maintenance of the status quo.

Capital
Historically, capital referred to accumulated wealth that could be mobilized for invest-
ment. As such, capital is a force in much of history. In colonialism, capital was accumu-
lated by extracting raw materials from colonized lands and selling them in other markets.
xxvi Noblit and Pink

In industrialism, these materials were transformed often in the colonizing nations

and sold at a profit, enabling even more capital accumulation. In post-colonialism, raw
materials and industry can be distributed globally in service of capital accumulation.
All this was made possible by the development of finance. Currently, the captains of
industry are no longer the owners of industry. Instead, the owners are financial cor-
porations which buy and sell corporations to maximize profit. While these may be
publicly held corporations “owned” by shareholders, the new financial elite work by
owning significant quantities of stock which, in turn, are used as sources of pressure to
maximize their return on investment. Capital accumulation has become the dominant
industry itself. Even technology firms, which seem to be a driving force of the new
knowledge-based economy, are evidence of this change. The term “venture capital” sig-
nals that knowledge and technology are the products of capital in fundamental ways.
Clearly, venture capitalists are hoping that the new developments they are funding will
enable even more capital accumulation to be once again ventured. Yet in this process,
the production of goods and services is not the basis of capital accumulation but rather
the reverse. Capital, through marketing and manufactured consumption, becomes the
basis of production, and industries are but temporary vehicles for capital to expand
upon itself. The global economy is characterized by a shifting geography of industry,
not simply because the goods can be produced more cheaply, but because the profit
margins can be maximized through such diversification. One of the ironies in this shift
to a global economy is that many living in urban areas are made destitute, while at the
same time the city remains the only hope for earning a living wage. The maximization
of profit margins within globalization appears to be insensitive to the geographic
destruction of cities and the lives that it can leave in its wake. In the global economy,
there are but two classes: the creative class (Florida, 2002) and a dependent class that
serves the creative class. In a twist of economic logic, the creative class is both the gen-
erator of wealth and the primary consumer. The dependent working class is to consume
as well, of course, but the distribution of wealth is such that they are very much the
secondary market. It is becoming clearer now that the targeted market of this new
economy is not a middle class that has disposable income enabling it to be a consumer
class: this class is quickly disappearing as technology is enabling the replacement of
the managerial class’s control of work and workers with information systems. Rather,
the new market, the growth market, has become public services themselves (Murphy,
1999). In this view, education is seen as a new market: this new market can be charac-
terized as public services for private gain. This logic is not new, of course. Governments
require the purchase of goods and services. One key turning point though was the devel-
opment of what came to be called the “military industrial complex” after World War II.
What is new now, however, is the concept that capital can deliver governmental services
better than the government itself. The irony that must not be lost here is that these
services were originally designed to protect citizenries from the excesses of capital
(Murphy, 1999).
Simply put, urban education is a key market because of the scale of the operations.
Millions of children need breakfast and lunch, books, paper, transportation, etc. In the
United States, the No Child Left Behind legislation took the move to privatization to a
new level requiring, for example, that schools purchase tutoring and so on if schools
 Urban Education in the Globalizing World xxvii

are unable to raise test scores to a sufficient level: in Chicago, the schools were pre-
vented from offering such remedial after school tutoring themselves and were forced
to spend millions of dollars to hire for-profit venders. This effort and many others like
it might well be characterized as a back door into voucher systems of private education
that have enjoyed repeated support from the present federal government, but have
received little support from the majority of parents and public school teachers and
administrators. These fiscal systems are intended to fund proprietary schools: the dan-
ger here, of course, is that such a shift in funding priorities might ultimately reduce if
not eliminate public schooling. The goal is not actually to reduce the cost of education
but to transform it into a profit center for capital accumulation. This “reform agenda”
now spans the globe. This makes education and urban education in particular, one the
newest markets of the new economy.
Bourdieu dramatically expanded the concept of capital in his work on the forms of
capital (Bourdieu, 1986). He argued there are several forms of capital including sym-
bolic, social, cultural, as well as the better known economic capital. Yet the logic of
capital seems to work for each of these. His point is that each of us accumulates each
of these forms of capital and that these different forms have a particular value in the
various marketplaces of social life: each form of capital, he notes, can be exchanged in
the appropriate marketplace. His conceptions have been used singly in very productive
ways. Social capital has found a following among sociologists as network relations and
obligations that can be used to signal levels of access and advantage (Coleman, 1961).
Cultural capital similarly has found a home in anthropology and especially in analyses
of education (Levinson et al., 2000). Symbolic capital, to date, (Bourdieu talks about
both recognition and misrecognition) is but a footnote to this work and has been less
popular in the social sciences. In any case, Bourdieu was never as interested in these
types of capital singly, than he was in their transformations into economic capital. That
is to say, he was less interested in the discrete conceptions themselves, than he was in
developing a conceptual framework that could explain how people made something
else of them.
Focusing on transformation has a particular significance in urban education. Cities
offer both peril and promise, as we have argued above, and this can be true for each type
of capital that Bourdieu has theorized. Social capital often brings people to cities.
Individuals often follow another family member in migration, or they realize that it will
only be through patronage and/or sponsorship that they can change their status in life.
Historically, cities have offered more possibilities for such transformations than the
village. Social capital is also often imperative to survival in cities. Patronage is often
required for protection and thus gangs can be seen as reasonable options for urban
dwellers. Gaining access to work may be so organized that social capital is essential for
job and housing consideration (Schmidt, Scott, Lande, & Guasti, 1977). Similarly, family
or gang membership can be used to compete for and take over some economies. Even get-
ting access to schooling, certainly what is typically considered “good schooling,” depends
on social capital. Admissions decisions to selective high schools and colleges, for exam-
ple, must be made on some basis and being “connected” often lends an advantage to the
applicant. Tribes, families, networks, patrons, and friends all are essential to urban sur-
vival. Access to K-12 schools may require such capital, while success in schools often
xxviii Noblit and Pink

depends on being assigned to the high status classes and on being associated with the right
student groups (Coleman, 1961; Foley, 1990; Oakes, 1985; Ogbu, 1978).
While cultural capital acts in a more subtle way, it has great authority. With social
capital, the individual needs an affiliation, which is not always an easy accomplish-
ment. With cultural capital, by contrast, the individual signals that they belong by
speaking and acting as if they belong to a group. Every group has a cultural capital, but
some groups command a higher status in a society. Being a “natural” member of such
a group or passing as a member of a group means holding and projecting a complex set
of assumptions, beliefs and ways of acting that signal group membership (Goffman,
1959). It is important to know which fork to use at a formal dinner not because eating
is impossible with the wrong fork or no fork, but because the use of the correct fork
signals the affiliation of the individuals with the class that displays such “correct”/high
status table manners. Cultural capital is often difficult to achieve because, in many
ways, it is the small things that trip up pretenders. This is all complicated globally by
colonialism, of course. Being British, for example, may require a certain way of acting
at home, but with a foreign War Lord a different way of acting may give more status
and more possibility of reward. Schools are often regarded as mechanisms of social
mobility but cultural capital is a currency of such mobility. Access to a higher class is
typically problematic for those not born into that class: this difficulty points to the dif-
ference between analysis using designations of social class versus those using socio-
economic status (the former are built around notions of class as cultural difference,
while the latter are built around notions of class as an economic factor). Schools can
teach elements of this but most public schools are culturally middle-brow, at best.
Access to schools for the elite, by contrast, usually takes having social capital, together
with the knowledge that your beliefs and social practices are appropriate for that sta-
tus. Being successful in such schools, or say merely attending a Public school in
England, converts into more social capital for the elites and into economic capital via
subsequent entry to high status occupations.
Symbolic capital refers to the recognition of status: dressing “well,” for example,
does not mean the same thing for all classes. The key here is that how the individual
dresses signals that they belongs to the status group. Like culture, symbols are subtle
yet definitive. The individual may dress “down” but how that is done signals to others
that the individual belongs, when others dressed the same do not. Symbolic capital can
come with credentials as well. Graduating from the “right” schools and having the
“right” family are signs for certain classes. The key, of course, is that the symbol has
worth as a marker of belonging to the group in question. Clearly, having a set of appro-
priate symbols is more convincing that a lone symbol. Urban areas allow a consider-
able range of symbols to be available to all participants, but not all have currency in the
labor force, or even in schooling. Teachers are key actors in adjudicating who can have
access to and use which symbols in schools and thus who can potentially transform
such symbols into economic capital (Bowers, 1984; Bowles & Gintis, 1976).
Education is arguably the major arena where social, economic and symbolic capital
may be parlayed into economic capital. That schools function as an arena for the trans-
formation of capital does not deny that they are also institutions of social reproduction.
Indeed, social reproduction is made possible by allowing some individuals and groups
 Urban Education in the Globalizing World xxix

to transform, while denying that transformation to others. This makes educational

institutions much more complex and dynamic than we have been led to believe by cor-
respondence theories (Bowles & Gintis, 1976). This understanding also problematizes
the usual notion of transformation as being part of liberatory or emancipatory work.
Rather, the argument is that only some have currency that can be tendered in exchange
for economic gains, and what is denied is not access to education but rather the ability
of the individual to transform social, economic and symbolic capital into economic
capital. By slipping on the capital lens, we encourage you, the reader, to examine how
urban areas and urban education work together to both enable and deny the transfor-
mation of capital for individuals and groups, as well as examining how education itself
has become a market that transforms public funds into private capital.
Two chapters in the United Kingdom Section will illustrate the kinds of insights that
can be discerned about urban education when examining it through this lens. In her chap-
ter entitled, “Urban School Improvement,” Barbara MacGilchrist (United Kingdom
Section) argues that while both research and reforms have become progressively more
sophisticated over time, they have failed to fully explicate how school effects and
background effects can be conjoined to close the gap in student academic achievement
between white students and students of color. In short, her position is that the most
important issue still confronting urban schools is how they might function more effec-
tively to raise the social, symbolic, cultural and economic capital of students who are
other than white and middle- and upper class. While arguing that schools must be seen
as capable making a difference in disrupting the movement of students from social class
origins to social class destinations, she notes how they certainly cannot do it alone.
In taking up a set of emerging and problematic issues with respect to the privatization
of urban schools, Carol Campbell and Geoff Whitty (United Kingdom Section) in their
chapter entitled, “The Governance of Urban Education in the UK: A Public, Private or
Partnership Future,” ask if the use of private sector strategies to address public sector
problems is viable, especially when the persistent and long-standing difficulties with
differential student learning (connected to factors such as race, class, gender, and
school organization, etc.) are at play. In particular, their analysis details a variety of
reform strategies that that are built on either rebuilding the local capacity to offer key
services, or outsourcing for these same services. Here, of course, they highlight the dis-
tinction between believing that individuals in the local urban school community have
the ability to improve their own education, versus the view that not only are these indi-
viduals unable to do this but that the required expertise is commanded only by experts
that typically do not have their own children in the schools to be reformed. Again, our
suggestion here is that to bring urban education into better focus the International
Handbook should be read through the lens of capital, in each of its types.

Change
We are socialized to think that change is ubiquitous. We take our aging to be natural so
that as we experience the passage of time we identify it with change itself. Yet, since
all lives follow this process it could be as easily argued that this is not change at all, but
xxx Noblit and Pink

rather a steady state. We also apply a similar interpretation to the passage of time and
to events. We link events and create sequences of them: we then proceed to objectify
what we have subjectively created. To these patterns we can also assign broader mean-
ings, putting them in wider contexts. It is in this way that we wrap assumptions around
the passage of time to create such things as trends, causality, eras, and epochs. As
Berger and Luckmann (1967) argue in their discussion of the social construction of
reality, the language that we use to communicate and think is learned through both pri-
mary and secondary socialization: the problematic, of course, is that within this
received language that we uncritically internalize and use to engage in the process of
communicating with others, are encoded the values, beliefs and taken-for-granted
assumptions of our significant others. Consequently, as we live our lives we are expe-
riencing history in the making. More pointedly, it can be argued that we make history
by the assumptions we wrap around the passage of time in human life. That is to say,
we are both implicated in history and historicity. History is typically defined as the
narration of events, sequences, and meanings of these sequences of events in such a
way that generates an interpretation of the past as having some order amidst the docu-
mented changes. Most history narrates how one thing leads to another, even if the
claim to causality is over-wrought. History then normalizes change in a particular
manner. Change is narratively created as normal, leaving pace to be one of the few
things that may vary. Thus, when we say that things are moving faster now than they
were before, we are also normalizing change as ubiquitous.
History, however, is also lived and experienced by humans. This historicity can have
a rather different character than history itself. In some parts of the world, the lived his-
tory is chaotic and filled with chance rather than being a sequence of events that con-
nect and/or unfold. Change understood in this way is less a grand narrative and more a
lived life, comprising all its mundainities and drama. We can think of life on the streets
of the city in this same way. Life on the streets is both struggle and boredom. Life on
the streets is both dangerous and tedious. Life on the streets is both outside the experi-
ence of other urban dwellers and fully in interaction with these dwellers, as with pan
handling and hustling. Change in this way is close to experience and rather distinct
from the narrative of change as normal. Pace may be less salient than demarcations of
drama which concentrate and explicate both the everyday routines and their disrupture.
We argue that much of what follows in this International Handbook is constructed
as history that explicates change and stasis. Yet the chapters that focus on close study
of cases may invite us into how lives are spent over time. Change, then, for us is not an
assertion of how the world is but rather an interrogation of how history and historicity
both characterize urban life and urban education. To illustrate this point it would be
useful to cite several chapters from the text. A chapter by Peele-Eady, Nasir, and Pang
(North American Section) entitled “Success Stories in Urban Education,” details the
importance of care in classrooms purposefully designed to be both personally and cul-
turally relevant for urban students: we see here how powerful is the impact of trusting
student-teacher relationships to students’ developing a perception of themselves as
capable and valuable members of a learning community. In the chapter by Priscilla
Qolisaya Puanau and G. Robert Teasdal (Asia Pacific Section) entitled “The Urban and
the Peripheral: New Challenges for Education in the Pacific,” they focus on detailing
 Urban Education in the Globalizing World xxxi

the historical shifts in education in 15 independent and self-governing nations in the

Pacific region. Noting how the education on these islands remains a legacy of varied
colonial interventions, they argue that these old-world practices and ideologies are
highly resistant to change. Puanau and Teasdal detail the potential impact of the
PRIDE (Pacific Regional Initiatives for the Delivery of Basic Education) program for
guiding curriculum reform and new pedagogical practices, especially for urban stu-
dents: their focus on the impact of urbanization on the various indigenous cultural sys-
tems and vernacular languages is particularly insightful with respect to the ways
histories are constructed. This theme of constructing a different history is also taken up
by Ove Sernhede (Europe Section) in his chapter entitled “Urbanization of Injustice,
Immigrant Youth and Informal Schooling.” His focus is on a group of marginalized
youth from immigrant families, segregated in a Swedish suburb, who develop a posi-
tive identity for themselves which is very different from the identity projected on to
them from a history of colonialism and the prevailing cultural perceptions concerning
both discrimination and inequality in the society: the catalyst for building this alternative
history is the development of a hip-hop subculture that enables these youth to project
themselves as the leaders of the marginalized under-class. A final example is the chapter
by Kinuthia Macharia (Africa Section) entitled “Urban Education Differentials and
Marginalization: The Case of Educating the Youth in Nairobi’s Informal Settlements,”
that explores the marginalization of Kenya’s urban population, with a particular focus
on the limited access to schools afforded the children in Nairobi’s “informal settle-
ments.” He documents the efforts underway to provide schooling for the street children
in Nairobi, as well the successes of the Olympic Primary School opened to provide
an education for students living in the Kibera “slum” outside Nairobi. Again, this
is an illustration of the ways in which schooling can both disrupt and rewrite the
conventional history.
It is clear that one of the ubiquities in urban education is migration. Here again,
migration seems to have contradictory meanings. For the people moving, change is
evident. Yet history is replete with exodus and entrance, suggesting that migration is
less a novel change than a common process of urbanization, for example. Urban cen-
ters are formed by war, by failed agriculture and by opportunities for work and a way
of life. Cities have an existence because of changes and even the desire for changes,
but over time migration becomes less a change than a stabilizing force. As above,
Castells (1977) argues that the urban is stabilized by the exodus of particular social
classes, capital, and political control. The contradiction of stasis and change may
explain more about urban education than the simple presumptions of change, and often
change for the worse, that is rhetorically invoked as part of calls for action to reform
cities or city schools. Reading what follows for how migration defines the issues, but
in the end is not easily understood as change, will offer insights into how processes of
change may, in fact, change little while simultaneously allowing a claim of “crisis” that
justifies extreme actions that inevitably benefit some over others (Castells, 1977).
Change can be understood quite differently as well. In our epoch, change is a trope
that is used to explain the emergence of urban problems, while conveniently ignoring
the fact that these problems are perennial, rather than new. The issue here, of course, is
determinism: to what extent can it be said that a prior event determines the emergence
xxxii Noblit and Pink

of a subsequent event? Giddens (1979) argues that this cannot be stated definitively
because intention is always in play. Intention or will, of course, brings with it a set of
unacknowledged conditions. Intention will arguably lead to some of what is intended
but just as importantly, will create unanticipated consequences. For Giddens, the point
is that intention is based in unacknowledged conditions and as a result denies the pos-
sibility of a deterministic world. Instead of will creating a specific outcome, it creates
a set of outcomes, many of which are unanticipated. The narrative of history is chal-
lenged here as a retrospective reconstruction of lineages and linkages, rather than an
objective account of what happened. What happened is that intention created so much
more than intended and less of what was intended than a history captures. We can see
this outcome played out in teacher education in Mexico in the chapter by Etelvina
Sandoval (Latin America Section) entitled “Educational Policies and Realities:
Teachers’ Initial Education in Mexico.” Here she argues that policies were promul-
gated but did not consider the policy context of multiple institutions and multiple
stakeholders. Thus, again and again, policies are attempted only to misspecify the
issue and ultimately to lead to unanticipated changes: we simply must acknowledge
that things infrequently work out in practice in the same ways as they appear in a writ-
ten proposal or policy statement. The chapter by Eva Arnold, Johannes Bastian, and
Wilfried Kossen (Europe Section) entitled “Urban Regions and their Potential for
Teacher Education: The Example of Hamburg,” illustrates this problematic. In noting
how urban regions are well placed to coordinate a new program for the preparation of
teachers, if only because there is a concentration of teacher preparation institutions in
urban regions, they detail a series of unintended outcomes from policy decisions
designed to coordinate factors such as a standardized curriculum and student teaching
experiences: many of these problems centered on the resistance of both faculty and
administration to change in historical practices and the perceived shifts in power that
might follow as a result of collaborative projects. This same problematic is also
explored in a different context by Lyn Tett (United Kingdom Section) in her chapter
entitled “Multi-agency Working in Urban Education and Social Justice.” In exploring
the efficacy of multi-agency collaborative efforts designed to promote social justice
and reduce social exclusion, Tett notes how what happens in practice is frequently very
different from what is written from the perspective of overly idealistic policy language
concerning multi-agency partnerships: in particular, Tett illustrates the power of orga-
nizational histories, internal role practices and power differences between agencies as
the reasons for such a distortion in moving from idea to practice.
Finally, multiplicity sets a different stage for change as well. Many Western thinkers
argue that there are optimal ways to reach desired ends. We have previously com-
mented on the limits of this line of thinking, but an important question to ask is “How
did we come to assume that there are optimal ways to obtain the desired fix?” As in
mathematics, there are likely different ways to reach the desired end. Such equifinal-
ity in organizations has policy significant implications for urban education (Katz &
Kahn, 1978). Specifically, instead of searching for the best way to improve urban
schools, it might be more profitable to consider all the ways that could accomplish
this. Such a stance “frees” urban education from the constraints of conformity, while
enabling the development of culturally unique programming. It is evident that there are
 Urban Education in the Globalizing World xxxiii

many ways to achieve educative ends and many ways that urban schools could be
organized to realize them. The chapter by Sa’eda Buang (Asia Pacific Section) entitled
“Madrasha and Muslim Education: Its interface with Urbanization,” develops this
point while examining both the history and contemporary developments in Muslim
religious schools. In exploring how these schools attempt to remain faithful to reli-
gious beliefs in the face of increasing urbanization and a diversifying economy, Buang
notes how the responses have been different in countries such as Indonesia, Pakistan
and Turkey: this is a clear example of the different ways in which the same ends can be
achieved within the context of different socio-economic and political settings.
A second interesting illustration of the need to explore multiple ways to reach the
goal of closing the achievement gap between urban students and others is the chapter
by Maria de Ibarrola (Latin America Section) entitled “Learning to Work in an
Industrial Mexican City in Transition.” While the learning of trade related skills in the
shoe industry in Leon is the focus, rather than the education offered in the traditional
schools in the city, what emerges is that this form of hands-on, apprenticeship learning
is a highly effective pedagogical strategy. This insight leads to a discussion about the
possibilities of linking schools more directly with the work sites, of bringing the par-
ticipatory style of learning experienced in the work site into the school, and of devel-
oping a range of school programs that speak directly to quality, relevance, and equity. In
short, the chapter points to the importance of developing a variety of school programs
and learning strategies that will vary by context for improving the learning of students
attending urban schools.
Equifinality also offers a critique of globalization. Globalization is often seen as a
social and economic process to create “one world.” In this view, difference is destroyed
as is its correlate, creativity. If there are many ways to achieve a similar end, then the
“one world” view is not necessary and may actually have real drawbacks. The new
economy, for example, is heavily based in math, science and technology. Yet this econ-
omy is driven by a logic that is artistic. Creativity giving way to design is what fuels
both technological and scientific advancement. Instrumental logic has its place, but its
place is highly dependent on aesthetics. Embracing equifinality brings us back to where
we started, arguing that the reader should use the multiplicity lens when reading this
International Handbook. Urban education and the world, we argue, are sufficiently
diverse for new conceptualizations and new possibilities to emerge.

Intersectionality
The sixth and final concept or analytic lens that we want to note is intersectionality.
Returning to our analogy of the visit to the optometrist, this is the point where multi-
ple lenses are used at the same time in order for urban education to be brought into the
sharpest focus possible. This construct can be seen in the movement away from the
idea of linear, cause-effect thinking central to social science grounded in positivism, to
thinking in post-positivist social science, the naturalistic or interpretive paradigm, that
acknowledges both the social construction of reality and the existence of multiple and
simultaneous causality (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). The thinking in play here, of course,
xxxiv Noblit and Pink

is that life is experienced differently because individuals are different: the same class-
room, for example, is experienced differently by boys and girls, white and students of
color, and students located in the top and lowest reading groups, etc. This leads us to
question the credibility of statements about life in classrooms that fail to recognize and
account for such individual differences. To complicate this idea some more, we must
also acknowledge that any analysis must account for the multiple characteristics of
individuals: it is not sufficient to think about gender, for example, as the social marker
for any individual because each individual also holds other social markers such as their
social class or whether they are good at sports. Thus, in conducting research in a class-
room we must ask “What is the experience of an individual who is a boy, Black and in
the top reading group?” as well as “How is that experience similar and different from
an individual who is a boy, Black and in the lowest reading group?” We want to note
that this isn’t the same logic as engaging in analysis to control for both gender and race
while assessing the impact of reading group location, rather it is a question that asks
how do gender, race and reading group location work together to structure the class-
room experience for the individual. In short, we would be engaging the analytic lenses
of gender, race and reading group at the same time.
This perspective has made the greatest gains in education in the field known as
Critical Race Theory (Crenshaw, 1988; Delgado & Stefancic, 2000; Ladson-Billings &
Tate, 1995). This work has skillfully integrated theorizing from several diverse fields in
education, that is, Black and Chicano Studies, critical pedagogy, feminist and multi-
cultural education, while posing questions about the experiences of individuals and
groups who are both the same and different with respect to characteristics such as race,
gender, class, and sexual orientation, etc. This sensitivity to the ways in which individ-
ual and group characteristics both interact simultaneously and play out differently in
different contexts has enabled a significant shift in our understanding of the variabil-
ity of the day-to-day lived experience. The examination of the intersectionality of these
characteristics, the recognition that such characteristics are never in play alone but
always function in concert with each other, opens up new ways for us both to under-
stand how urban education functions and to conceptualize new ways of attacking the
long-standing problems associated with urban education. This means, for example,
that it would be a mistake to attempt to remediate the low reading scores of fifth
graders in an urban school in Chicago simply by adopting a new reading program. The
power of the intersectionality lens reveals that in order to remediate such low reading
scores we must also consider factors such as the ways in which teachers relate to chil-
dren from cultures different from their own, the ways in which the school values stu-
dent learning over (or vis- à-vis) discipline, and to what degree the students receive
adequate food, sleep, and warm clothing, etc.
The chapters in this International Handbook illustrate rather dramatically the
importance of recognizing intersectionality as a tool for understanding urban educa-
tion and for the development of reform strategies. A few examples would be helpful
here. In a chapter entitled “Educational Policies, Local Dynamics, and Segregation in
the Schools of the Parisian Periphery,” Agnes van Zanten (Europe Section) documents
how the organization of schools and instruction, together with the outcomes that they
produce, must be seen as the result of government policy, local education authorities,
 Urban Education in the Globalizing World xxxv

local political bodies and environmental configurations. In short, she notes how our
understanding of these urban schools must remain incomplete if we do not analyze the
intersectionality of these key factors: focusing on the complexity of factors shaping the
education of students in urban schools, rather than searching for a single cause, also
highlights the necessary scope of subsequent reform initiatives. Following a similar
line of argumentation, Dagmar Raczynski and Gonzalo Munoz-Stuardo (Latin
America Section) in their chapter entitled “Chilean Education Reform: The Intricate
Balance Between a Macro and Micro Policy,” argue that while the Chilean educational
reforms of the last 25 years have been somewhat successful, the learning gains cannot
be considered adequate and the inequality of the system still persists. They suggest that
the best way to address these short-comings is to integrate macro with local level
micro policies, strengthen the autonomy of schools to fashion their own practices,
develop specific intervention projects to address inequitable learning outcomes and
prevent schools from choosing their own students and thus promoting forms of strati-
fication. Again, this view acknowledges the intersectionality of a broad range of fac-
tors that must be addressed together in order to achieve urban school reforms. A third
and final example is the chapter by Gerald Grace (United Kingdom Section) entitled
“Urban Education Theory Revisited: From the Urban Question to the End of the
Millennium.” Grace notes the importance of situating an analysis of education in an
intersectional interrogation of the cultural, economic, historical, political and social
relations in a given society. He suggests that future theorizing about urban education
reforms must be built on an understanding of their historical and structural difficulties:
this new theorizing, he suggests, will benefit from the promise offered by the sophis-
tication of intersectional analysis.
All this said by way of introducing the text, we suggest that this International
Handbook of Urban Education is best read as a tool for opening up conversations
about the current status and possible futures of urban education: this view posits the
importance of six framing concepts or analytic lenses namely, multiplicity, power, dif-
ference, capital, change, and intersectionality. We now invite your close reading of the
text. Again, we must remind you that the intent here is neither to narrowly define urban
education, nor to offer specific solutions to problems. Rather, our goal is to focus
attention on urban schools around the world and to stimulate both debate and action
that will lead to improved educational opportunities and outcomes for all students
attending such schools, independent of their geographic location or specific context.

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Section 1

AFRICA
1

URBAN EDUCATION IN AFRICA:

SECTION EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION

Kevin Brennan and Julius Nyang’oro

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, U.S.A.

Introduction
We present here one set of snapshots of urban education in Africa, one set out of a
universe of possible sets. We have engaged in this collection with authors whose disci-
plinary approaches describe a wide range of work available in each author’s country of
focus. As a result, the reader will find references to local, regional, and national issues
in each country studied. Beyond this are found references to Bronfenbrenner’s social
psychology, Bourdieu’s notions of social and cultural capital, Saussure’s ideas about
language and culture, and approaches in public policy around both the establishment
of national language(s), and national identity formation. In addition, authors here take
from urban sociology the ideas of equity in education and distributive justice as per
John Rawls and Amartya Sen.
In short, we sought to permit authors the space to take up their perspectives, in the
context of their own research, including the particular national contexts in which they
worked. On this point, Suleiman A. Adebowale (2001), in his examination of four
prominent journals focusing on Africa (Canadian Journal of African Studies; Africa
Development; Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines; and, the Journal of Modern African Stu-
dies), points out how few of the articles published in these four journals are written by
African scholars. He takes the point further in noting how few Africans are doing their
work in Africa.
We sought deliberately to incorporate voices of Africa-based, African scholars in
this work, in acknowledgement of the point Adebowale is making, and we have suc-
ceeded, in part. Other aspects of Adebowale’s argument, such as the idea that African
scholars must know the theories of Western scholarship while the reverse is not true, is
also partially dealt with here in that readers have an opportunity to investigate the
Africa-focused ideas presented here, even as all authors did, in fact, connect their
chapters to notions held in Western scholarship.

3
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 3–22.
© 2007 Springer.
4 Brennan and Nyang’oro

What we have included are nine chapters that represent seven countries in Africa
(Kenya and South Africa are each represented twice, a result arising from our own
personal and professional experiences). Thus, a bare one-eighth of the countries in
Africa are represented. As such, this collection in no way presumes to be a definitive
statement of urban education in Africa. Rather, it is hoped that the work presented here
only constitutes one more place to which scholars can turn to find material on issues
in education in Africa.1
Beyond the need to see this work as representing a necessarily broad brush view of
education in Africa, a second reaction involved the Handbook’s focus on “urban educa-
tion.” This term, in the North American context that is home not only to ourselves but
also to the general editors of the Handbook, often too blithely and stereotypically evokes
images and thoughts of children and families in socio-economically disadvantaged,
“at risk” circumstances, and schools that are in “unsafe” areas, surviving with minimal
materials and supplies more readily available in American or Canadian suburbia. We con-
sciously offered an open-ended opportunity to prospective contributors when defining for
them the parameters of the Handbook project.
In this sense, our initial thoughts regarding this volume held that the Africa section
might well present examples, situations, and explanations of urban education that run
counter to those examples presented from one or more of the other geographic regions
represented in the larger volume. Representative of this initial perspective is this
comment from Buchmann and Hannum, who themselves are citing Lloyd and Blanc
(1996) in noting that:

extended family networks in sub-Saharan Africa enable children with academic

promise to move to households of “patron” family members, who help them gain
access to higher quality schools – often found in urban areas. (2001, p. 83)

In the end, we opted to leave it to the authors themselves to define what “urban educa-
tion” means in their research and their social, economic, and political contexts.
What we have found, in the collected chapters, is that our initial sense that urban
education in Africa means as much “best schools” as “at risk” environments was not
wholly supported. For example, Macharia’s chapter on Nairobi’s street children and
efforts to return these children to schools in Nairobi’s slums, as well as Buthelezi’s
work in eThekwini/Durban on schoolchildren’s perspectives regarding safety in cer-
tain school environments see much that is “at risk” in the schools they describe.
Nevertheless, numerous works on schooling in Africa show that urban-based schools
are frequently among the older (read: most well-established) schools in a given coun-
try.2 Resources for such schools are often found more easily at hand – larger, more
accessible, and educated populace, government resources, related infrastructures, etc.3
In late 2004, when the International Handbook of Urban Education project was ini-
tially described to us, we thus felt a range of disparate, even contradictory reactions.
While it seemed obvious that any such volume would by necessity have to hold within
it a sufficient number of chapters and sections such that geographic breadth was
achieved, it also seemed that through such achievement the Handbook would pretty
well remain just that – broad. It seemed that breadth would also characterize the ways
 Urban Education in Africa 5

in which the volume’s central concept, urban education, would come to be defined.
What disciplinary directions and conceptual frames would the various chapter authors
utilize to focus their working definition of urban education? Finally, in our specific
geographic region, Africa, how would we use the chapters available to us to describe a
continent with more than five times as many countries as we had chapters?
As quickly as the above realizations came to us, so too came the realization that our
choices for inclusion in the Handbook would be in no sense comprehensive or defini-
tive. Rather, we would seek authors from, or working in countries throughout Africa,
and pursue chapters that would allow us to offer a multiplicity of perspectives, from a
range of academic disciplines, such that an outline might emerge of the complexity of
the issues faced by those whose work focuses on education in urban settings. This
approach permits us to problematize the “African” as well as the “urban” in education.
Joel Samoff points out (1999) that when any given country is a complex entity, often
comprised of many different cultural and social backgrounds, to study, for example,
Ghanaian education is a sufficiently big enough task. So, as well, would be any study
of Guinean education. In Africa, a continent of 50 plus countries, to presume that a
single set of ten chapters can describe and offer analysis about a continent’s efforts
in education is to presume too much. For us, it is enough that each chapter included in
this collection stands as one measure of urban education in its particular country, urban
environment, and specific location. The collection itself necessarily becomes descrip-
tive, and comparative, and something to be viewed in light of the contributions from
other geographic regions.

Description of Africa Chapters

In this section, we offer brief synopses of the included chapters on urban education in
Africa. As already noted, these chapters span a number of disciplinary approaches.
We have collected them here in something akin to a historical arc, beginning with four
chapters that can be thought of as addressing issues in education arising out of colonial
endeavors in the respective countries. We then move to a pair of chapters that look at
education policy, with a focus on rural-urban comparisons. The final three chapters are
more ethnographic and case study in orientation.
Kwabena Ofori-Attah’s work focuses on colonial education practice in Ghana, and its
impact on what subjects were to be studied. Ofori-Attah focuses primarily on coastal
areas of high population, which coincides with the idea of “good schools” in colo-
nial Ghana, which was then known as “Gold Coast.” Ofori-Attah points out that coastal
areas became the site of most early schools because that is where the services (includ-
ing missionary society efforts) supporting colonial governmental and commercial
efforts were to be found – piped water, electricity, etc. The so-called Gold Coast Golden
Triangle (the territory bound by the railroad lines built by British colonial authorities,
Accra – Kumasi – Cape Coast/Takoradi) would be where 90% of colonial-era schools
were located. Ofori-Attah argues that this link to commercial and governmental activity
is tied to the curricula on offer in the colony’s schools, curricula still tied to those on
offer in today’s schools in Ghana. For Ofori-Attah, the hegemony of missionary and
6 Brennan and Nyang’oro

British colonial approaches to schooling led to students’ and parents’ materialistic

views of schooling, seeing education primarily as a pathway to employment, and per-
mitting, even at times encouraging, an ongoing disregard for local practices, traditions,
and customs. Thus when one analyzes the crisis in Ghanaian education today, the
historical legacy of colonialism must be at the forefront of such analysis.
Funwi Ayuninjam, writing on language policy in Cameroon, focuses on the ways in
which colonial practice impacted which of Cameroon’s 200 plus languages, if any,
would be spoken and heard in school environments.4 Ayuninjam describes the need in
present-day Cameroon to define a national policy around the nation’s diversity of lan-
guage(s) and their use in schools. Ayuninjam connects the choice of language with
urban education in noting that Cameroon’s urban centers are polyglot sites where local
languages have ceded influence to English and French (the two dominant colonial lan-
guages), as well as to Pidgin-English, which is described as a third national (though
very much unofficial) language. Ayuninjam details national and regional language
policy efforts at all education levels, and the need to incorporate indigenous languages
and Pidgin-English as practical circumstance dictates. The inability of the Cameroonian
government to come up with a clear and satisfactory language policy is a reflection of
the contradiction in national development, and the inability of the government and edu-
cation policy to shake off deep-seated colonial legacies. Ironically, Cameroon repre-
sents the contradictory colonial legacy in Africa where you have both the English and
French influences in the contradictions. The inability of most African governments to
shed the colonial legacy in education is a common theme in all chapters in this section
of the Handbook.
Douglas Mpondi’s chapter is a critical examination of Zimbabwe’s national cultural
policy and national identity formation in the period after 1980, as Rhodesia morphed
into Zimbabwe following a violent war of liberation led by the two guerrilla move-
ments, the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and the Zimbabwean African
Peoples’ Union (ZAPU). At the end of the liberation war, ZANU was triumphant and
essentially forced elements within ZAPU to join ZANU in forming the new govern-
ment. He coercion underlying the merging of ZANU and ZAPU under the former’s
leadership meant that the “national question” was going to be a point of contention not
only in politics, but also in other spheres, including education. National consent/unity
around Zimbabweanization has been “manufactured,” with elements of the population
being rewarded and others de-legitimated.5 Mpondi focuses on national examinations
and curriculum and notes the conflict in the government’s Zimbabweanization policy.
That is, if examinations are “national,” and thus the same for all students taking them,
then the exams reflect nothing so much as the government’s imposed view of what
“Zimbabwe” means. Mpondi concludes by describing the repressive apparati of cultural
conformity to the Mugabe government’s presentation of “Zimbabwe,” and shows how
teachers are punished for teaching critical thinking about life in the country today.6
Concluding the set of chapters that focus primarily on historical forces at play in
education in Africa today we have Jenni Karlsson’s history of the architecture of pub-
lic schools in colonial, apartheid-era, and post-apartheid South Africa, and the ways in
which constructed spaces generally advanced the colonial and apartheid-era policies of
separation of race and ethnic groups in South Africa. Karlsson uses “memory accounts”
 Urban Education in Africa 7

of adults who attended schools in apartheid-era Durban, similar accounts of teachers

working at these schools, photographs taken during the period of research, personal
communications with school administrators and architects, and school documents to
reconstruct a complicated history of the use of “constructed space” to determine the kind
of education being passed down to students of different ethnic and racial backgrounds in
South Africa. Karlsson’s insightful analysis of the conflation of race and class in pre-1994
South Africa, and the contradictions of change within South African socio-economic sys-
tem provides a window for a much more critical analysis of education in general, both in
the apartheid and post-apartheid period in South Africa. Karlsson looks at present-day
learner mobility, and the ways in which class re-emerges as a dividing line in terms of
what schools are available to be attended by what kinds of students. Her study con-
cludes with a description of a school built after the fall of political apartheid, showing
the ways in which security, as a social and school-based issue, has led to the construc-
tion of exactly the kind of security fences and gates that reduce the connection between
a community and a school, rendering to the school a kind of outside status and leaving
it prone to more, rather than less, vandalism.
In our doublet of chapters that take a comparative approach to rural and urban
schools, we first offer Samson MacJessie-Mbewe and Dorothy Cynthia Nampota’s
focus on resource allocation and the challenges being faced by schools in terms of the
unequal distribution of state and private resources in Malawi. In Malawi, urban schools
are viewed as relatively more privileged than rural schools, reflecting the distribution
of wealth in the country’s political economy. The authors invoke Pierre Bourdieu’s
concept of cultural capital as a means of examining issues of urban education in
Malawi, which they show as being relatively advantaged and privileged in comparison
with rural schools. But MacJessie-Mbewe and Nampota also list a set of challenges to
urban schooling, including incipient overcrowding, the presence of street children,
more visible poverty, higher incidence of HIV and AIDS, and other realities of street
life. Attempts to deal with these issues stress public resources, increase reliance on pri-
vate resources to maintain high quality urban schools, and in the final analysis, squeeze
out middle-class and lower-class families.
The second chapter in the urban-rural comparison is by Alwiya Alwy and Suzanne
Schech, who have undertaken a comparative study that looks at ethnicity, politics, and
the allocation of scarce state resources that result in inequality in terms of access
to educational opportunity in Kenya. Alwy and Schech invoke historical forces in
explaining how Kenya has been divided, provincially and ethnically, in ways that have
constructed patron-client relationships that enable national leaders to privilege certain
regions over others in terms of access to resources for education. In essence, theirs is
a comparative analysis of the two regimes that have ruled Kenya since independence:
that of Jomo Kenyatta (1963–1978); and Daniel Arap Moi (1978–2002). The authors
argue that in both instances, the regimes privileged the ethnic groups from whence the
leaders came: Kikuyu and the Central Province under Kenyatta, and the Rift Valley
Province under Moi. In both instances, regions such as Coast and North East Provinces
were left hanging in terms of resources allocation. Thus, Alwy and Schech bring in the
ideas of distributive justice and equity in education of John Rawls and Amartya Sen,
and describe how the state should endeavor to support access for the less advantaged
8 Brennan and Nyang’oro

members of society, such that a level playing field is sought (if not attained).7 Alwy
and Schech also briefly note the differences in approach between Tanzanian and Kenya
post-colonial education efforts, explaining that it may be Kenya’s elite, and their lais-
sez faire approach to education and societal changes that has led to regional and ethnic
differentiation being maintained in Kenya, whereas Tanzania expended much state
energy is ameliorating such differentiation.
The remaining chapters primarily use qualitative methods in their case studies. The
first case is Thabisile Buthelezi’s ethnographic look at how students construct their own
sense of safety and utility about and around school in Umlazi Township in eThekwini
(formerly Durban), South Africa. Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory of
human development is used as an organizing analytical frame, and Buthelezi uses arts-
based qualitative methodologies (drawings & diaries primarily) to get students to focus
on describing themselves, their neighborhood or community, their sense of safety and
other issues. Schools are a seen as a site of secondary socializing, that is, a site, like
their home community, where students begin to formulate conceptions about them-
selves and their lives. Buthelezi is writing about ways in which this secondary social-
izing force is realized, and how school-based actors (teachers, administrators) can
organize and understand themselves in this role. In the specific case of Buthelezi’s
analysis, schools are characteristically overcrowded, and neighborhoods are often vio-
lent. School may be a safe place for most respondents, but homes are often not. And
the space between the two, often to be negotiated on public transport, is similarly fre-
quently unsafe. Utilizing the arts-based approach, Buthelezi analyzes students’ draw-
ings, finding that both boys and girls draw aspects of strongly materialist culture, with
girls generally somewhat more positive in their depictions, and boys more prone to
note violence, drugs, and other pernicious elements of township life. The analysis puts
a damper on the euphoria of political change in South Africa in the post-apartheid
period.
The next chapter is a case study of Diourbel, a middle school in a peri-urban area
of Senegal, and the ways in which students and teachers create a “school climate.”
Abou Karim Ndoye writes the case study from three perspectives: the relationships
among the students of the school; the quality of the academic offerings of the school;
and, the physical security of the school. Ndoye’s work, which describes a piece of a
larger effort funded by the World Bank to begin incorporating school climate and other
qualitative measures in their project design planning for Africa,8 looks initially at what
students (and their parents) see as the purpose of education/schooling. Ndoye focuses
more on teacher perspectives regarding their students, school administrators, and gen-
eral aspects of school climate, including security and conflict. He concludes with a
description of how this analysis will fit in with other research that takes school envi-
ronment into account when trying to determine how successful a school is at the tasks
it pursues.
The final chapter on urban education in Africa is by Kinuthia Macharia, who writes
about the marginalization of sectors of Kenya’s urban population, specifically, the chil-
dren of Nairobi’s “informal settlements,” and their limited access to schools, especially
for the “most poor” of the poor. Macharia interrogates the notions of power, ethnicity,
 Urban Education in Africa 9

and race, as he briefly describes the rise of Nairobi from a Maasai watering hole for
cattle, to a British supply site for the East African railway, to the capital of Kenya, to
home of some of Africa’s most densely populated slums. Macharia writes that city
policy since independence continues to privilege the politically well-connected and
wealthy. Macharia describes the work being done with street children of Nairobi by the
Undugu Society of Kenya (USK), which has established a series of schools in Nairobi
(and other Kenyan cities) specifically designed to offer these children an opportunity to
reclaim some of the lost opportunities that formal education could provide. Macharia
also describes the Olympic Primary School located in Kibera, one of Africa’s largest
slums, on the outskirts of Nairobi, pointing it out as an example of how community sup-
port, parent dedication, Head teacher effort, and other factors can create an environment
in which children are supported, and learn well.9

Analysis
In writing this chapter, we have sought to identify a mechanism through which we can
examine the various perspectives presented by the authors in this collection in a way that
offers a comparative perspective while capturing the breadth of manifestations of educa-
tion in Africa. While we could have investigated individual state level issues, we felt that
a more macro-level approach would be more appropriate. We wanted a perspective that
would resonate across the continent, connect history in Ghana with national identity for-
mation in Zimbabwe with rural-urban disparities in Kenya and Malawi. While many
African leaders were noted for their interest in education,10 and while national govern-
ments are arbiters (to a degree) of educational policy,11 we have opted to focus our analy-
sis on the impacts of the single biggest actor influencing public expenditure on education
throughout Africa over the past 40 years, the World Bank and other related international
financial institutions (IFIs).12
As Heneveld and Craig note at the beginning of their 1996 report, Schools Count:
World Bank Project Designs and the Quality of Primary Education on sub-Saharan
Africa (World Bank Technical Paper no. 303), since 1972, the World Bank has provided
loans to governments in Africa of more than $620 million in assistance for school con-
struction.13 In roughly that time frame, enrollment in primary schools14 increased
350% (which increase might be taken as a proxy for the new classrooms constructed),
though the authors note, high population growth during the same time frame has meant
that relative participation rates have only increased marginally. While it is not explic-
itly stated whether the construction of new schools was focused more on urban or rural
areas, it seems clear that urban population growth in the period being considered was
significantly higher than general population growth.15
Over this time, World Bank policy makers would shift their focus numerous times
regarding what types of education the Bank would support. For the first two decades
of its involvement in funding educational expansion in Africa, the World Bank focused
its analysis and preference on human capital perspectives,16 which measures benefits
of Bank loan programs through the filter of the training of able-minded workers
10 Brennan and Nyang’oro

in vocational and technical schools to support the economy of their country. As

Heyneman explains:

From 1962 to 1980 all education investments supported by the Bank required
justifications on the basis of manpower demands. Hence all Bank education
investments centered on the focus of manpower analytic techniques and the
scarcities of technicians and engineers. (2003, p. 317)

In this scenario, engineering came to be seen as a proxy for infrastructural develop-

ment. By increasing spending on the training of engineers, the Bank could say to the
governments involved that its programs, and through these programs the governments
themselves, were helping support the burgeoning infrastructure of Africa’s developing
nations. By 1974, the Bank had hired its first science educator as well as its first
educational sociologist, to undertake tracer studies of the work being done by gradu-
ates so as to showcase the “practical” nature of the curricula, and by extension, the
success of the pre-figured ideas of the Bank itself.17 Heyneman writes:

Though the “vocational school fallacy” argument (Foster, 1965) had been pub-
lished a decade earlier, most World Bank staff were unaware that there was an
alternative to the “practical” education assumptions under which lending was
justified. It was taken as axiomatic that “practical subjects” and technical skill
training were more useful in the labor market. That the opposite might be the case,
that academic skills might be more useful, was heresy because it threatened the
philosophic underpinnings for the lending program. (2003, pp. 311–312)

Seeking to support development of academic skills rather than technical or vocational

training was seen as incipient credentialism, and was to be avoided.
In addition to its decision to focus on human capital analysis, the Bank’s policy to loan
out funds for capital expenditures, and leave recurrent costs to be the responsibility of the
governments agreeing to the loan terms was similarly prescriptive. This left countries
financially responsible for the full range of recurrent costs associated with operating
schools, staff salaries, classroom materials, and other ongoing costs. The trouble with this
approach is that it does little to acknowledge the labor intensive nature of education.
While it is true that education costs can be somewhat mitigated by use of technology, this
presumes the ability by local governments to purchase and maintain such technology, not
an easy presumption in many school sites in Africa.18 Indeed efficiencies in education can
be attained, larger class sizes being one such way, but there are upper end limits to these
that are more easily reached than the Bank’s initial education planning made it appear.
In 1980, the World Bank released its Education Sector Policy Paper, which changed
the existing lending rules, to acknowledge some of the concerns that had been raised
over the first two decades of its efforts in Africa. After an extended internal debate, the
Bank opted to shift away from support of only technical and vocational education.
Quality of education, secondary and tertiary education, and education research all
became the legitimate focus of World Bank loan programs, in what would, by the late
1980s, come to be known as its short education policy menu.19
 Urban Education in Africa 11

In retrospect, Heyneman argues that the 1980 policy paper could have constituted
the start of a revolutionary shift in Bank policy. But this shift must be seen in the
overall context of outside pressures during the decade of the 1980s to push the World
Bank to modify not only its policies around education, but all of its social programs to
address, for example, environmental, human rights, and women’s issues, even as struc-
tural adjustment programs were being negotiated that demanded that public expenditure
on social programs, including education, be rationalized.20
Macro-level economic trends during this period also took their toll on access to edu-
cation throughout Africa, especially for poor and working-class families. As Bredie
and Beeharry (1998) point out in their World Bank discussion paper, entitled School
Enrollment Decline in Sub-Saharan Africa: Beyond the Supply Constraint:

[T]he difficult economic conditions [of the 1980s and 1990s] that have led to
lower household incomes have made the (direct and opportunity) cost of educa-
tion an important burden for many households. As the same time, the benefits of
education in terms of increasing the chances of securing employment have also
deteriorated because of fewer employment opportunities. Demand for education,
even at primary level can no longer be taken for granted. A number of education
sector studies report that parents find that education is no longer a worthwhile
investment, and that expenses outweigh the potential benefits. (p. 4)

Bank policy had opened up to quality issues, and expanded beyond vocational-
technical support, but the broader economic environment had been impacted by
negative global market impacts just as the structural adjustment programs had led
to tightened public expenditure on these kinds of educational inputs – increased
staffing, materials purchases, etc.
Even as the World Bank recognized that its initial vocational-technical oriented app-
roach to supporting education in Africa was in need of change, and even as its human
capital-focused analysis was giving way to rate of return analysis that was somewhat
less limited by economistic interpretations, many manifestations of education contin-
ued to be left out of the planning and design of Bank programs.21 Still, Heyneman
describes an “ex ante agnosticism” at the Bank regarding education policy frameworks.
In other words, after the changes wrought in the 1980s, there remained an ongoing
attempt to avoid wholly prescriptive policies, and allow some (though by no means
complete) flexibility for national self-determination as to how to use borrowed World
Bank funds. External efficiencies would still be used, so comparative analysis of the
program experiences in different countries would continue to be used as a primary
appraisal criterion.
In this, Heneveld and Craig’s 1996 report is indicative. They do note forthrightly the
limits of World Bank policy, for example, in stating that they were unable to visit any
of the 26 projects being analyzed for the report. They go on to note, “[T]he economet-
ric input-output model of schooling and the techniques that stem from this model are
not adequate to understanding and planning improvements in what goes on in schools
and classrooms” (p. 3). Later in the report, they have this to say: “[N]ot one project
includes a specific reference to planning for planning for in-school supervision of
12 Brennan and Nyang’oro

textbook use. Overall, it appears that the World Bank’s programming is paying good
attention to textbook supply issues, but that much less consideration has been given to
ensuring their effectiveness use in classrooms” (p. 34). It is informative that, after
these kinds of comments, they nevertheless utilize a methodological framework that
is entirely western: school effectiveness measures; school improvement characteris-
tics; and school climate factors. These are then mapped onto the African contexts of
the study.
So, even as the change noted by Heyneman was occurring in the Bank’s policies and
practices, there remained embedded Bank practices and tensions, well-removed physi-
cally from the environments for which their educational programs were designed, but
which nevertheless impacted how these programs would be realized. Gonzales offers
one example:

[T]he allocation of promotions within the Bank are based largely on whether an
official has met or exceeded her/his lending quotas. Given the extensive time-
commitments required for the project appraisal process, Joel Samoff (1993)
argues, World Bank officials will develop a general inclination toward lending to
large-scale projects to meet these quotas rather than concentrating on what is
appropriate for the host country and its needs. (1999, p. 125)

In other words, Bank practice was to see success in terms not of how projects and pro-
grams worked in output terms, that is, success or failure to educate children (a longer
term measure, for certain), but rather in internal, financial terms, that is, how successful
the Bank’s officials were in loaning funds for projects (a decidedly shorter term meas-
ure). Gonzales notes that by the mid-1990s, the Bank’s President, James Wolfensohn,
pushed to change this internal climate, informing staff that promotions would subse-
quently be based on the success of their projects over time. This, says Gonzales, had
little immediate effect inasmuch as the projects and programs with which staff were
involved were typically seven to 10 years in duration, meaning functional links between
completed project cycles and World Bank promotions would scarcely be likely. Richard
Sack notes:

In the early 1990s, a major, in-depth World Bank report ascertained an alarming
rate of non-performing projects. This report “discovered” that beneficiary coun-
tries of World Bank loans/projects had little sense of “ownership” of the develop-
ment project whose conception and elaboration was often determined by World
Bank staff more concerned with the logic of their institution (and its “approval
culture,” according to that report) than by that of the country (the “borrower”).
(2003, p. 11)

The internal decision-making dynamic as described above does not get at a separate
matter, which is the way data were being collected for analysis and report. Joel Samoff
(1999) points out several limitations to relying on World Bank data. First, Bank offi-
cials are reliant on state-level data collection which it then aggregates. State-level data
are themselves aggregates of school-, district-, and region-level collection. Mistakes at
 Urban Education in Africa 13

any of these levels are thus brought into Bank analyses, thus potentially skewing
results. This is a well-known problem particularly as it relates to data collection and
reporting in most African countries. Second, published analyzed measures of expendi-
tures on education often are taken only from state-level calculations. Rarely is there a
comprehensive view of what individuals, families, and local governments spend on
education. This tends to overemphasize the percentage of total expenditure resulting
from both state government and World Bank sources.
Finally, the Bank’s own reports are, at times, contradictory. By way of one example,
Samoff notes that seemingly straightforward questions such as how many children are
in school? or, what percentage of children are in school? are not as easy to answer as
one might believe. Samoff shows World Bank reports, and indicates that the Bank can
get data mixed-up. For example, the World Bank lists 1960 enrollments at 46% in one
report (World Bank, 1993), only to then list enrollment at 50% for 1960 in a different
report (World Bank, 1995). Samoff’s point in all of this is that data are not always
reliable, and should be taken to be estimates only. As such, broad inferences, and
public policy decisions based on such data should minimally be critically examined, if
not avoided.
In addition to poorly reported data, numerous writers have raised the issue of how
the data are collected in the first place, beyond that described previously here of the
economistic nature of the analytic methods. Gonzales notes that into the late 1990s, the
World Bank continued to hold on to longstanding practice of utilizing more easily
measured input variables, in lieu of more qualitative measures. Heneveld and Craig
concur, in describing that:

Overall, a closer look at the planning done for the twenty-six projects reinforces
the conclusion that the closer the factor was to the life of the school and to what
touches the children directly, the less likely it was to be planned for explicitly in
these projects assisted by the World Bank. [italics in original] (p. 44)

In standard Bank analytic practice, for example, rather than qualitatively measuring
how students progress through school, it was often assumed that an average student pro-
gressed through school by completing one level of schooling per year. But there exist
long-noted patterns of interruption in educational progress that make such an assump-
tion troubling.22 Similarly, the Bank continued to use foregone earnings as a proxy for
opportunity cost incurred by those children who could be undertaking wage-based
work, but who choose to remain in school. This runs the risk of overstating project costs
since not all school leavers are employed in cash positions at prevailing market wages.
Each of these data-related issues points to the need to incorporate more qualitative
methods of data collection into World Bank planning and program design. As
Buchmann and Hannum note:

The study of school factors and educational outcomes similarly highlights the
importance of the social and economic contexts of schools. By offering counter-
points to the common notions (usually based on US research) regarding how
school factors affect student achievement, studies in less-developed contexts
14 Brennan and Nyang’oro

clearly demonstrate that the impacts of specific policy initiatives depend on the
environment in which schools function. (2001, p. 93)

Coming full circle, Heneveld and Craig repeatedly argue for the need for incorporat-
ing such qualitative measures more fully in World Bank analysis. They note two
conclusions to be reached in analyzing World Bank education projects:

First, the project designs analyzed addressed an array of inputs that are known to
affect educational outcomes: community support; supervision; teacher develop-
ment; textbooks; and, facilities. In this respect, the influence of research on
design is encouraging. However, the focus is on these factors as inputs – textbook
supply, residential teacher training courses, national curriculum reform, national
examination systems – not on their integration within schools. Second, the proj-
ect designs tend to ignore the process factors that characterize effective education
within schools – school-level autonomy, school climate, the teaching/learning
process, and pupil evaluation feedback by teachers. The project designs also tend
to treat inputs as discrete quantifiable instruments (numbers of textbooks and
teacher’s guides, weeks of in-service training) without taking into account how
they will interact with other inputs, especially at the school level. (1996, p. xiv)

We offer the following lengthy quote for its full description of the circumstances in which
measures of analysis often hide realities. We have highlighted certain text in italics:

[T]he first grade classroom was housed in the only one of the three rooms in the
old school compound that still had its roof intact. This dilapidated mud-floor
room had no desks and no door; there were over ninety pupils ranging from pre-
school siblings to teenagers sitting on raised mud ridges across the room; and
there were no textbooks in sight. Queries to the teacher elicited that a few of the
[12 copies of the] new books for a few subjects were in a book bag in the corner.
The rest were in the teacher’s house because the [school class] room had no door
and there was no cupboard which would force him to cart them back and forth
each day. Also, he told the visitors that his orientation to the new books had been
a one-day (including travel) seminar at the district headquarters, and there had
been no follow-up to help him figure out how to use twelve copies of a textbook
with ninety students. In the project’s terms, the textbook component had been suc-
cessful: the books were in the school. In the teacher’s and the children’s terms, the
books were not yet available. (1996, p. 2)

It is only by focusing on how fully inputs are actually integrated into school, classroom,
and teacher practice that solid ideas on school reform will find footing. In order for this
to be realized, however, prior study must be made of the ways in which the school oper-
ates, before planning sessions decide how budgets are to be spent, resources distributed,
and inputs utilized. The conditions under which the school operates must be clearly
defined. Unfortunately, as Heneveld and Craig point out, these operational definitions
are infrequently revealed before planning has been completed.23
 Urban Education in Africa 15

Language and the World Bank

While data collection and analysis is a basic issue in regard to World Bank influence
on education in Africa, there exist other issues which are fundamental in different
ways. One particular issue in which the World Bank has long been implicated in its
efforts in Africa is the role of vernacular and colonial languages in schools. Many writ-
ers are engaged in defining the issues involved in decisions as to what languages are to
be used in primary schools (and beyond), and for what reasons. The published per-
spectives on such issues range from the epistemological to the political, the local to the
national and international. For the purposes of this section of the chapter, we will focus
on those perspectives that connect to the issue of language in classrooms as described
by the authors whose work is collected in this volume.
Walter Bgoya, a publisher from Tanzania, implicates colonial practice, imperialism,
and neo-colonialism as forces that frequently leave African languages untaught, and
thus at risk of dying out. While Bgoya is concerned with the impact of colonial and
post-colonial decisions on which languages are used as media of instruction in
schools, he focuses on the publishing industry, and notes that opportunities to utilize
texts written in indigenous languages are rare in most schools. This only furthers a
(false) belief that indigenous languages fail to meet modern needs in multilingual
African nations:

All languages which, for one reason or another, are denied the potential for their
fullest development are threatened. One of the threats comes from the phenome-
non of rural to urban migration. Many young unemployed people perennially
leave rural communities in search of employment in urban areas where either a
foreign language or one indigenous language dominates the other languages. And
becomes ipso facto a “national language.” Over time, the “smaller languages”
will lose out. (2001, p. 285)

Adebowale (2001) writes about an “umbilical attachment to Western scholarship”

within African scholarship. He points out that African scholars are expected to know
(and cite) Western-based research theories as well as Africa-focused theories, yet this
is not frequently reciprocated.
These perspectives note that at the “economically viable” end of the educational arc,
after having successfully negotiated school and engaging professional employment,
African scholars and publishers remain linked to a perceived demand that they ought
to cede to others, decisions about which languages they employ in their work. This
perceived demand is an outright result of the nature of state education systems, and a
result, in part of the policies of those who fund such systems, including the World
Bank. Nyamnjoh notes:

Only a few African countries have bothered to adopt policies that encourage edu-
cation in African languages, and even this limited number have tended to confine
the importance of local languages to primary and secondary school education.
Thereby accentuating the remoteness and irrelevance of universities to the bulk of
16 Brennan and Nyang’oro

the population. With perhaps the exception of Tanzania, there is hardly a single
sub-Saharan African university that “offers a full diploma programme with an
African language as principal medium of instruction.” (2004, p. 172)

What is implemented at various levels of education does not cease manifesting in a

multitude of social and cultural forms. An irony of the globalization process is that as
the trend towards the homogenization of production systems proceeds apace, and we
see the rapid movements of capital and labor, the English language begins to predom-
inate thus making its adoption in African schools and commerce not just a practical
thing, but an absolute necessity for success.
Alamin Mazrui (1997) posits a pair of rationales to begin explaining the reality that
most post-colonial governments in Africa inherited educational systems in which
colonial languages constituted the medium of instruction. The first is described as a
functionalist response wherein the colonial languages (most often English and French)
are defined as being useful in global ways that indigenous languages are not. This con-
stitutes a rationale for maintaining the influence of the colonial language into future
generations. The second is seen as a nationalist response that would re-center African
languages in African education. Pushed along with some support from the United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO),24 this response
has been implemented in many countries for primary education.
Mazrui goes on to discuss World Bank public remarks that seem to align the Bank
with the nationalist perspective on language, especially as regards primary educa-
tion. However, he notes that the Bank’s own policies and subsequent research shows
that colonial languages are actually spreading in influence, even at lower levels of
schooling. Mazrui notes:

[E]stablishing the necessary conditions for sustainable instruction in the local

languages – which, in the World Bank’s opinions quoted above, is crucial to the
uninterrupted educational progress of a child – requires substantial government
investments in generating educational resources. Yet, the World Bank’s prescrip-
tions continue to place heavy emphasis on the reduction of government subsidies
in education, though such subsidies are indispensable to the promotion of instruc-
tion in the local languages. … [U]nder World Bank – IMF structural adjustment
programs, the only path open to African nations is the adoption of the imperial
languages from the very outset of a child’s education. (1997, p. 38)

Thus, he sees the trend in education in Africa moving away from vernacular-based
education, even at earlier levels. The implications for survival of African languages, as
well as the impact on Africa’s children of understanding themselves to be Kenyan (not
to say Swahili, or Kikuyu, or …) is hardly to be underestimated.
For Mazrui, the World Bank (and its affiliated partners in the multilateral funding
of education in Africa) seeks to play the game both ways. He offers the following
anecdote:
 Urban Education in Africa 17

[A] World Bank loan to the Central African Republic, supposedly intended to
improve the quality and accessibility of elementary education, came with a pack-
age of conditions that required the nation to import its textbooks (and even use
French textbooks) directly from France and Canada. This stringency was justified
on the grounds that printing in these Western countries is cheaper than in the
Central African Republic, making their publications more affordable to the aver-
age African child. It has been estimated that, due to similar World Bank projects
and linkages, over 80 percent of school books in “Francophone” Africa are now
produced directly in France. In the process, the World Bank has not only empow-
ered the West to control further the intellectual destiny of African children, but
has also continued to weaken and destroy infrastructural facilities, primarily
publishing houses, for the technical production of knowledge locally. In terms of
sheer cost effectiveness, French and Canadian publishers would have found it far
more difficult to participate in this World Bank agenda had language of instruc-
tion in the Central African Republic been one of the local languages instead of
French. (p. 42)

The World Bank wishes to state a preference for vernacular education at early ages,
inasmuch as this boosts best chances to successfully use second (and subsequent) lan-
guages fully competently. Simultaneously, it wishes to note an advantage to learning
English, as this familiarizes different ethnic groups (language speakers) within a coun-
try, and permits greater national cohesion, and greater political unity. Mazrui criticizes
the Bank for this, especially around the Bank’s pronouncements that it “cannot impose
an educational language policy on an African country,” since “each country … has the
freedom to determine language policy that is commensurate with its own unique polit-
ical, economic, cultural and linguistic peculiarities.” (1997, p. 37) Mazrui notes a dis-
juncture between this and Bank policy in general, inasmuch as the Bank (and its
Bretton Woods sibling institutions) frequently imposes conditions on borrowing.
Mazrui offers the specific example of such imposition in his depiction of early
1980s Tanzania, where President Nyerere’s attempts to institutionalize Kiswahili as the
medium of instruction beyond primary school ran smack into difficulties when the
country faced drought, and needed to realign state outlays across the spectrum. This
led to a decision to seek help from the IMF. Tanzania eventually had to capitulate to
IMF conditionalities so as to be able to feed its people. One conditionality dealt with
educational planning and policy, and crippled efforts to Kiswahili-ize the curriculum.
Mazrui notes:

The World Bank … does not seem comfortable with the Tanzanian model. In its
comparative analysis of high school students’ performance between Kenya and
Tanzania, for example, it casts doubt on the prudence of Tanzania’s educational
language policy. It suggests that Tanzania’s high school education is qualitatively
inferior to that of Kenya, and that this educational inferiority is attributable, in
part, to the exclusive emphasis on Kiswahili as a medium of instruction at the
primary level. (p. 39)
18 Brennan and Nyang’oro

In short, World Bank policy, in practice, not rhetoric, is designed to meet the needs, in
African countries, of foreign capital. It is not about what is directly best for the mass
of young African children as they learn.

Conclusion
The children who attend schools in Africa that are the focus of this volume, are
impacted by policies and practices of players at both national and international levels.
These practices and policies help determine what kinds of school buildings are avail-
able to the students, what languages are spoken there for what purposes, what
resources are provided for schools and students in what circumstances, and what, in
the end, is left over for local communities and individual families and students to pro-
vide for themselves. In order to understand this range of relevant policies and prac-
tices, it is important to know as much about the actors involved – including the
students and families – as possible.
Gonzales, regarding, specifically, his own research in Namibia, offers a perspective
that might resonate throughout Africa. Writing about the World Bank and similar insti-
tutions, he argues for the incorporation of qualitative approaches to analysis that per-
mits the lived experience of the children impacted by lending practices and policies to
be noted. Gonzales states that:

[T]he presence of inputs indicates their utilization can only be assumed through
the monitoring of projects throughout their lives. Such monitoring must not be
limited to consultations with officials in the posh offices of government ministers
in the capital cities … . only classroom visits and meetings with teachers and
school officials showed the author the dialectic between documented claims and
state realities. As such, extended site visits throughout the countries must be
included in the monitoring or project implementation. (p. 132)

Gonzales further argues that increased support from abroad, in the form of additional
funding, technical support, lower rates of interest, longer maturities on loans, more
favorable loan terms, or greater sharing of analysis on program success for the use of
national governments be incorporated into the dialogue about education funding.
As Heneveld and Craig write:

[T]o design effective interventions for improving school quality, preparations

must be done by the local people, with their choices of outcomes and means to
achieve those outcomes informed, but not determined, by the experiences from
elsewhere. A planning process that is based on local experience – and controlled
locally – requires that certain operating principles of World Bank project prepa-
ration be revised: local commitment and capacity, not a target date for presenta-
tion to the World bank Board of Directors, should determine the timetable of
preparations. (p. 48)
 Urban Education in Africa 19

The Bank is only one of the multitude of players in Africa’s education. Yet its influence
is overwhelming. Combined with the legacies of the colonial system, widespread state
incapacity and incompetence, and high poverty levels, education in Africa is at a cross-
roads. A positive movement forward may need a concerted effort by the real con-
sumers of education, that is, the students and their parents to demand performance
from both their own governments and from the international financial institutions, in
order to make education more relevant to their lives. This is a tall order, but not an
impossible dream to reach.

Notes
1. Relating back to Adebowale (2001), we deliberately sought to incorporate African authors, those
working in Africa, as well as those currently working in the diaspora. In this effort, we were largely
successful, as the chart below shows:

Africans in Africa Africans outside Africa non-Africa/non-African non-African in Africa

South Africa Ghana Kenya co-author

South Africa Cameroon Section co-editor
Senegal Zimbabwe
Malawi Kenya
Kenya
Section co-editor

It is fair to say that, as satisfied as we are with the mix of submissions included here, this chart may
have tilted further to its leftmost column had we found it easier to communicate more fully with other
potential authors throughout the continent, with whom initial communication had been established.
Future edition of this Handbook, or, indeed, editions of a similar Handbook that focuses on Africa
would do better in this regard.
2. In this instance, “schools” operates as a synonym for “education,” a well as a gloss for Western-style
formal education. See Sefa Dei (2000); Kebede (2004); Nyamnjoh (2004); Quist (2001); Tikly (1999,
2001); and many others addressing epistemological issues regarding education in Africa.
3. See Karlsson on school architecture in South Africa, Ofori-Attah on the history of formal schooling in
Ghana, as well as MacJessie and Nampota on schools in Malawi.
4. Many African countries continue to face this issue, which impacts education in a variety of ways. See,
for example, Bgoya (2001) on limited publishing opportunities in African languages; Desai (2001) on
multilingualism in South Africa; Sefa Dei (2002) on language and culture, and educational change in
Ghana; etc. World Bank policy regarding language of instruction issues in African education is dis-
cussed later in this chapter.
5. See Masemann (in Arnove & Torres, 1999) on problematizing conceptions of culture. Following on
Mpondi, would Zimbabweanization, in practice, have the same effect for Mashona and MaNdebele,
not to mention Zimbabweans from smaller ethnic groups? Also see the writings on social justice, edu-
cation, and human development by Fanta Cheru.
6. From Harber (2002): “In recent years Zimbabwe has witnessed a steady retreat from democracy with
government sponsored harassment and violence against political opponents and increasing media
restrictions. Schools and classrooms in Zimbabwe have traditionally been organized on an authoritar-
ian basis. Not surprisingly, a school-base understanding of human rights in Zimbabwe noted the prob-
lem of the mismatch between ideals and reality in planning any course on human rights.” (p. 273)
7. Samoff (in Arnove & Torres, 1999) offers a take on the ideas of equity, fairness, and justice, and con-
trasts these to equality, noting that to effectively change these aspects of school access and participation,
20 Brennan and Nyang’oro

society must change, and that achieving equity may mandate, at least temporarily, unequal treatment,
something that rarely goes unopposed by the kind of people (the wealthy) for whom the unequal seems
to work well.
8. See Heneveld and Craig (1996) for more detail on the rationale for the World Bank’s move in this
direction.
9. As with school climate, these measures have only recently begun to make their way into World Bank
planning. More will be said about these issues later in the chapter.
10. Assie-Lumumba (2000), for example, notes the post-colonial efforts of Sekou Toure (1961); Julius
Nyerere (1968); Zimbabwe (1980); Namibia (1990); and South Africa (1994), and describes educa-
tional reform as akin to a new flag, a new national anthem (p. 92).
11. Assie-Lumumba (2000), “Despite their nominal political independence, most African countries have
designed their domestic policies under the guidance or influence of external powers … . Lending
agencies such as the World Bank and the IMF, governments of industrial countries within bilateral or
multilateral frameworks, and foundations have played a central role in defining priorities and design-
ing policies of education in Africa. These agencies’ perceived importance of particular levels or types
of education have had implications in domestic public resource allocation.” (p. 92)
12. For additional material on the full scope of issues in education in Africa, two places to start would be
the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) which maintains a website with
valuable research and resource material at: www.adeanet.org, and the Educational Research Network
for West and Central Africa (ERNWACA), which can be found at www.ernwaca.org
13. If we take this as given, one meaning to be ascribed to it is that from 1972 to 1996 (when this report
was published), the World Bank loaned to Africa $26 million per year, or roughly one-half million
dollars per country. A second way to think about it is that for the currently 800
million residents of
Africa, the World Bank has loaned the equivalent of 80 U.S. cents per person for school construction
over 25 years. Not 80 U.S. cents per year, but 3 U.S. cents per year per person.
14. We focus here on expenditure for primary school for the reasons outlined by Gonzales (1999), “With
regard to the issue of equity in social expenditure, investment in primary education reaches a much
broader cross section of society than does funding to higher education as, especially in Africa, higher
levels of education are usually accessible to the wealthier strata of societies.” (p. 120)
15. That is, as per statistics available from the Population Division of the Department of Economic and
Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, World Population Prospects: The 2004 Revision and
World Urbanization Prospects: The 2003 Revision (available at http://esa.un.org/unpp), urban popula-
tion in Africa is estimated to be growing by more than one full percentage point per year more, on aver-
age, than the general population. One necessary interpretation of this is that rural population growth
must be lagging behind general population growth, and thus significantly behind urban population
growth. Policies that do not take this into account are set up for problems.
16. Assie-Lumumba (2000) notes, “The optimistic African outlook of the 1960s and 1970s’ economic
development coincided with a renewed and unprecedented popularity of the human capital theory in
industrial countries of the West. This contributed to create a general atmosphere characterized by a
euphoria, faith, and confidence in education as the ‘great equalizer,’ a means for individual development
and upward mobility, and an effective instrument for achieving national economic development.” (p. 90)
17. Joel Samoff (1999) criticizes this, and subsequent World Bank approaches for being overly optimistic
about planning skills. “This approach commonly underestimates the extent and rapidity of career
changes. Since it understands education primarily in terms of its skills training consequences, it tends
to disregard intellectual growth, the development of critical and problem-solving ability, the encour-
agement of creativity and expression, and many other dimensions of education that have no immedi-
ate and direct vocational outcome.” (p. 411)
18. Gonzales (1999) writes that in terms of primary education in Africa, as much as 90% of recurrent
expenses are teacher salary related. This leaves 10% to pay for materials, supplies, textbooks, etc., even
as research shows a clear connection between increased access to such materials, and student success.
19. The short education policy menu is described by Heyneman as being reliant on rate of return analysis,
and adhering to three recommendations from late 1980s: first, that governments shift public expendi-
tures away from vocational and higher education toward academic and basic education; second, that
they increase private cost for higher education for attending university; and, finally, that they install
loan schemes to set off financial burden onto individuals for paying for higher education. This set of
 Urban Education in Africa 21

recommendations evokes the conditions on public expenditure common to structural adjustment pro-
grams of the 1980s and 1990s.
20. There seems significant counter-posed pressures at this time from within the Bretton Woods and mul-
tilateral donor community. Mazrui (1997) addresses this point, with a specific focus on language
issues. Harber (2002) joins the point around the issues of governance and democratization. Samoff
(1999) notes the fall off in primary school enrollments seen in many countries during this time. He also
notes that spending on education, while it did not fall in absolute terms during this time, did decline
more than 5% per capita during this period.
More generally, as Buchmann and Hannum (2001) point out, even as broader issues of educational qual-
ity were being brought into World Bank decision-making practices, “These policies, which facilitate
debt servicing through fiscal austerity and reduced government intervention in indebted nations, have
been traced to declines in educational spending, teacher quality, and educational demand (Reimers,
1991). Other evidence indicates that SAPs disproportionately affect female participation in education,
likely through their detrimental impact on survival strategies in poor households (Buchmann, 1996).
Finally, the pressures from the IMF and donor agencies on indebted governments to privatize and decen-
tralize their educational systems may lead to greater inequities and declining educational participation
(Arnove, 1997). In sum, research on macro-structural determinants of education and shaping stratifica-
tion patterns is highly variable over time and place and is enhanced or constrained by global institutions
and forces.” (p. 81)
21. For example, adult education, pre-school education, graduate education, educational research, educa-
tional technology, education for the handicapped, professional education (medical, engineering, law,
public administration, etc.).
22. Bredie and Beeharry (2002) support this, making the further point that both the direct costs and the
opportunity cost of education are thus higher than would be otherwise presumed in a circumstance in
which, for example, a Kenyan student were to go through the eight standards of primary education in
eight calendar years.
23. For more on this set of issues, see Richard Maclure’s article in Harvard Educational Review (2006),
essentially an overview of endogenous research across a full range of education issues in Africa, as
seen in the efforts of two groups: (1) ERNWACA – the Educational Research Network of West and
Central Africa; and (2) ADEA – the Association for the Development of Education in Africa, which
began in 1988 as an offshoot of World Bank efforts, but evolved into an association of officials from
ministries of education throughout Africa.
24. Mazrui describes UNESCO as having “campaigned for a shift to local languages in the earlier years of
a child’s education, and it has also recommended, on educational grounds, that the use of the mother-
tongue be extended to as late a stage in education as possible.” (p. 37)

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2

URBANIZATION AND SCHOOLING IN AFRICA:

TRENDS, ISSUES, AND CHALLENGES FROM
GHANA DURING THE COLONIAL ERA

Kwabena Dei Ofori-Attah

Capital University, Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A.

Introduction
Urbanization as a social process started in Africa long before the arrival of the Arabs or
Europeans on the continent (Coquery-Vidrovitch, 1991; Peel, 1980). Around 320 B.C.,
northeast Africa witnessed the growth of urban centers when Upper and Lower Egypt
merged to promote the development “of a brilliant urban civilization” (Davidson,
1991b, p. 14). Jenné-Jeno, near present day Jenne, was established by the very fertile
river banks of the Bani and Niger rivers around the year 250 B.C. It is the first known
city in sub-Saharan Africa and among the oldest known in the world. As Haskins and
Benson (1998) have pointed out:

Established – probably by herders and fishermen – as a small group of round mud

huts around 250 B.C., by A.D. 800 Jenne-Jeno was a cosmopolitan center of some
ten thousand people, surrounded by a massive mud-brick wall of some ten feet
wide and thirteen or more feet in height. (p. 16)

What triggered the urbanization process at such an early period in the history of Africa
is not very clear. However, historians believe that the process of urbanization started on
the continent of Africa as a result of gradual natural increase in the population, the
need for security, trade, commercial and political reasons. As people developed agri-
culture and got frequent supply of food, and led settled life, life expectancy naturally
improved.
Some of the major urban centers developed through trade. Cities like Abeokuta,
Ibadan, Kano, Walata, Kumbi Saleh, and Kumasi all rose to prominence before the
arrival of Europeans on the African continent largely as a result of trade. Some of the
items traded included salt, gold, kola nuts, ostrich feathers, ivory, pepper, and cloth.
(Coquery-Vidrovitch, 1991; Davidson, 1991a).

23
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 23–48.
© 2007 Springer.
24 Ofori-Attah

Another factor that led to growth of cities in Africa before the arrival of the
Europeans was the desire for many people to acquire new knowledge. At this time,
Timbuktu was a primary center for learning in Africa. It had three universities, and
over 100 other educational institutions. These educational institutions were run by
Muslims, who taught subjects including mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, physics,
medicine, history, and geography. Arabic was the medium of instruction. There is no
evidence that English was taught in these schools (Chandler, 1994).
These urban areas had none of the utilities or facilities that we see in modern urban
areas today. There was, for instance, no piped or running water, no electricity, no roads
or railway system, no hospitals or schools as we know them today, no vehicles, air-
planes or trains. The primary non-walking mode of transportation within urban areas
was riding on the back of domesticated animals such as a horse, camel, or donkey. The
urban centers were simply a concentration of people engaged in commercial, social,
and political activities. The houses were essentially built of mud, stones, or clay and
covered with thatched leaves or bamboo or bark of large trees (Haskins & Benson,
1998) (See Table 1).
The urban areas offered security that more isolated individuals could not afford.
These urban areas were often under the control of local leaders who were generally
chiefs or kings. These local leaders imposed taxes on the people to generate revenue to
maintain security, law and order. Cities like Timbuktu relied on strategic locations as a
trading centers and raised huge revenues to maintain the city through trading activities.
The predominant occupation at this time was agriculture. A few people engaged in
local industries such as cloth making, iron works, pottery, wood carving, basket weav-
ing, and cattle rearing. In some of the urban centers, As Hull (1976) has pointed out:

Kumasi was famous for its goldsmiths, who turned out fine jewelry, and for it
weavers of Kente cloth … Kumasi and surrounding Ashanti towns were also
famous for the manufacture of brass weights, used for measuring gold dust, a
major currency. It was also in Kumasi that the famous wooden state stools were

Table 1. Large cities in Africa: 1100–1600 A.D.

City 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600

Marrakesh 150,000 150,000 75,000 – – 125,000

Cairo 150,000 200,000 400,000 360,000 – –
Fez 125,000 155,000 200,000 150,000 – –
Tunis – – – – 65,000 –
Bougie 50,000 – – – – –
Qus 50,000 50,000 – – – –
Rabat – 50,000 – – – –
Kano – – – – 50,000 –
Oyo – – – 50,000 60,000 –
Gao – – – – 60,000 –
Zaria – – – – – 60,000

Source: Chandler, 1994, p. 18.

 Urbanization and Schooling in Africa 25

carved and decorated with silver or gold sheeting … . In addition, there was fine
ceramic pottery, clay animal figurines, and a wide variety iron implements of
excellent workmanship. Craftsmen also fashioned gold and copper wire into
bracelets for writs, forearms, and anklets and calves. (pp. 107–109)

As more and more people moved to urban areas to find a better way of life, to share in
the security and trade opportunities offered in these areas, populations began to soar. By
the sixteenth century, the population of Jenne-Jeno had increased from a few thousands
around 250 B.C. to over 10,000 inhabitants. Other areas such as Kumasi, Ilorin, Ibadan,
Kano, Tamale, Bamako or Timbuktu saw similar increases in population growth.
Education in these urban areas often took the form of face-to-face interaction. As Hull
(1976) put it:

Most urbanites acquired learning through face-to-face contacts. Youths learned

from family members in their compounds or from firsthand experience in the
streets, marketplace, or at work. Public information was diffused troubadors,
street-singers, dancers, actors, or story-tellers … . For the masses, the major cen-
ters of education were the marketplace, community wells, and the ceremonial or
parade ground in front of the palace. Education for the aristocrats took place
within the compounds of kings and paramount chiefs … . Within a local chief’s
compound, youths were instructed in proper ways of addressing the king and
other members of the hierarchy and nobility. (p. 109)

There were no formal schools as we know them today (Haskins & Benson, 1998).
However, in some of the urban centers such as Timbuktu, Djenné, and Gao Arabs had
established open schools and were teaching youths how to write, read, and compute
figures. Instruction was conducted in Arabic. Such was the “state of formal schooling”
until the arrival of the Europeans on the continent.

Objectives of the Study

The main purpose of this paper is to discuss trends and issues in schooling in urban
Africa with special reference to Ghana during the colonial era. The discussion will
begin with the early attempts made by Christian missionaries and colonial govern-
ment to open schools in the urban areas of what is today called Ghana. One primary
objective of the paper is to examine the relationships between urbanization and
schooling. A second objective is to examine the organization of urban schools in the
Gold Coast during the colonial period. Additionally, the paper will examine the
financing of urban education during the early days of formal schooling in Ghana.
Finally, the paper will assess the dysfunctional aspects of urban education in the Gold
Coast during the same era.
The early attempts made by the Europeans to establish schools in the Gold Coast
did not take firm roots until the beginning of the eighteenth century. Often the
educational efforts were hampered by diseases and inter-European conflicts or
26 Ofori-Attah

conflicts between Europeans and local people (Lystad, 1958; Martin, 1924). For
instance the conflict between the British and Ashanti delayed the development of
education in Ashanti for over 100 years. Until the British colonial administration
took over the entire country after 1902, schooling activities were confined to the
urban areas in the southern sector of the Gold Coast. From that point forward,
the British colonial government became the main administrator of education in the
Gold Coast until independence in 1957 although other missionaries from different
European countries such as Germany, Sweden, Scotland, and Switzerland also
played a role (Hilliard, 1957).

Europeans and the Foundations of Urban Education

in the Gold Coast
In Ghana, an urban area is defined as a city or town with a population with 5,000 or
more inhabitants (Owusu, 2005). This is an arbitrary definition of urbanization (Gibbs,
1966). However, it is the standard that this paper will use in discussing the relationship
between educational development and urbanization. The paper is built on the proposi-
tion that “population distribution may have a controlling influence over a country’s
education system” (Anderson, 1965, p. 148).
In Ghana as in many other African countries, schooling began in urban areas upon the
arrival of early European merchants and missionaries. These included the Portuguese,
the Dutch, the Danes, the British, and the Germans. The Portuguese are believed to
be the first European nation to establish a school in the Gold Coast in the early fifteenth
century (Hilliard, 1957). They established their schools in the forts along the coastal
areas of the Gold Coast. The most important one was established at Elmina, where the
children were taught reading and writing in Portuguese. Because of lack of schooling
facilities in the Gold Coast, the Portuguese sent outstanding students abroad for further
education. The educational experiments of the Portuguese came to an abrupt end when
they lost their forts and trading rights in the Gold Coast to the Dutch during the early
seventeenth century (See Figure 1).
The Dutch revived formal schooling in Elmina when they established a strong
foothold over the city in 1614. As a major port, Elmina grew into an important trading
center during this period. It controlled trading routes to the interior of the Gold Coast
and also served as the main trading routes along the coastal areas of the Gold Coast.
During the latter part of the seventeenth century, a Dutch visitor to the city put the pop-
ulation around 8,000 (Feinberg, 1989). Like their predecessors, Dutch school curricula
focused on reading, writing, and religious education. The medium of instruction was
Dutch.
In order to provide their students the best education possible, the Dutch, like the
Portuguese, sent outstanding students abroad for further studies. One of the famous
sent abroad was a Fanti student who was named Jacobus Capitein by the Dutch.
While in The Hague, Holland, Capitein studied several courses including, Dutch,
painting, reading, writing, cyphering and arithmetic, catechism, manners, and
customary prayers. All these were courses that the Dutch sought to include in the
 Urbanization and Schooling in Africa 27

Figure 1. Map of Elmina under the Dutch

Source: Feinberg, 1989, p. 78.

curriculum of their schools in the Gold Coast. After his studies in Holland, Jacobus
Capitein returned to the Gold Coast where he became a teacher and a chaplain in the
service of the Dutch Company at Elmina. Although schooling was not very popular
in Elmina and vicinity at the time, he was able to educate several local boys and
girls. His impressive scholarly work attracted the attention of the Ashanti King who
lived over 200 miles inland from Elmina. This Ashanti King sent 14 children, 12
boys, and 2 girls to Jacobus Capitein to be sent to Holland for similar training but the
Dutch Company offered to send only one boy to Holland for schooling. The rest were
all enrolled in the school in Elmina in the schools run by Jacobus Capitein.
According to Wise (1956):

The influence of this small school was considerable. Besides introducing Christianity
to a few, it established a lasting tradition of education among the Fanti people and
showed that not all the Europeans who came to the West Coast were greedy and
cruel adventurers. (p. 2)

The Danes were another European group that left indelible marks on education in
the Gold Coast. They promoted their brand of education in the Gold Coast through
the Basel Mission in 1722. The Danes first established their schools in the forts in
Accra, east of Elmina. In this urban school, the pupils were initially taught by a sol-
dier who was “chosen for his aptitude and sober habits, and he was paid a little extra
28 Ofori-Attah

for his work” (Wise, 1956, p. 2). At first, the pupils were all boys who it was hoped
would become soldiers and form a literate mulatto guard. However, as more and
more parents showed interest in the work of the educators, parents decided to enroll
their daughters in the school. Unfortunately, the climate at this location did not
favor the health of Europeans and many of the Basel Missionaries died. The Basel
Missionaries relocated inland, settling at Akropong, which served as the capital
amongst seventeen nearby towns. Akropong’s high altitude was attractive to the
Missionaries and so they were able to their missionary work there, as well as estab-
lish schools. The local people initially resisted any attempt to embrace the values
inherent in the new religion and the schools they promoted. The Basel Missionaries
had to invite some Black families from Jamaica to assist them in convincing the
local people to accept the new Christian religion and the schools the missionaries
established.
In addition to English grammar, reading, comprehension and composition, rapid
arithmetic, history, geography, civics, and nature study, religious education, hygiene,
the Basel missionaries made significant attempts to replace the non-vocational aim of
the education promoted by the Portuguese and the Dutch. As Martin (1976) put it
“The Basel Mission, for many years, included technical education. Courses for join-
ers, wheelrights, carpenters, lock-smiths, blacksmiths, shoemakers, and book-binders
were provided in Christianborg” (p. 49). In other words, the missionaries placed
emphasis on activities that were essential for managing a home or a family
(Agyemang, 1967).
At Cape Coast, which in 1812 had an estimated population of 8,000, the British
became active in promoting education and the Christian religion. A school was
started there by Revered Thomas Thompson of the Society for the Propagation of
the Gospel (S.P.G), who was eventually joined by British merchants who showed
interest in the school effort (Wise, 1956). The curriculum for this school was sim-
ilar to previous ones, one difference being that English was the medium of
instruction.
The British and missionaries provided only elementary education at Cape Coast
and like the Portuguese and the Dutch before them, they sent some students abroad to
continue their education. Of all the students sent to England by the English, the most
famous was called Phillip Quaque, who would spend over 11 years in England study-
ing principles of Christianity.
On his return to the Gold Coast, Philip Quaque was appointed Schoolmaster for a
local school in Cape Coast. The curriculum for the school included reading, writing,
arithmetic, religious education, and penmanship. He worked very hard to enroll many
local boys and girls in his school but he met fierce resistance from parents who did not
see the need for schooling.
Over the years of colonial endeavor, progress in the development of urban education
continued to be slow, poor, and uncertain. Missionaries and the trading companies
continued to provide funds to support education. When the British took over the affairs
of the Gold Coast during the later part of the nineteenth century, they had the task of
extending schools throughout the Gold Coast (See Figure 2).
 Urbanization and Schooling in Africa 29

Figure 2. Map of the Gold Coast under the British Colonial Administration, 1907–1957
Source: Bening, 1984, p. 82.

The British and Urban Education in the Gold Coast

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the British had established Cape Coast as
their main educational center. Many of the schools were under the control of the mis-
sionaries. From Cape Coast, the missionaries, ably supported by the British administra-
tion, extended schools to the urban areas in the interior of the Gold Coast, beginning in
Kumasi, where a previous Asantehene1 had expressed interest in Dutch schools at
Elmina. In 1842, when the Rev. T. Picot approached the then current Asantehene for
land on which to establish schools and churches, the Asantehene appeared not to be
interested in any form of foreign cultural practices, preferring to warn the missionaries
that their type of education was likely to make the people rebellious. As Kimble (1963)
has pointed out, in a letter sent by the Asantehene to the Rev. Picot, the Asantehene
clearly pointed out “We will not select children for education; for the Ashanti children
30 Ofori-Attah

have better work to do than to sit down all day idly to learn hoy! hoy! hoy! They have to
fan their parents, to do other work, which is much better” (p. 75). Many of the parents
agreed with their king and so for several years, the missionaries were unable to make
any meaningful progress in their educational pursuit inland (Busia, 1964).
When the British conquered the Ashanti early in the twentieth century, the Ashanti
had no choice but to yield to British request for establishing schools within Kumasi
and other cities controlled by the Asantehene. In other to win the affection of the
Ashanti, the British encouraged the Ashanti to send royal children to school because
they figured out if they won the hearts and minds of the royals it would be easier for
them to establish a stronger foothold in Ashanti. The Ashanti people were, on the other
hand, willing to send only domestic servants or slaves to school because they thought
schooling had no place in the life of royals.
Resistance to schooling was common in the country as previously pointed out. In
northern Gold Coast, similar ideas were expressed by local chiefs and “elites” when
the missionaries attempted to enroll local children in school. Thomas (1974) has pro-
vided a vivid account of a local scenario on the eve of the departure of students from a
rural area to study in the urban area:

When Timu was Kpembewura, he was asked to provide a child to be sent to school.
He called on Chinakuli, the son of his slave, but he was rejected. None of his wives
would allow their son to be taken away to Gua (Cape Coast). Timu was embarrassed
and did not know what to do. Atchulo volunteered, and amid tears, Timu gave him
up. He went with one Seidu, the son of a slave of Kpembewura Nyinchubore. On
the day of their leaving Kpembe, all the people in the house wept, saying that they
would never see Atchulo again, for he was going to be sacrificed to the Yeji river.
(Braimah & Goody, 1967, p. 86., quoted in Thomas, 1974, p. 430)

Schooling was offered on a limited basis for several years chiefly because of the cost
involved and the problem of training teachers. Early educators continued to offer ele-
mentary education in Africa and then send promising students abroad, as had the
Dutch and the Portuguese. When these students returned to Gold Coast they had
acquired new social status. Some worked for the missionaries and others worked for
the colonial governments as clerks, teachers, administrators with special privileges at
their disposal. Many parents became aware of the new forms of employment that
required an ability to read, write, and speak English. They also became aware of the
characteristics of the new economy that was gradually unfolding upon their society. As
Kimble (1963) has argued, “Education thus offered the prospect of a regular salary,
increased authority and prestige, possibly a trip to Europe, and certainly a means of
avoiding manual labour which was … demanded by the white man of any illiterate
African” (p. 620).
Above all, colonial administrators and missionaries lived in better homes, had dome-
stic servants, security personnel, and often had the final say in all local matters. It was
only through education that any African could enjoy some of these privileges, privileges
that were once reserved for royals, kings, and other traditional elites. And so gradually,
many parents changed their view about sending their children to school. This gradual
 Urbanization and Schooling in Africa 31

change in attitude of parents and others toward schooling increased the demand for
education in the country especially in the urban centers where people often came face
to face with modernity. As Rado (1972) has argued:

Through education children learn to read and write, to perform calculations of

increasing complexity, and to communicate in English or some other international
language; most important of all, they may learn something about using evidence
intelligently to evaluate the validity of arguments and assumptions. They will also
acquire some knowledge about the society in which they live, and the world
around them … . the more educated you are, the less likely you are to be unem-
ployed; and that, if employed, the more educated you are the more you are likely to
earn. (pp. 463–464)

The foregoing discussion has made it abundantly clear that the missionaries and the
British colonial government met resistance from the local people when they attempted
to establish schools in the urban areas in the Gold Coast. The resistance put up the
local people did not in any way dampen the spirits of the missionaries and the British
administrators. They persisted until the Africans saw the need to embrace Christianity
and Western style education. The factors that accounted for this is the subject for the
next section of the paper.

Trends in School Enrollments

Although many parents in the country initially resisted schooling, by the end of the
nineteenth century, many local communities were clamoring for schools for their chil-
dren. The newly established mining, rubber, shipping, banking, and trading firms all
needed the services of clerks, typists, copyists or book-keepers. All these companies
were based in the urban areas. Cities like Accra, which the British made the capital of
the Gold Coast colony in 1877, Cape Coast, Salt Pond, Ada, Kumasi, Aburi, and Keta
saw gradual increases in the number of missionary as well as public schools.
By 1881, the colonial educators had established 139 schools, mostly located in the
urban centers such as Accra, Kumasi, Cape Coast, Sekondi, Tamale, Winneba and
Koforidua. (See Table 2.) Of these schools, only three were under the control and man-
agement of the colonial government, with Cape Coast hosting one, and Accra the other
two. The remaining schools were all under the management of the missionaries. The

Table 2. Population of the main towns, 1891–1931

Census Accra Kumasi Cape Coast Sekondi Tamale Winneba Koforidua

1891 16,267 3,000 11,614 1,276 – 4,283 –

1901 14,842 6,280 28,948 4,095 432 5,578 1,406
1911 19,582 18,853 11,269 9,122 2,138 5,842 3,891
1921 38,049 20,268 14,921 9,500 3,901 6,980 5,364
1931 60,726 35,829 17,685 16,953 12,941 10,926 10,529

Source: Kimble, 1963, p. 144.

32 Ofori-Attah

Basel Mission had 47 schools, the Wesleyans 84 schools, the Bremen Mission 4
schools, and the Roman Catholic Church 1 school (Foster, 1965).
Although the demand for western education in the Gold Coast increased after
1880, in the rural areas, many parents still needed the hands of their children on their
farms and so were very reluctant to enroll them in schools. Some could not bear the
thought of leaving their children under the care of strangers in the urban areas. When
the Rev. Reindorf opened a school 17 miles northwest of Accra in 1872, he did not
find enough students to enroll in the school. He had to recruit students from Accra,
one of the main urban centers in the Gold Coast. In order to attract more local students
to attend the school he had to bear the cost of the initial pupils’ clothing, boarding and
lodging fees. In some cases, school authorities had to order clothes and other essen-
tial items for the students at their own expense. This was particularly the case for stu-
dents whose parents were not financially able to meet the cost of the education for
their children.
This was not the case in all instances. In many rural areas where there were no schools,
parents had to enroll their children in nearby urban centers where they commuted daily
to attended schools. Many students commuted long distances daily to attend schools,
some covered more than four miles each day. Where the students could not commute,
their parents had to find a close relative in the urban areas whose responsibility was to
house and take care of the student while studying in the urban area. In most cases, the
parents relied upon a wide network of relatives for financial contributions to help such
students make the trip to the urban area to attend school (Lloyd, 1968). Many of these
students returned to the rural areas during the weekend and brought food and money to
support themselves while they attended classes in the urban areas.

Urbanization, Schooling, and Social Mobility in the

Gold Coast
As Foster (1965, p. 51) has pointed out, “The urban areas with their development of an
indigenous merchant class, with their heterogeneous populations predominantly depend-
ent on an exchange economy, and with a nucleus of literate inhabitants …” served as a fer-
tile ground for investments in schools. Some of the companies based in the urban engaged
in rubber production, including companies such as the African Rubber Company, African
Plantations Limited, West African Rubber Plantations, African Product Development
Company (Munro, 1981). Other companies represented in the urban areas included the
African Gold Coast Company, Messrs Swanzy and Company, the Effuenta Gold Mining
Company, and the Gold Coast Mining Company (Silver, 1981).
Here, the colonial government introduced modern amenities such as electricity, piped
water, hospitals, banking, administrative offices and promoted trade and industries and
modern transportation systems. The urban areas thus became focal points for economic
development (Reynolds, 1975). As Konadu-Agyemang and Adanu (2003) have pointed out:

Considering the important role of transportation in economic development, those

areas that were located either directly on or close to the transportation network
 Urbanization and Schooling in Africa 33

also became the focus of production. By linking the ports at Takoradi in the west
and Accra in the east to the resources in the resource-rich interior centered on
Kumasi, the railway network created what became known as the “Golden
Triangle …” The areas encompassed by the triangle and immediate hinterland
became the location of 90 percent of all education institutions, health facilities,
manufacturing industries, formal-sector jobs … even though the area covered
less than one-third of the country and contained approximately 61 percent of the
population. (p. 517) (See Figure 3)

Figure 3. Map of Ghana showing colonial urban centers

Source: Konadu-Agyemang and Adanu, 2003, p. 518.
34 Ofori-Attah

People are generally attracted to urban centers to find better way of life, job security,
and modern ways of doing things. It was therefore no accident that the urban areas saw
rapid increase in population growth and consequently a rise in the number of educa-
tional institutions during this era. The British in an effort to improve overseas trade
started work on a harbor at twin city of Sekondi-Takoradi. The construction of the har-
bor attracted a large number of people to the area. Once parents got good paying jobs,
they were able to invest some money in the education of their children. One interesting
observation is that in the urban areas, people who had been to school as well as those
who had not, sought good education for their children, both boys and girls. The effect
was that, more girls in the urban areas were able to attend school more than those in
the rural areas.
The new economy brought about two main types of jobs: manual labor and clerical
jobs (Reynolds, 1975). Manual labor for those who could not read, write, or speak
English and clerical jobs for those who could read, write or speak English. And even
manual labor required the use of enough English so as to be able to communicate with
a European supervisor. Those who had not been to school or had a poor education had
to resort to a type of “English” that later became known as “pidgin English” or “busi-
ness English.” Rodger, (1909) has provided a few expressions in Pidgin English:

When a man tells you that he “lib for die”; which means he is on the point of death.
“I no chop snakes” means that he does not eat them. “I look ‘em and no see ‘em
means” “I look for something and do not find it.” “Massa no lib,” means “Master
is not at home.” “I lib for bush one time” means “I ran away at once.” (p. 5)

Often administrative or clerical jobs paid more money than the manual labor. Again,
the prestige attached to clerical jobs was so high that it became the cardinal principle
of every young man or woman to go to school so as to be able to land a clerical posi-
tion. The only route to become literate was to attend school and the urban areas were
places where these schools were usually located (Kimble, 1963).
The new urban areas were the administrative centers of the Gold Coast. Here were
found all senior administrators who made decisions concerning economic and social
development. These senior officers embraced education and so were prepared to make
significant personal contributions to the development of urban education. The natural
consequence was that a higher percentage of the people in the urban areas were able to
attend schools than those in the rural areas. This trend has persisted over the years.
Today in Ghana, the urban areas that set up more schools during the colonial times
continue to lead in the provision of educational facilities. Thus, the Greater Accra,
Central, Ashanti, Western, and Volta regions have fewer people without schooling expe-
rience. In 1993 for instance, 26.2% of all males in the country had no schooling expe-
rience, 38.3% of all females in the country had no schooling experience (See Table 3).
Other amenities, beyond schools, in the urban areas also attracted people from rural
areas. Cinemas, theaters, modern recreational facilities, trading opportunities, and
housing all served as magnets to pull young men and women from the rural areas to the
urban areas. The increase in urban population naturally led to the expansion in educa-
tional institutions in these areas (Grindal, 1972).
 Urbanization and Schooling in Africa 35

Table 3. Rural–urban distributional of educational opportunities in Ghana

Formal-sector
employment

Percentage of population living in Public Private Male Female

urban areas with no with no
schooling schooling
(%) (%)

Residence 1948 1960 1970 1984 2000 2000 2000 1993 1993

All Regions 12.8 23.1 28.9 31.3 43.8 5.9 7.8 26.2 38.3
Western 21.2 24.7 27.6 22.8 36.3 9.3 9.9 17.8 34.1
Central 19 28.5 29.1 26.5 37.5 6.7 6.7 18.5 35.6
Greater Accra 62.2 78.8 85.3 83.5 87.7 29.2 34.8 9.6 19.4
Volta 4.6 13.1 16 20.7 27 7.8 5 20.8 34.3
Eastern 9.7 20.2 24.6 26.7 34.6 9.9 8.2 16.9 27.1
Ashanti 14 25 29.7 32.1 51.3 19.5 21.1 17.4 33
Brong-Ahafo 2.2 15.6 22.1 26.6 37.4 7.1 6.1 21.7 30.8
Northern 7.6 13 21.2 24.7 26.6 5.1 4.8 62 75.9
Upper West – – 6.7 10.8 15.7 2.9 2.1 56.9 67.9
Upper East – – 5.8 8.5 17.5 2.6 1.5 50.9 66.5

Source: Konadu-Agyemang and Adanu, 2003, p. 523.

Largely as a result of these social amenities, the educated people in the Gold Coast
tended to remain in urban areas, where the influence of local traditional practices such
as disregard for the schooling of girls was diminished. This led to a rise in the urban
student population for both boys and girls.
The rapid increase in urban student populations led to a number of problems in the
organization and administration of urban schools, ranging from lack of textbooks to
inadequate furniture, buildings, and teachers. Some of the schools were operated in
one-room houses. Often some of these “served as Sunday school as well as day-school,
and in some cases the chapel” (Bartels, 1949, p. 302). Under such conditions, students
had very little spaces in the classroom to move around to complete projects and other
assignments. Teachers, too, had to work with two or more grade levels at the same time
within the same building. In many instances, students irrespective of their grade level
learned the same things under the same teacher at the same time. This is was very
common with respect to classes such as music, story telling, art, and drawing.

The Curriculum of Early Urban Schools in Ghana

The curriculum of early urban schools consisted essentially of religion, reading, writ-
ing, and arithmetic (See Table 4).
Christian religion served as the bedrock of instruction. Students were taught religious
lessons that were often in contrast to what they had been brought to believe. Traditionally,
children were taught to respect local gods since it was believed that these gods were the
36 Ofori-Attah

Table 4. Early school curriculum in the Gold Coast

Syllabus for the 3 Rs. (1870)*

Subject Class

Standard 1 Standard 2 Standard 3

Reading Narrative in One of the narratives A short paragraph from

Monosyllables
Writing Form on blackboard
or slate, from dictation,
letters, capital and small
manuscript
Arithmetic Form on blackboard or
slate, from dictation,
figures up to 20: add,
subtract figures up to
10 orally, from examples
on blackboard
Reading A short paragraph from a
more advanced reading
used in the school
Writing A sentence slowly dictated
once by a few words at a
time, from the same book
but not from the paragraph
read
Arithmetic A sum in Compound
Rules (money)
next in order after an elementary reading
monosyllables in an book used in the school
elementary reading book
in the school
Copy in manuscript a A sentence from the same
line of print paragraph, and slowly
read once, and then
dictated in single words
A sum in simple addition A sum in any simple rule
or subtraction, and the as far as short division
multiplication table (inclusive)
A few lines of poetry A short ordinary
from a reading book used paragraph in a newspaper,
in the first class of the or other modern narrative,
school slowly dictated once by
a few words at a time
A sentence slowly dictated Another short ordinary
once by a few words at a paragraph in a newspaper,
time, from a reading book or other modern narrative
used in the first class
of the school
A sum in Compound Rules A sum in practice or bills
(Common Weights and of parcels
Measures)

* From Birchenough, History of elementary education, pp. 292–297. See also J. S. Maclure, Educational
documents (1816–1963), p. 80.
Every scholar for whom grants were claimed must be examined according to the above standards.
Source: Graham, 1971, p. 189.

custodians of the whole society. Any infraction on what the gods prescribed was sufficient
to invoke the anger and possible destruction of the entire society.
At school, however, the children learnt that local gods and their teachings were
false, that local gods represented evil ideas and had no place in the kingdom of God.
To many parents, there was no doubt the gods were very much in control of local
affairs. Any attack on the status and role of local gods was an attack on the belief and
value system of the people. Therefore, such teachings in most cases did not sit well
with some parents and so they withdrew their children from school because “the teach-
ers were teaching their children to disrespect their elders” (Grindal, 1972, p. 98).
 Urbanization and Schooling in Africa 37

When the British took over the entire country by the close of the nineteenth century,
English became the language of instruction on all schools throughout Gold Coast. The
fact of the matter was that there was no one particular local language that was recog-
nized as a national language for development. The use of foreign language was not
peculiar to British colonies, or even new to Britain itself. In England, outstanding
scholars produced works in Latin even though English was the official language. Sir
Isaac Newton produced his work Philosophiœ Naturalis Principia Mathematica in
Latin, rather than in his native English. John Locke, a British scholar used the Latin
expression, Tabula Rasa (blank slate) to explain his concept of human learning
(Karier, 1986). It might thus be seen that colonial authorities, with their own history of
using non-native languages in their own schools, would shrink from imposing English
(as well as Latin) on the students of Gold Coast.
History was another of the subjects on the school curriculum. However, it would be
the history of the British Commonwealth, and Great Britain, and Europe that was
taught, in part because it was then commonly thought, by colonial authorities, that
there were no written historical records of the Gold Coast. As a result, missionaries and
the colonial administrators felt free to immerse the African students in the traditions
and values of Europe.
Other subjects such as geography and English literature were taught but with exam-
ples from Europe. As if there were no large lakes or rivers in the Gold Coast, all the
major geographic landforms, climatic conditions, rivers, seasons, rock formation, veg-
etation, animal life, and farming methods mentioned in class were essentially based
upon European examples (Kimble, 1963) (See Table 5).
The influence of British culture and values on education in the Gold Coast can be seen
in a program for a school concert in 1922 at Tamale, one of the major urban centers in the
Northern region. Below is part of the program as presented by Kimble, 1963, p. 118:
Opening song “You Gentlemen of England”
Song “Hurrah! Hurrah for England”
Recitation “Doctor Quack” by Kwaku Dagomba
Song “Our Home is the Ocean Blue”
Dialogue “The Wolf and the Lamb,” by Iddrusu
Tamale is a city which is over 400 miles from the coast. While there may be nothing
wrong with the students singing about England and the ocean, what is discouraging
was the absence of a performance based upon local events. Such practice was common
in all educational activities during the colonial period.
Colonial educators, especially the missionaries, saw the need to permit space in cur-
riculum for local languages. However, beyond this, they wasted little time in eliminating
local influences and practices they considered unacceptable to Christian beliefs and
ethics. As Martin (1976, p. 50) has pointed out:

The missionaries realized that African religion, art, music and other social activ-
ities were very closely connected with each other. They incorrectly thought that
they could not replace existing beliefs with Christianity unless they expelled all
other beliefs. African dancing and music were banned from the curriculum.
38 Ofori-Attah

Table 5. Typical colonial school syllabus in the Gold Coast

Typical Syllabus in Geography, History, and English Literature*

Class Geography History Class English Literature

(as a Specific Subject)

Standard II Definitions, points Not taken below 1st year 100 lines of poetry, got
of compass, form Std. IV by heart, with knowledge
and motion of the of meaning and
earth, the meaning allusions. Writing a letter
of a map on a single subject.
Standard III Outlines of Geography 2nd year 200 lines of poetry not
of Great Britain with before brought up,
special knowledge of repeated; with
the country in which knowledge of meaning
the school is situated and allusions. Writing a
paraphrase of a passage
of early prose
Standard IV Outlines of Geography Outlines of 3rd year 300 lines of poetry, not
of Great Britain, History of England before brought up,
Ireland and the to Norman repeated, with knowledge
Colonies Conquest of meaning and
allusions. Writing a letter
or statement, the heads
of the topics to be given
by Inspectors
Standard V Outlines of Geography Outlines of History
of Europe–physical of England from
and political Norman Conquest
to accession of
Henry VII
Standard VI Outlines of Geography Outlines of History
of the world of England from
Henry VII to death
of George III

* From Birchenough, History of elemantary education, pp. 292–299

Source: Graham, 1971, pp. 190–191.

Although the colonial educators and the missionaries made several attempts to intro-
duce other courses such as agriculture, carpentry, masonry, and other trade subjects
into the school curriculum, these efforts were often resisted by the parents on the
grounds that only academic subjects were essential to equip the African with skills to
merit employment in the new economy thrust upon the people as a result of their contacts
with the Europeans. In 1925, the colonial Committee of Privy Council made a number
of recommendations for improving and expanding the curriculum of the local schools
so as to map them to local needs and interests. The Committee recommended among
other things, as follows:
(1) To inculcate the principles and promote the influence of Christianity by such
instruction as can be given in elementary schools.
(2) To accustom the children of these races to habits of self-control and moral discipline.
 Urbanization and Schooling in Africa 39

(3) To diffuse a grammatical knowledge of the English language as the most impor-
tant agent of civilization.
(4) To make the school the means of improving the condition of the peasantry by
teaching them ho health may be preserved by a proper diet, cleanliness, ventila-
tion and clothing, and by the structure of their dwellings.
(5) To give practical training in household economy and in the cultivation of cottage
garden as well as in those common handicrafts by which a labourer may improve
his domestic comfort.
(6) Improved agriculture is required to replace the system of exhausting the virgin
soils, and then leaving to natural influences alone the work of reparation. The
education of coloured races would, therefore, not be complete for the children of
small farmer, unless it included this object.
(7) Lesson books should teach the mutual interests of mother country, and her
dependencies, the natural basis of this connection and domestic and social
duties of the coloured races.
(8) Lesson books should also set forth simply the relation of wages, capital, and
labour, and the influence of local and general government on personal security
independence, and order (Foster, 1965, p. 55).
These changes did not materialize in any sense because the local people had a different
set of needs for going to school. Agriculture, trade subjects, and vernacular were not part
of the reason they flocked to the schools; they flocked to the schools purely for prestige
or economic reasons and knowledge in local ideas did not measure up to any of the skills
they hoped to acquire by going to school (Blakemore, 1975; Williams, 1964).

Financing Urban Education

The initial financial burden for schools in the urban centers rested with the missionaries.
In many cases parents did not have to pay anything toward the schooling expenditure of
their children. Some missionaries took care of all the needs of the students. The idea of
the missionaries was to train a few local students to help them propagate the gospel.
Another source of funding for urban schools was from fines imposed on colonial
personnel who did not attend church on Sundays and other important days (Graham,
1971). Today, few if any people would pay such fines, but at the time the influence of
Christianity in the schools was so great that no one questioned the morality of the
fines. Although little money was raised from this to support schools, the imposition of
fines on people who did not attend church on important Christian days encouraged
church attendance and consequently the propagation of the gospel.
There were a few social clubs in the urban centers that provided some funds to sup-
port schools. One of this was a Dining Club called the Torridzonian Society. This club
was made up of the new urban elite that were gradually emerging in the Gold Coast
(Reynolds, 1975). The original aim of the society was to maintain friendship among
the educated elite in the Gold Coast. However, as later events showed, members aban-
doned this original goal and made education it principal objective (Martin, 1976).
Apart from providing financial assistance, the Torridzonian Society provided
“primers, spelling books, Testaments and Bibles” to the schools (Martin, 1976, p. 297).
40 Ofori-Attah

People in business found it to their advantage to provide financial assistance to colo-

nial urban schools. The Colonial Merchant Society that operated in the Gold Coast at
that time was made up of business people who were eager to train local people to help
them promote their business. This society needed clerks and other people who could
help them carry out their business activities in the Gold Coast and so gave financial
incentives to students to attend schools. In some cases, they provided direct financial
assistance to the missionaries. Since these people were engaged in trade and industry,
they were able to provide substantial amounts of money to support urban education
(Kimble, 1963).
The “home” governments for the various competing missionaries also provided finan-
cial assistance to promote urban education in the Gold Coast. The Basel, Wesleyan,
Catholic, Bremen, Church of England, AME Zion, et al., missionaries all brought in
substantial sums money of money abroad to support urban education.
In 1900, the Methodist church for instance had 100 schools. These schools were
essentially in the urban centers and were financed as follows:

Government Grants £1,612

Fees £475
Church sources £1,567
Total £3,654
Source: Kimble, 1963, p. 75.

Although the missionaries initially bore a large share of financing urban education,
when the colonial government became actively involved in the development and
promotion of education in the country, the government played a leading role in the
financing of education in the country as a whole, rural as well as urban.
Finally, the British colonial administration provided grants to support urban educa-
tion. Although the British colonial office was reluctant to provide grants to support
mission schools, in order to promote education in the country, given the overwhelming
percentage of schools run by missionary effort, it had no choice but to provide finan-
cial assistance to the mission schools. However, the mission schools had to meet
certain conditions in order to quality for these grants. The grants paid to schools in
were based on student achievement which was measured by test results (Kimble,
1963). As Graham (1971) had pointed out:

The grants were to be based mainly on such subjects as Reading, Writing, and
Arithmetic, and girls were to be examined in needlework. Grants could also be got
for such “optional” subjects as History and Geography. The local Boards were to
assist in the administration of the grants-in-aid system whenever these were
considered necessary. (p. 111)

Urban School Organization: The Boarding School System

The missionaries and early colonial educators found it necessary to institute boarding
schools in the urban areas so as to be able to provide education for children in an
 Urbanization and Schooling in Africa 41

environment that was devoid of local influences. The boarding schools in particular
offered “homes” for students whose parents lived in the rural areas. Some of the board-
ing schools were set up solely for girls; others were exclusively for boys, with few
offering space to both girls and boys. In these urban boarding schools, more attention
was paid to the academic work than subjects such as gardening (Graham, 1971).
Fees and other important items were also clearly spelled out on the prospectus (See
Figure 4).
The boarding houses were designed to help the school authorities weaken or destroy
the bonds of local tradition the students were familiar with. In advocating for the estab-
lishment of more boarding schools, Guggisberg (1922) argued that boarding schools
are essential for the education of the African especially in terms of character training.
Guggisberg saw the absence of more boarding schools in the Gold Coast as one of the
main defects of the educational system. As he put it:
… there is a … far more serious defect, (of our educational system) namely, the
absence of efficient character training. This is chiefly due to the lack of Boarding

PROSPECTUS OF THE COLLEGIATE SCHOOL

(19th March, 1876)

WESLEYAN HIGH SCHOOL—CAPE COAST

PRINCIPAL: James Picot, Esquire.
The Boarding Department of the above school will open on Monday, 3rd July.
TERMS: Three Guineas per Quarter
The following subjects are taught in the school, viz:
I ENGLISH: In all its branches. A thorough instruction will be imparted at a charge of one
guinea per quarter.
II EXTRA STUDIES: for each of which an extra charge will be made of seven shillings and sixpence
per quarter as numbered.
Classics: (1) Latin; (2) Greek.
Mathematics: (1) Geometry and Mensuration; (2) Algebra; (3) Trigonometry.
Sciences: (1) Chemistry; (2) Animal Physiology; (3) Natural Philosophy.
Modern Languages: (1) French.
N.B.––1st: All applications and payments must be made to the Superintendent, the latter to be
Quarterly, in advance. No child will be admitted by the Principal who cannot produce her Quarterly
receipt for the payment of all fees.
2nd: The academical year consists of two sessions, with a vacation of two weeks at the end of
the first in June, and of four weeks at the close of the second. No Boarders will be allowed to remain
on the premises during the vacation.
3rd: Parents desiring their children to belong to the Boarding Department must first correspond
with the Superintendent on the subject.
Cape Coast, 19th March, 1876.
By 1891 the scope of the syllabus had widened to include subjects such as Fanti and
Bookkeeping (The Gold Coast People––Supplement, p. 1. 26/10/1891).

Figure 4. Prospectus for girls in a Boarding School in Cape Cost, 1876

Source: Graham, 1971, p. 192.
42 Ofori-Attah

Schools, where such qualities as sense of responsibility, initiative, leadership and

discipline can be gradually, and unconsciously to himself, imbued in the boy; for,
however earnest and painstaking the Master may be, it practically impossible to
imbue the scholars with those qualities which go to form character if the boys are
for less than one-third of the day under their control and influence. (p. 84)

Once in the boarding house, the students had little contact with the outside world.
They also had very little to do with local practices; they were not permitted to do
certain things such using vernacular to communicate with others, eating local dish,
singing local songs, or observing any local event such as the death of a relative.
Nearly everything students did in the boarding schools had to be approved by school
authorities.
The interests of the schools authorities were not the same as those of the students
and so there was often mistrust between the school authorities and the student body.
Students lived according to strict code of ethics. They had to sleep and wake up, eat,
study, or go to classes at specific times. They cleaned their dormitories and classrooms
and swept and looked after the compound every morning. It was considered an offense
for a student to attend class or go to town in a uniform not approved by the school
authorities. Students needed a special permit called “exeats” to leave the premises of
the boarding house. A student could be given severe punishment such as expulsion for
violating the dress code or leaving the boarding house without permission.
In the colonial urban schools, both boys and girls had similar education. Both stud-
ied courses like English, history, geography, reading and writing. While in the boarding
house, all students were required to have own items such as the Holy Bible, cutlass,
pressing iron, hymn book, bucket, sponges, bed sheets, a pillow and pillow slips, drink-
ing cups, spoons, knife, fork, and plates. In addition to the above, girls in the boarding
house were expected to have the following items.

12 pairs of scissors
1 lb. cotton in Ball
1 lb. cotton in Hanks
1 lb. of cotton in Darning
800 Queen’s needles
200 Darning needles
12 Silver Thimbles
Source: Graham, 1971, p. 72.

The girls needed the above items for their housecraft course. In such classes, the girls
learned how to cut and sew European dresses, how to knight sweaters. In the cookery
class, they learned how to bake English cakes, biscuits, bread. Later, the school author-
ities expanded the cookery lessons to include local dishes such as peanut-butter or
palm nut soup (Masemann, 1974). While the girls usually studied their courses in a
separate building on the compound, the boys busied themselves with courses like
carpentry, masonry, iron works, agriculture or other courses that were considered
appropriate for a male student.
 Urbanization and Schooling in Africa 43

From the above illustrations, it is clear that one of the chief objectives for educating
girls was to provide them training that would make them suitable wives or partners for
the new elites in the society. On the other hand the curriculum for the boys, as noted
above, prepared them for various positions in missionary and mercantile jobs. They
learned reading and writing like the girls but were more frequently sent overseas to
study other technical and commercial subjects that eventually qualified them to occupy
top positions in government and missionary work.

Dysfunctional Consequences of Urban Education on

Traditional and Social Practices
The oft-presumed primary goal of schooling is to train people to be responsible and
competent citizens who will see the role they play in society as vital to the overall
development of their nation. However, this has always not been the case. Often we
hear of people developing negative sentiments in society as a result of the training
they received at school. This was what happened in the Gold Coast during the colo-
nial days.
The nature of education provided in the Gold Coast by the missionaries and the
colonial government brought about several social problems. These problems included
dislike and distrust of manual work, local items such as dress, and local languages and
names. Perhaps, these problems emerged because the missionaries and the colonial
government had different aim in mind when they opened schools in the Gold Coast.
As already pointed out, their main goal was to train clerks and missionaries to manage
the affairs of the Gold Coast. This view would come to be shared by parents and oth-
ers who enrolled their children in the various schools that later appeared all over the
Gold Coast. In order words, the educational system was initially set up to produce peo-
ple who would not do manual work. So when the new economy could not absorb the
labor of all those who had completed school, these people did not want to accept any
job that required manual labor. At best, manual work was fit for only people who could
not read or write and not for those who could speak, write or read English. In 1909, in
address to the African Society in London, Rodger (1909), observed:

All the main problems of the Gold Coast … are connected directly or indirectly,
with Education, Sanitation, or Transport … . We found that the training in our
schools was too exclusively literary, with the result that hundreds of boys were
turned out every year who expected to obtain posts in the Government Service or
as clerks in mercantile offices. When unable to obtain such appointments, of
which the number is quite insufficient for the very numerous candidates, they
become restless and discontented, and agitate against the well-being of the
Colony … . (p. 9)

Another dysfunctional consequence of early urban education system was the impact
on local languages. In boarding schools (and perhaps in all schools), students were not
permitted to use vernacular and so they saw this as a sign of “enlightenment” because
44 Ofori-Attah

whatever they learned at school was presumed to promote excellent human behavior.
Some of the students would not speak it at any place. This was particularly the case
where both parents had been to school. At home, they encouraged their children to
speak English because they saw their children, as Plato put it, as “Children of Gold”
and not “Children of Bronze.” In Takoradi, the local Fanti women who had been to
school formed an association called The Ladies Mutual Club. One of their “rules of
engagement” was that no one was permitted to speak Fanti, a local language, during
their meetings.
Local dress also suffered. Educated Africans often refused to any longer “adopt all
the trappings of traditional life” (Graham, 1971, p. 8). They did not like to dress like
those who had not been to school. For the educated man, or “Krakye” (literate man),
the prescribed clothes were those of European origin – suit, tie, shirt, hat, pointed
shoes. The educated woman, “lady,” or “Awuraba” (literate woman) was expected to
show her mark of social distinction by wearing Victorian style frocks, hats, straw
bonnets, coats, and shoes. One of the rules of the Ladies Club in Takoradi referred to
earlier was that “members who went out in native dress should be fined” (Kimble,
1963, p. 134).
Other local customs, values and traditional practices suffered. Those educated in
colonial schools were taught to believe that local practices were all outmoded or
uncivilized practices or fetish observances. In Ashanti, for instance, a converted
Christian urged his followers not to serve their King in any way because a service to
the King was tantamount to “fetish worship” (Tordoff, 1965, p. 198). In another
instance, a Christian who was rebuked by a local pastor for disobeying a chief, the
Christian argued by saying “What is meant then by being a Christian” (Tordoff,
1965, p. 197).
While at school, each student was given a Christian name. This was seen by the
“converts” as indication of enlightenment and the acceptance of the Christian religion
as a new way of life. This implied that local rules or customary laws were not applica-
ble to such people. In a sense, Christians were “above” traditional laws and customs,
customs that the elders had lived with for centuries. In the urban areas where most of
the students acquired their literary skills, respect for local authority diminished and
became, in some cases, non-existent. Although as the century wore on, some educated
people made attempts to reverse these tendencies, the harm had already been done.
The urban (as well as the few rural) school curriculum was designed in such a way that
students in the Gold Coast continued to embrace European way of life and preferred
anything European to African.

Conclusion
This paper has traced the historical developments of urbanization and education in the
Gold Coast. It has clearly demonstrated that there is a direct link between urbanization
and formal schooling. As in many other countries, formal schooling started in the Gold
Coast in the urban areas. These urban areas were the administrative centers for the
colonial administrators and the early missionaries who sowed the seed for modern
 Urbanization and Schooling in Africa 45

education the Gold Coast, the present-day Ghana. Generally, the distribution of popu-
lation determined the distribution of education opportunities in that country (Graham,
1971; Kimble, 1963).
Initially, the beneficiaries of formal schooling were the children of missionaries,
colonial administrators, local elites, and rich merchants. As the centuries wore on, the
base for selection of children for schooling expanded to include rural as well as urban
children (Bibby, 1973). However, for a variety of reasons, students in the urban areas
enjoyed better facilities at school than those at the rural areas.
The early missionaries and the colonial government worked hand-in-hand to lay the
foundations for formal education in the Gold Coast. These two bodies collaborated in
many areas concerning school organization, finance, administration and curriculum
development although each had a different goal in promoting formal schooling in the
country. In order to have significant control over what the students learned or did, the
early colonial administrators and the missionaries set up the boarding school system,
where students were expected to pay no heed to local customs and traditions. European
patterns of thinking and social behavior were rigidly enforced at the boarding houses
by the school administrators. This in part accounted for the reason why urban students
rapidly lost respect and love for any custom, tradition, or social practice that had
African roots. Although the educational system the missionaries and colonial adminis-
trators set up had defects in terms of curriculum alignment and mapping, the system
served as the bedrock of modern educational system in the country.
One factor that emerged from this study is that the demand for schooling had eco-
nomic as well as social need (Rado, 1972). The new economy, which the colonial
administration brought into the country, required the services of people who could
read, write and speak English. As Kimble, (1963) put it:

English became the language of government, of overseas trade, and, in particular, of

the schools. Education, to many people, came to mean simply the ability to speak
and write English. It was both the gateway to opportunity and the main medium of
communication between educated Africans of different tribes. (p. 510)

It did not require a skill to use any of the local languages or farming skills to land a
job in the new economy. In point of fact, their main objective of going to school was
purely materialistic. These students saw schooling as a means of attaining better
incomes and a higher standard of living. Hence, students did not pay attention to the
acquisition of any skill that had no immediate bearing on what they wanted to
accomplish after spending a number of years in school. In other words, their objec-
tive for attending school was not significantly different than any other students,
whether in Europe, Asia, North or South America (Anderson, 1965; Briones &
Waisanen, 1976).

Note
1. Ashanti king.
46 Ofori-Attah

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Rodger, J. P. (1909). The Gold Coast of to-day. Journal of Royal African Society, 9(33), 1–19.
Silver, J. (1981). The failure of European mining companies in the nineteenth-century Gold Coast. The
Journal of African History, 22(4), 511–529.
Thomas, R. G. (1974). Education in Northern Ghana, 1906–1940: A study in colonial paradox. The
International Journal of African Historical Studies, 7(3), 427–467.
Tordoff, W. (1965). Ashanti under the Prempehs: 1888–1935. London: Oxford University Press.
Williams, D. T. (1964). Sir Gordon Guggisberg and educational reform in the Gold Coast. Comparative
Education Review, 8(3), 290–306.
Wise, C. (1956). A history of education in British West Africa. London: Longmans, Green and Company.
3

LANGUAGE EDUCATION IN CAMEROON:

FROM THE COLONIAL ERA TO THE
21ST CENTURY

Funwi F. Ayuninjam
Winston-Salem State University, U.S.A.

Introduction
Preliminary
Language multiplicity is an easily perceptible trait among African countries. With the
exception of a dozen countries with two primary languages,1 and another seven coun-
tries with three primary languages,2 the remaining two-thirds of Africa’s nations are
awash with languages, including colonial and contact ones. However, the choice of
which language to use for formal education was never that of the speakers, but of colo-
nial administrators, based on economic and political interests, or cultural or religious/
ethnocentric biases. For similar reasons, colonial languages were introduced either to
supplant indigenous ones, or indigenous languages were introduced to supplant their
indigenous counterparts, or some languages were suppressed altogether.3 In sum, the
language situation in sub-Saharan Africa has had a checkered history and has not prop-
erly served the peoples due to many factors, including European imperialism, colonial-
ism, and a myopic vision by post-colonial leaders. Okrah imputes the responsibility for
failed educational reforms in Africa partially on poor pedagogical leadership, fiscal
strain, and lack of parental cooperation (2003, p. 13).
A UNESCO study has established that investing beyond primary education to sec-
ondary and tertiary education is economically rewarding over the long haul, and,
inversely, countries whose budgetary allocations for education have been only a pit-
tance have been left at the bottom of the pile. This correlation under girds Makulu’s
(1971) position that “African education needs not the luxury of unproductive, philo-
sophically oriented education but education that will produce men and women that
will help in the exploitation of the technical coming of age of Africa in the task of
nation building” (Okrah, 2003, p. 18).
A people’s social, economic, or political advancement is a function of its educa-
tional advancement. That symbiotic relationship (investment in education and

49
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 49–74.
© 2007 Springer.
50 Ayuninjam

national development) explains why the most developed nations of the world have
placed a high premium on education – in particular, research and development
(R&D). In the data that follow, the parenthetical information shows public expen-
diture on education, followed by budgetary allocations for R&D – each as a per-
centage of gross domestic product: Denmark (8.5%; 2.5%), Sweden (7.7%; 4.27%),
Switzerland (5.8%; 2.63%), USA (5.7%; 2.67%), France (5.6%; 2.27%), the United
Kingdom (5.3%; 1.88%), and Canada (5.2%; 2.0%). All these countries have pri-
mary-to-secondary-school transition rates of 99 or 100%. Cameroon, for its part,
spends 3.8% of its GDP on education – the highest in Central Africa, but has the
second lowest primary-to-secondary-school transition rate (43%).4 (No data were
available on R&D spending). Based on the same source, sub-Saharan Africa invests
the least among the developing regions of the world, at 2.6%, compared to 4.2% in
Latin America.
It is evident from the preceding data that educational policy is, ought to be, an
intentional, considered choice, and a choice that has meaning for the intended benefi-
ciaries; that is, education should be relevant, valuable, and applicable to the educated.
The educational policy must be malleable and must evolve with the nation’s character.
A crucial aspect of education is language, because it constitutes an essential pillar of
cognitive development and a prime vector of the people’s culture and philosophy.
Yet, as Urch (1992) points out, the African language curriculum has remained a
problem without a solution:

nowhere is the dilemma of traditionalism versus modernism more evident than in

the language policy found in educational systems throughout Africa. The policy
and ensuing practice remain an explosive issue in many countries today. While
demands exist for a “National Language,” it is apparent that the ethnic tongues
used in the 19th century are not sufficient to prepare the youths for the 21st cen-
tury. Policies vary throughout the continent between the need to promote social
and political cohesiveness through an African vernacular and the need for a
European language to assist in the modernization process. (Okrah, p. 21)

The rest of this chapter examines closely language considerations for Cameroon from
the imperial period through the wake of the second millennium. The chapter seeks
to answer these questions: What factors – pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial –
shaped language education policies in Cameroon; and how effectively have the policies
served the nation?

The Language Situation in Colonial Cameroon: The Pre-War Era

Cameroon, with a population of 15,731,000 people, is a linguistic and racial cross-
roads in Africa, with over 250 different ethnic groups and 279 indigenous languages –
making it the sixth most linguistically diverse nation in the world, after Papua New
Guinea, Indonesia, Nigeria, India, and Mexico (Spolsky, 2004, p. 174). There are five
major regional-cultural groups: western highlanders (or grass fielders – 38%); coastal
tropical forest peoples (18%); southern tropical forest peoples (18%); predominantly
 Language Education in Cameroon 51

Islamic peoples of the northern semi-arid regions (14%); and, the Kirdi-non-Islamic or
recently Islamic peoples of the northern desert and central highlands (18%). Five main
language groups are also identifiable: Bantu Southerners (who speak Duala, Fang, and
Bulu); Bantu Northwesterners (who speak Ngemba); Semi-Bantu Highlanders (who
speak Bamileke and Bamum); Sudanic Northerners (who speak Hausa, Margi, Kapsigi,
and Fulani); and Easterners (who speak Beti). In addition to these are English and
French – official languages used in government. Also worth noting are trade languages:
Hausa, Fulani, Duala, and Pidgin-English.
Community education in Cameroon, as with most of colonial Africa, has its roots in
the Mission. Language education dates back to the mid-1880s with a translation of the
Bible into Duala, which, as Cameroon’s first codified language, quickly became both
a tool for learning and a basis for excluding the other languages.5 Evangelization was
initiated by the British Baptist Missionary Society in 1845 under the leadership of
Joseph Merrick and Alfred Saker, but was quickly replaced by the German-controlled
Basler Missionary (also called Basel Mission) due to political maneuvering that
involved Dr. Nachtigal (von Bismarck’s representative in Cameroon), the Douala
chiefs, King Akwa, King Bell, King Hickory, and Kum’a Mbape (Tabi-Manga, 2000,
pp. 16–20).
The departure of the British ushered in a new phase for Cameroon’s educational
system; missionary schools were necessarily tied to evangelization:

… les Bâlois f ûrent convaincus de la nécessité de construire et d’avoir des écoles

pour faire avancer la cause de l’évagélisation. Car la lecture de la Bible ne peut
s’apprendre efficacement sans l’école. Par ailleurs, la formation des catéchistes
et pasteurs indigènes nécessitait un apprentissage de la lecture et de l’écriture.
(Tabi-Manga, p. 21)

Due to the multiplicity of languages in Cameroon and due to the fact that Duala was
codified and had already been chosen as a state language by von Soden, Duala easily
became a language of instruction in school. This choice might have set in motion
Cameroon’s linguistic conflict, as the citizens of Victoria (now Limbe), for instance,
already schooled in English and German and for whom Duala is non-native, would not
accept the latter, citing professional advancement or employment prospects (p. 22).
German Catholic missionaries arrived in Cameroon in 1890 and quickly gained
ground over the Protestant Basel Mission thanks to their political and linguistic liber-
alism and savvy. They taught German as well as several native languages – and trans-
lated the Bible into several of these languages (pp. 24–25). However, while the
Catholics adopted a bilingual model of education – beginning schooling in vernacular
languages, and then progressively introducing German in later primary years, the
Catholics mainstreamed their pupils in German – both as a subject and as the medium
of instruction (p. 27). However, in 1910, Governor Seitz decreed that German would
be the lone language of instruction in all of Cameroon. The missionaries could not
contravene this decree, on pain of losing school funding.
Amidst the growing tension among the missionaries, a conference was organized
on April 7, 1914 in Berlin to address the language question in Cameroon. Governor
52 Ayuninjam

Karl Ebermaier proposed Swahili as a regional language from coast to coast; the
proposal failed in part because of strong objections from Britain, a colonial power in
Uganda. Fr. Nekes proposed Ewondo for the entire Cameroonian territory, citing its use
in the military, in the police, and by aides – a proposal which, today, would have made
sense in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Lingala is the sole language of the
military. The conference ended with no set language policy other than consideration to
divide Cameroon into linguistic zones. However, with Germany’s defeat in World War I,
all of its colonies were given to the vanquishers as mandates. West Cameroon (Northern
Cameroon and Southern Cameroon) went to Britain, and East Cameroon to France.
Because Britain and France had markedly different colonial ideologies, reflected in
their respective “civilizing missions,” the assignment of Cameroon to these powers
would irreversibly alter the country’s landscape both politically and culturally; and the
most significant and indelible aspect of the cultural transformation pertains to the edu-
cational systems. Language education has remained the most identifying landmark of
those systems, and to it we now turn briefly.

Language Education in Cameroon: The French and British Mandates

France exercised “direct rule” in Cameroon, as in all its other colonial territories
(Khapoya, 1997, pp. 128–130). By this system of administration, France had direct
control of every facet of life in Cameroon, including its educational system. The
school system under French mandate had three tiers: village schools, in which basic
French relating to rural life, hygiene, and agriculture was taught; regional schools,
where systematic French language programs were taught; and adult schools, which
provided basic literacy (reading and writing) in French (Tabi-Manga, p. 35). France’s
educational policy ran up against a rapidly spreading Pidgin-English influence, which
had been permitted and encouraged by the Germans – an influence the French author-
ities meant to stop decisively. Tabi-Manga explains this influence in terms of its
linguistic relationship to Bantu languages as well as ideology thus:

La simplicité de ses structures phonologiques, morpho-syntaxiques, et lexicales

le faisait s’apparenter étroitement aux langues camerounaises. Ces rapproche-
ments structurels potentiels n’étaient pas de nature à apaiser l’administration
coloniale française. Car les populations noires pouvaient, sur cette base, assimi-
ler plus facilement le pidgin à la place du français. Alors, œuvrer à l’expansion
de la langue française par l’éducation, la scolarisation, revenait à accomplir un
devoir patriotique! (p. 36)

The Cameroonian school system under the British mandate followed these guiding
principles: caution with theoretical models of education, acceptance of diversity, free
choice of value system, and school autonomy. The British elementary school system,
thus, sought to develop individual character through boarding schools, while boarding
schools inculcated in students a good work ethic, honesty, humanism, and discipline –
spiritual and physical (Tabi-Manga, p. 55). The British policy was overtly racist, and
included strict guidelines differentiating social institutions like schools, recreational
 Language Education in Cameroon 53

facilities, and hospitals; there were, as a consequence, European schools, Africans

schools, Arab schools, and Asian schools (Khapoya, p. 119). This policy was very
much in line with Britain’s colonial policy of “indirect rule” and ultimately made for
minimal development, as is evident in other countries that Britain colonized.
A May 1926 “School Ordinance,” published by the Department of Education,
allowed the British administration to intervene directly in the administration of mis-
sion schools and required schools to, among other things, admit pupils without
regard for their philosophical or religious convictions. As if this were insufficient ire
for the Basel Mission, the British authorities added an English-only requirement for
the diploma-granting schools, ostensibly targeting the missionaries, who favored
Duala and Bali. The Basel Mission response – complete cessation of the use of
English in their schools – in turn triggered a ban on native languages or Pidgin-
English in all the schools, with one proviso: “Unless two thirds of the pupils in
class speak a proposed vernacular.”6 This policy, eventually upheld by the nascent
Cameroonian government on September 27, 1958, was quite evident on many
secondary school campuses over the following decades, and the present writer expe-
rienced that linguistic tension as a secondary school student in the 1970s. Then,
school prefects and upperclassmen were empowered (and they gladly obliged) to
punish their lower classmates who were caught speaking either Pidgin-English or a
Cameroonian language anywhere on campus.

Language and (Urban) Education

First-Language Education in Cameroon7
The National Language Education Program was born in 1967 under the aegis of the
Ministry of National Education, and in 1974 the project Atlas Linguistique du
Cameroun (ALCAM) was launched by Professor H. M. Bot ba Njock of the University
of Yaounde I, and then buoyed up by French linguists Paul Renaud and Michel Dieu.
In 1976, the French Agency for Cultural and Technical Cooperation (ACCT) adopted
this framework as a basis for cataloguing languages in all of Central Africa – the entire
work is titled Atlas Linguistique de l’Afrique Centrale (ALAC). ALCAM sought, inter
alia, to identify all linguistic varieties in Cameroon, locate the varieties geographi-
cally, compare and classify them by distinct languages, describe these languages
systematically, and record all previous works relating to these languages (Tabi-Manga,
pp. 71–72). The Operational Research Project for Language Education in Cameroon
(better known by its French acronym PROPELCA) was launched in 1978 by the
Department of African Languages and Linguistics of the University of Yaounde I.
In 1981, PROPELCA and the National Language Education Program merged their
curricula and have since pursued experimental research on first-language instruction
at all levels of formal education in Cameroon. Actual classroom instruction has come
a long way – beginning in 1967 (at Coll ège Libermann) with one language and one
classroom, and reaching 34 languages and as many as 23 classrooms per language by
1995, for a total of 56 classrooms (Ayuninjam, 1999, p. 23).
54 Ayuninjam

Tadadjeu et al. (1988) explain how the introduction of Cameroonian languages

into the regular academic curricula has been slow in coming, especially as compared
to similar initiatives in other African countries. While the undoing of the assimila-
tionist legacy of the colonial administrations on Africa’s systems of education was
largely a matter of time, Cameroon – simultaneously colonized by the English and
French – was about to embark on a campaign to justify the need for a departure from
the colonial philosophy of education. That is why since 1960 – when Cameroon
became independent – its educational system, particularly as it pertained to lan-
guages and literature, was practically alien and in large measure a disservice to its
intended beneficiaries. Post-independence leaders either lacked the courage to intro-
duce educational reform or were plain uneducated as to how to bring it about, if at
all they valued it.
Prior to, and for some time following, the colonial administrations’ trusteeships of
the Anglophone and Francophone territories, German, English, and French missionar-
ies set up programs of first-language instruction, although their major commitment
was “to transpose the Christian message through translations into African languages”
(Fabian, 1986, p. 76). These programs were all conveniently abandoned by the colo-
nialists for different but complementary reasons: the French because such programs
would only hinder their mission to bring up Cameroonians as French citizens, and the
English because, knowing from the start of their trusteeship of Anglophone Cameroon
that they would one day leave, they had no interest in undertaking any project that
would be of long-lasting benefit to the subjects (Tadadjeu et al., 1988, pp. 10–11).
Njeuma arrives at a similar conclusion in an attempt to account for the failure of
Cameroonian historians to present a broad-based history inclusive of German, French,
British and Cameroonian indigenous literature. He writes, “Even those [historians]
who have studied at the University of Yaounde [Cameroon] have followed programs
which were tailored to fit the systems in the former metropolitan countries” (Njeuma,
1989, p. xi). The consequence to the Cameroonian at large is incredible ignorance of
the most basic historical or economic facts about his or her country. Ironically,
Professor Njeuma was from 1979 to 1982 Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social
Sciences (which included the History Department) of the University of Yaounde I. This
mental preconditioning by which Cameroonians for 25 years had sought to run away
from their own shadows is what Tadadjeu and others find the most destructive conse-
quence of that country’s colonial heritage, as they state:

En tout état de cause il faut retenir que le plus grand mal que l’école coloniale ait
fait chez nous c’est exactement cette extraversion socio-psychologique par laque-
lle nous méprisons collectivement nos propres valeurs et nous tournons, aussi
collectivement, vers qui nous sont extérieures, étrangères, et à la longue nuisibles.
(2000, p. 14)

Given the foregoing, it has sometimes been considered unusual, even insulting, to jus-
tify the teaching of Cameroon’s indigenous languages to her citizens. But if one were
to justify this endeavor, any such effort must prove that by virtue both of content
and methodology, there is a perceptible departure from the traditional Eurocentric
 Language Education in Cameroon 55

approach, and that the learning experience for the young Cameroonian is authentically
and uncompromisingly Cameroonian. Since culture is the prime distinguishing char-
acteristic of a people, language should be used as the prime vector of the correspon-
ding culture. Kluckhohn and Kelly (1945) define culture as “all those historically
created designs for living, explicit and implicit, rational, irrational, and nonrational,
which exist at any given time as potential guides for the behavior of men” (p. 97).
Hence, the study of a language inevitably entails a study of the culture of the language
community. For instance, the French terms salut, bonjour, and bonsoir may each mean
a variety of things:

salut: “hi”; “good bye”

bonjour: “hello”; “good morning”; “good afternoon”; “good day”; “good evening”;
“How d’ you do?”
bonsoir: “hello”; “good evening”; “good night”; “too bad!”; “not a chance!”

In the above examples, while the French and English languages have some way of
verbalizing the conceptual difference between informal usage, as with greeting an
acquaintance (salut/hi) and formal usage, as with greeting a non-acquaintance (bonjour/
hello), Bantu languages, for instance, do not have the same type of social distinction.
Because the concept of deference to an individual owing to unfamiliarity exists in all
African cultures as it does in France and England (as demonstrated by bonjour and
hello), this particular linguistic distinction may constitute a lexical gap in Bantu lan-
guages. On the other hand, the terms hello and good evening may each be verbalized in
French either by saying bonsoir or bonjour, depending on the speech situation.
The concept of kissing is alien to African cultures, which explains the absence of a
lexical equivalent in African languages for the term kiss. There is no way of reasonably
talking about the four seasons in any African language; by the same token, no Western
farmer ordinarily talks in terms of a wet or dry season, certainly not in the same sense
as the tropical African does. Such lexical gaps are illustrations of Pike’s belief that lan-
guage is the key to culture. In the same vein, any genuine endeavor to learn a language
must entail the use of the language’s culture, not a foreign culture. The rest of this sec-
tion demonstrates how Cameroon’s National Language Education Program is a reflec-
tion of the people’s cultural heritage – as seen in the program’s underlying motives, its
objectives and actual projects, and the pedagogical methods that under gird it.

Language Education as a Reflection of Cameroon’s Cultural Heritage

The motivation behind Cameroon’s first-language education program is fourfold: histor-
ical, cultural, pedagogical, and scientific. Historically, the program sought to join ranks
with other English-speaking African nations that had much earlier realized the need for,
and were already vigorously pursuing, similar programs, resulting in a redefinition of
their identity in terms of their own human experience, culture, and history. These coun-
tries included Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda (Bamgbose, 1991; Dalle,
1981). However, Bamgbose notes that some of the countries that had instituted first-
language education programs eventually reverted to foreign official languages as the
56 Ayuninjam

exclusive medium of instruction. They include Zaire (back to French), Kenya, Zambia,
Ghana, and Nigeria (back to English) (Bamgbose, p. 71). In Cameroon, the PRO-
PELCA project on Lamnso’ (the language spoken in Nso) and Mungaka (the language
spoken in Bali) – both in the Anglophone zone – did not start from scratch as for virtu-
ally every other language, since preliminary studies had been done in these languages.
Lamso’ and Mungaka had been committed to writing before the advent of the national
campaign.
From a cultural perspective, a people without an indigenous language are also a people
without an indigenous culture or a cultural identity. One sure way of securing Cameroon’s
varied cultures is by stopping the linguistic flight, thus, bridging the ever-widening cul-
tural and communication gap for the younger speakers for whom the folklore stands the
risk of becoming extinct along with its aging population that has traditionally handed it
down through generations. Hence, preserving indigenous languages is an imperative to
maintaining the generational link between the living and their descendants. This oral tra-
dition is also part of the African diasporic heritage, and as the world is growing increas-
ingly smaller, these languages and cultures will serve as some of the many needed links
between the African peoples and the African Diaspora. Here the linguist has an undeniable
responsibility.
The third and perhaps most practical reason behind Cameroon’s language program is
scientific. Generations of Cameroonians are being born into a world of ever-changing
scientific and technological development, but again a science- and technology-driven
world in which they and their parents are passive consumers of foreign technology. The
hope, therefore, is to instill in children as early as possible (using a practical tool – the
language they already speak) a creative spirit and a thirst for invention based on obser-
vation and experimentation. The claim that African languages are either unsuitable for
or unamenable to scientific study is only an excuse given the economic and technolog-
ical advances of Asian countries, some of which achieved their independence after most
African countries. China is on a path to surpassing the United States as an economic
power; with that prospect, the Chinese language is fast gaining popularity in schools
around the world, including Zimbabwe, where it has by a recent presidential decree
been imposed on all university students.8
Cameroon’s national language program also has a pedagogical incentive – one
which emanates from local research conducted on primary school children. Results of
immersion studies in Canada also served as encouragement to Cameroonian authori-
ties as they weighed their options. In both cases, there was substantial evidence in sup-
port of potential benefits of beginning formal education in a Cameroonian language
before either English or French on the one hand and, on the other, early bilingual edu-
cation in English and French. The research in Cameroon proved that subjects not only
began the study of their first official language (OL1) with a more positive attitude, but
were able to quickly transfer learned language-processing skills (primarily reading
and writing) and problem-solving skills (the basic arithmetical operations) from the
mother tongue to the first official language. If learning the mother tongue had as its
sole benefit a measurable reduction in children’s anxiety about confronting a new and
totally alien linguistic code, such learning would still be very worthwhile.
 Language Education in Cameroon 57

The language problem in Cameroon is compounded by the presence and widespread

use of Pidgin-English among urban Anglophone pre-school children – a problem
which their Francophone counterparts do not face, since there exists no comparable
French-based lingua franca. Pidgin-English constitutes a “problem” in that when the
Anglophone children begin school, they have to contend with three languages, instead
of two. The recommendation that Pidgin-English be used by teachers as an intermedi-
ary between the Cameroonian language being taught and English – once the latter is
introduced (Tadadjeu et al., p. 20) may be effective in the short term, but over time lan-
guage planners must still come to grips with the Pidgin-English polemic. Thus, while
the behaviorist-based Watsonian theory of speech production may appear extreme, if
not simplistic according to cognitive psychologists (cf. Bruner, 1966; Osgood, 1953;
Slobin, 1987), it does provide some insight into the relationship between language and
cognitive growth: language can mirror thought – a difference in thought being related
to a difference in language. Based on a UNESCO classification, Pidgin-English
(designated as a “Creole”) is a community language in Cameroon,9 and will be treated
as such here.
Corresponding to the reasons cited above for undertaking this language research
are objectives, which differ between primary education and secondary education.
PROPELCA’s objectives, submitted at the National Forum on Education in May 1995
are in two stages:
At the primary school level PROPELCA seeks to accomplish these goals:

(1) Integrate the child into the written communication system in the mother tongue
within his or her community. Thus, the mother tongue will be the necessary
bridge between the school and the local community.
(2) Integrate the child into his or her socio-cultural and educational milieu by means
of an initial teaching in his or her mother tongue.
(3) Awaken, at an early stage, the scientific and the technological spirit of the child
by teaching him or her arithmetic and basic technological principles in his or her
mother tongue.
(4) Establish a balanced bilingualism between mother tongue and first official lan-
guage within the first 3 years of primary school.
(5) In the urban centers, place particular emphasis on the teaching of the lingua(e)
franca(e) of the area, since most pupils in urban centers (especially in the
Francophone provinces) start school with a good knowledge of the first official
language.
At the secondary school level PROPELCA seeks to accomplish these goals:

(1) Enable the student to learn to read and write his or her mother tongue or second
indigenous language so as to deepen the literature and the cultural heritage asso-
ciated to that language.
(2) Expose the student to another indigenous language different from his or her own
so that he or she can appreciate the culture associated to this second language,
while at the same time becoming integrated into a wider communication network.
58 Ayuninjam

Among the cultural aspects of the specific objectives submitted to the National Forum
are the following: a blooming of the child’s personality and deepening of his or her tra-
ditional culture, as well as an initiation into activities concerned with traditional crafts-
manship, environment, and morals (PROPELCA proposal, 4–6). There is, clearly, an
indication here that Cameroon’s language program is intended to immerse the chil-
dren in their own culture (what PROPELCA refers to in its proposal as “incultura-
tion”) – reversing a century of assimilation to European cultures (acculturation).
To achieve these objectives, PROPELCA carried out many projects and organized
many workshops and seminars. It produced didactic materials (pre-primers, primers,
and post-primers) – all of which “take into account the culture and the immediate envi-
ronment of that language” (PROPELCA proposal, 11); it also produced a teachers’
manual on national literatures and cultures. However, the methodology in all the books
is the same, irrespective of the indigenous language. Workshops were organized around
the country, primarily to get each language researched off the ground. Grassroots infor-
mation campaigns helped raise community awareness of the relevance of the project.
In this vein, PROPELCA encouraged communities whose languages were not on the
national agenda to use the research models to kick off their own language programs,
but equally remained at their disposal for any further direction or advice. The difficul-
ties were mostly material, such as manpower (training/further training of linguists and
consultants), finances, printing and distribution of primers, and access to computer
technology. Table 1 is a classification of community languages (CLs) in Cameroon
according to two sets of criteria: UNESCO’s and Cameroon’s.
Because Cameroon’s criteria are far more generous than UNESCO’s, the country’s
classification divulges a correspondingly greater number of CLs than does UNESCO’s
(Table 2).

Table 1. Topology of community languages (CLs) in Cameroon

Province Population Capital CLs according CLs according to

to UNESCO Cameroon
(PROPELCA)

Adamawa 723,626 Ngaoundere 189,800 Fulfulde Fulfulde

Center 2,501,229 Yaounde 1,248,200 – Bëti-Fang
East 755,088 Bertoua 173,000 – Bëti-Fang
Far North 2,721,463 Maroua 271,700 Fulfulde Fulfulde, Arabic,
Kanuri, Chadic
family
Littoral 2,202,340 Douala 1,494,400 – Basaa
North 1,227,018 Garoua 356,900 Fulfulde Fulfulde
North-West 1,840,527 Bamenda 316,00 CPE –
South 534,854 Ebolowa 125,000 – Bëti-Fang
South-West 1,42,749 Buea 250,000 CPE Duala, Oroko,
AkBBse, Nsose
West 1,982,106 Bafoussam 242,000 – Bamileke,
Fe’efe’e, Tikari
TOTAL 15,731,000 4,667,000
 Language Education in Cameroon 59

Table 2. First-language instruction at secondary level

School City Language(s)

Collège Libermann Douala Duala, Basaa

Collège de la Retraite Yaounde Ewondo
Collège de Sion Yaounde (Discontinued)
Séminaire Sainte-Thér èse Yaounde (Discontinued)
Collège Saint-Paul Bafang Duala or Fe’efe’e
Collège d’Enseignement Technique Bafang Duala or Fe’efe’e
Sainte-Marie
Collège Maya Kekem Duala or Fe’efe’e
Collège Saint-Pierre Loum Duala or Fe’efe’e
Collège Saint-Jean Mbanga Duala and Fe’efe’e

To further promote and popularize the native languages, they were from 1970 to
1977 used over national public radio – each language representing a corresponding
geo-linguistic area and province: Center and South: Bëti-Fang; Littoral: Duala; West:
Fe’efe’e, Banjun; and North: Fulfulde. Today the picture has changed drastically, as
the dearth of radio stations and programming in decades past has yielded to a multi-
plicity of provincial public and private radio stations. Currently, there are twenty-seven
FM stations and one AM station, with many more scheduled to go operational.10 This
process was catapulted by the ushering in the early 1990s of FM stations as well as an
easing of restrictions on private ownership of radio stations in Cameroon. Each provin-
cial station, responding to the tastes of its audience, produces ethnic programs which
entail use of the “community” language(s) and other dialectal variants on a fixed
schedule. As a result, Pidgin-English broadcasts are common over Radio Bamenda and
Radio Buea (the two Anglophone provincial headquarters). The national and recent
urban stations use only the official languages – English and French – in broadcasts, but
English and French override the provincial ones for national news. Table 3 shows is a
language breakdown of radio air time for Cameroonian broadcasts by province.
As this table shows, even though the Anglophone provinces (South-West and North-
West) have the least language air time, they maximize it and are the most linguistically
inclusive provinces in the nation. Use of the first language in the written press is much
more limited than it is over radio. Table 4 identifies a number of newspapers that
promote first languages in Cameroon.

Second-Language and Official-Language Education

Cameroon’s official languages (OLs) are English and French, and every Cameroonian
Anglophone secondary school student is required to learn English as a first official
language (OL1) and French as a second official language (OL2), while his or her
Francophone counterpart learns French as a first official language (OL1) and English
as a second official language (OL2).12 English to the three million Anglophones is a
second language, and French to the over 15.5 million Francophones is a second lan-
guage – in each case with wide-ranging degrees of first-language-level command. For
all practical purposes, however, English, French, and Pidgin-English are supplanting
60 Ayuninjam

Table 3. Weekly language broadcasts over radio Cameroon

Radio station Province Community Total time L1* Air % ~Eng

languages allocation time & Fre

Radio Bafoussam West Mamileke, Fe’efe’e, Tikari 113 hours 23 hours 20.36%
Radio Bamenda North-West Aghem, Fulfulde, Hausa,
Kedjun, Kom, LamsB’,
Linbum, Mbembe, Mbili,
Mendankwe, Menka, Metta,
Mubako, Mungaka, Ngemba,
Ngie, Nkwen, Nsai, Oku,
Oshie, Pinyin, Yemba 115 5 4.34
Radio Bertoua East Gbaya, Kaka, Maka,
Mpopong 110 17 15.45
Radio Buea South-West Bafaw, Bakossi, Bakweri,
Ejagham, Fulfulde, Kenyang,
Mbo, Metta, Mungaka,
Ngumba, Mundani, Olit,
Oroko, Wimbam 120 9 7.5
Radio Center Center Bafia, Basaa, Bëti 155 34 21.94
Radio Douala Littoral Bakaka, Bakoko, Basaa,
Duala, Yabasi 147 13 8.85
Radio Ebolowa South Bulu, Ewondo, Ngumba 90 10 11.11
Radio Garoua North Arabic, Fulfulde, Tupuri 120 34 20
Radio Maroua Far North Arabic, Fulfulde, Giziga,
Mafa, Masa, Mofu North,
Mundang, Mousgoum,
Tupuri, Wandala 106 29 27.35
Radio Ngaoundere Adamawa Dii, Hausa, Mbum 114 19 16.67
*
L1  First Language.

Table 4. Newspapers in Cameroonian Languages11

Orientation Language Title

Catholic Bëti Nkul Zambe (God’s Drum)

Nleb Bekristen (Christian Counselor)
Protestant Bëti Bulu Mefoe (News)
Duala Dikolo (Information)
Mulee Ngea (The Guide)
Mwendi ma Baptist (The Baptist Message)
Ngenteti (The Star)
Lay (cultural) Bamileke Nifi (Something New)
Bëti Radio-Nam (People’s Voice)
Nkul Béti (Beti Voice)
Essamndzigi (The Educator)
Mongo Bëti (Beti Child)
Lay (political) Basaa Njel Lon (The People’s Voice)
Bulu Sosso Efia (True Talk)
Ewondo Bebela Ebug (The Truth)
 Language Education in Cameroon 61

most indigenous languages, especially the unwritten ones, whose use and function are
limited to the school setting. The presence of European languages has relegated the use
of indigenous languages largely to the so-called “uneducated” population, as these
languages are steadily losing their place of dominance. The “official” use in Cameroon
of two foreign languages is the basis of the nation’s bilingual education policy.
The term “bilingualism” has taken copious shades of meaning, many writers tending
to approach the concept from their respective vantage points. “Bilingualism” is gener-
ally understood to mean the ability to use two languages, often with equal proficiency.
According to the International Association of Conference Interpreters (IACI), true
bilinguals are “people who have lived in two different countries as children, pursued
their secondary and higher education in both countries and have […] consciously
striven to keep their languages separate” (Selescovitch, 1978, p. 74). By this orthodox
definition, there might, then, be no bilingual Cameroonian. Alternatively, in Cameroon,
as opposed to the IACI meaning, the term “bilingual” is largely understood to mean
someone who has pursued bilingual studies in the two official languages at a higher
institution of learning (and has obtained a degree or diploma). The term also generally
refers to translators and conference interpreters. Bilingualism in Cameroon is, there-
fore, quite relative. Besides referring to individuals, the term is also commonly used to
designate institutions; for example, “bilingual high school,” even when not everyone is
expected (let alone required) to be linguistically proficient. Cameroon’s post-secondary
education system is known to be bilingual in the sense that, in addition to one’s first
official language, one also needs a knowledge of the alternate official language to
succeed, even if one did not pursue the bilingual track at the secondary level.
Cameroon’s bilingualism aims both to make available to each citizen the two official
languages (English and French) and to enable the State to communicate with its citizens
using both official languages. To attain these goals, Cameroon has relied on its educa-
tional system (formal and informal) and its civil service (Tabi-Manga, p. 112–113).
Bilingual education at the primary school level rests solely on bilingual primary
schools, which exist in major urban centers – evidently to meet the language needs of
Cameroonian families who have relocated to these towns and are outside of their cul-
tural and linguistic zone – Francophone or Anglophone. This relocation began after
reunification of the two Cameroons – East and West, which (as in virtually all other
post-independence African nations) triggered a centralization of the government.
The threshold of bilingualism in Cameroon was the country’s attainment of inde-
pendence in 1960. The so-called urgent need for linguistic revolution was for political
and administrative purposes. Early language institutions were created for rapid lan-
guage learning by the administrative personnel as there was sudden, increased mobility
between the two linguistic zones. The Federal Linguistic and Cultural Center (FLCC),
opened in 1968 and based in Yaounde, was the first such institution. Prior to it, and as
an independent program, English-speaking administrators were sent to France for
6 months of basic French language education. This remains an ongoing process, albeit
on a reduced scale today.
A major drawback of Cameroon’s primary-level bilingual programs is quality, as
Gisèle Tchoungui notes Francophone parents’ discontent with their children picking
up Pidgin-English from their Anglophone peers within the school setting.13 If this is
62 Ayuninjam

more a pedagogic than a social solecism, it might be addressed by “Operation

Bilingualism,” launched by the French and British to prop up language education in
Cameroon’s primary schools. Through this effort, the French reinforced French-
language education in bilingual schools in the Anglophone zone, while the British
complement English-language education in bilingual schools in the Francophone zone.
This Anglo-French program tackles the problem from three complementary angles:
reconsideration of pedagogy, infusion of didactic materials, and teacher training (Tabi-
Manga, p. 115).
Bilingual education at the secondary level has yielded far more palpable and positive
results than at the primary level. The Federal Linguistic and Cultural Center was fol-
lowed in 1963 by the Federal Bilingual Grammar School in Buea, and in 1965 by the
Bilingual Practicing College in Yaounde, both of which are seven-year institutions (also
called lycées) that prepare students for the university. Until now, they are Cameroon’s
only bilingual grammar schools. Admission into either school is open only to pupils
who earn “A” grades on the Common Entrance Examination, administered at the end of
primary school. The curriculum includes literary studies, with emphasis on language.
The mode of teaching in these institutions complies with the definition of bilingualism
as discussed earlier. In the grammar schools, the Anglophone and Francophone students
are kept apart for the first 2 years, during which their education is geared strictly
towards the rapid acquisition of the second official language while they also improve on
the first one. From year three, the two groups come together and follow the same courses
in both languages alternately until they graduate. This method has thus far proven suc-
cessful, albeit time consuming. Bilingual education at other secondary schools has pro-
duced less glowing results, especially in verbal production. Tabi-Manga imputes this
gaffe to an inappropriate pedagogy:

La solution à ce problème pourrait être de nature didactique par le développement

de structures pédagogiques communicationnelles. On s’apperçoit aujourd’hui
que la mise en place de la politique du biliguisme n’a pas été précédée d’une
réflexion méthodologique d’enseignement des deux langues officielles dans un
contexte nouveau. Le problème devrait être traité dans une perspective globale en
prenant en compte les rapports entre les langues officielles et les langues
nationales. (2000, p. 117)

Bilingual education at the tertiary level assumes yet another dimension. Cameroon’s
public universities and advanced professional schools are officially bilingual, and each
student must adapt to the instructor’s choice of instructional medium – French or
English. To forestall any linguistic hoops, especially for students who enroll in
Mathematics or the physical sciences, Bilingual Training was instituted. The program
awards academic credit to successful completers, and students have regularly availed
themselves of the opportunity. The bilingual degree program, offered through the
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Yaounde I, is open to all stu-
dents interested in careers in translation, conference interpretation, terminology, and
foreign-language teaching and who meet the language entry requirements. The track
offers a high dose of French and English languages, literature, and linguistics, and it
 Language Education in Cameroon 63

graduates students who are largely equally competent in both official languages.
A parallel program exists for student teachers, enrolled in the Higher Normal School for
Teachers, better known by its French acronym ENS (Ecole Normal Supérieure), whose
enrollees commit to teaching their respective foreign language at the secondary level
upon graduation. ENS has two cycles: an undergraduate campus in Bambili, North-
West Province for Anglophones; and a graduate/undergraduate campus in Yaounde for
Francophones and Anglophones. The Yaounde campus shares the same premises with
the Bilingual Practicing College, which serves as a testing ground for the student-
teachers. The bilingual program includes a semester or two abroad – the Anglophones
in France, the Francophones in Britain. Sometime in the mid-1970s and again in the
1990s, students were sent rather to university towns in the opposing linguistic zones:
Francophones to Bambili (on the ENS campus), Anglophones to Douala.
Recruitment of lecturers at Cameroon’s public universities pays no regard to work-
ing language (save for the language staff), and students are expected to contend with
any attendant language difficulties. Students in the bilingual series or students major-
ing in any of the foreign languages (English, French, Spanish, German) hardly have dif-
ficulty with the system. For decades, riotous complaints at the University of Yaounde
I (the largest of Cameroon’s public institutions) have emanated from the Faculty of Law
and the Faculty of Science, where most students are obliged to swap and then “trans-
late” class notes. Bilingualism in Cameroon is, therefore, largely the ability for one to
manipulate English and French with relative flexibility and especially for educational
and professional ends. The need to maintain and unremittingly refine one’s language
skills beyond the realm of academics is, in the main, social and professional. The next
section takes up bilingualism as a means of socialization.

Code Switching and Code Mixing

One of the consequences of inadequate language preparation is the rapid development
of Cameroonian English and Cameroonian French that differ structurally and seman-
tically from the respective standard mother tongues as they are used in Britain/North
America and France. These differences are manifested through code switching (delib-
erate transition from one language to another) and code mixing (unintentional, erro-
neous transitions between languages). Below are three contexts of code switching on
Cameroon Radio-Television (CRTV), Yaounde.

Context 1: “Chit-Chat” – a mid-night to 4 A.M. program hosted by two women

This is a phone-in program that addresses issues of the day. People call or send elec-
tronic messages on the particular topic. One of the journalists is Francophone, the
other is Anglophone, but they each invariably speak in French and English, both out of
choice and because they have to. The following exchange occurred on the night of
February 22, 2006. The switches are underlined.

Anglophone (English-speaking) journalist: That record is by Henri Dikonge.

Francophone (French-speaking) journalist: Yes, I like his style. His records in this
album are short. Here is an e-mail that just came in: “I like this program. It is a bilingual
64 Ayuninjam

and talks about things of interest to me. Thank you, ladies, for doing a great job.” Maybe
we still have some time. Charles, give us one last bar of music. (Music is played.)
Anglophone journalist: We have just 5 minutes to the end of our program. Is there
anything you want to say before we end the program? [This wordy question form is
based on the French Y a-t-il …]
Francophone journalist: Before we go, nous voulons, Guy Roger, vous remecier pour
votre contribution, pour nous avoir fait confiance.
Anglophone journalist: Il y a une grande réunion le 27 Février au centre des handi-
cappés. Vous pouvez nous contacter à travers notre numéro de téléphone. Ladies and
gentlemen, it is 4 A.M. and time for our bilingual news.

On this level, Cameroon’s bilingualism may be considered imposed in that the mes-
sages come indifferently in English and French, and the journalist has no choice but to
read them in the language in which they are written – French or English.

Context 2: A newscast (February 22, 2006) done by two journalists, one

Francophone, one Anglophone:
Francophone: Good evening Jessie, and welcome to the 7:30 news.
Anglophone: Bonsoir Alain, et bienvenue au journal de 19:30. In the headlines: the
Head of State today received an august guest, Prince Andrew Betty, Grand Master of
the Order of Malta.
Francophone: Trois anciens directeurs généraux interpelés, parmis eux l’ancien
directeur général du FEICOM. Ils sont soupçonés de corruption et détournement de
biens publics.

Context 3: Single-host programs

At times a single journalist hosts an entire program, but may interview both
Anglophones and Francophones, some of whom are monolingual. The journalist then
switches from one language to another depending on the language the guest.

Context 4: Cameroon’s multilingual setting

The average Cameroonian operates in four languages: a first language (L1), pidgin
English (PE), French (F), and English (E), and all four languages may be woven into a
single communicative event, as the examples below show. In addition to these lan-
guages is Mbanga English (ME), a highly informal youth tongue spoken all over the
country. It originated in the Littoral Province and is also commonly blended with
English, French, and Pidgin-English. Mbanga English has been popularized by
Makossa (music) star Lapiro de Mbanga. Here are some lexical items: nyie, n. (cow-
ardice), meng, vi. (die), zone mené, n. (secured area–with police presence), sisia,
vt. (scare; frighten), nkollo, n. (one thousand francs). In the following exchange, each
linguistic code is marked accordingly.
 Language Education in Cameroon 65

Ngu: PEMassa, weti I go do eh? ECan you imagine that that fellow has not come back
with my change? I don’t have anymore cash on me. FS’il te pla ît Jean, tu peux me
presser cinq mille francs ?
Neba: E Sorry man, Fje n’ai que deux MEnkollos.
Ngu: FDonne-les-moi. Je vais me débrouiller. EThis fellow’s attitude is indeed annoy-
ing. PEMassa, we go quick quick.

Code switching, as illustrated above, is ostensibly spontaneous, pleasant, and man-

nerly, yet perhaps as linguistically insidious as code mixing, which occurs by error or
ignorance. Code mixing is common among Cameroonian students, especially those
who live in Yaounde, Douala, Buea, and Dschang, where there are large concentrations
of Anglophone and Francophone students (Table 5). In this section, we will examine
three types of code mixing: lexical, grammatical, and syntactic. Some of these exam-
ples are from Simo Bobda (101 ff).
Grammatical code mixing involves, among other things, confusing aspectual and
temporal categories in English and French (Table 6). Simo Bobda (1997, pp. 105ff) has
catalogued many such cases among university students and professionals:

Table 5. Code mixing in Cameroonian

Form/Usage (Source Language) Intended Form Explanation/Influence

Convocation (F) Summons

Organigramme (F) Organization chart
Quartier (F) Neighborhood
Mini-cité (F) Student hostel
Sense (F) Meaning; direction F sens (direction; meaning)
Surveillant général (F) Discipline master
Commissaire (F) Commissioner
Concours (F) Competitive examination
Direction (F) Department
Promotion (F) Batch; class
(e.g., class of 1977)
Politics Policy French: politique  politics; policy
Discourse Address French: discours (speech)
Charged day Busy day French: chargé (busy)
To correct exam scripts To mark … French: corriger (to correct)
To deposit an application To submit … French: déposer (to submit)
A wonderful accident A terrible …/horrible …
A terrible achievement A wonderful …
*Compensing Compensating French: compenser
*Facilite Facilitate French: faciliter
*Commuaty Community French: communauté
*Carataristics Characteristics French: caratéristiques
*Sympatic Sympathetic French: sympathique
*Incivism Lack of civic responsibility French: incivisme
*Fanatism Fanaticism French: fanatisme

An asterisk (*) beside a non-French form means that the form does not exist in standard English.
66 Ayuninjam

Table 6. Grammatical code mixing

Form/Usage (Source language) Intended form Explanation/Influence

The head of State speaks to you
I am here since 8 o’clock
The faithfuls are …
The union for the change
Ministry of the Health
The head of State is French: Il parle  He speaks;
speaking to you He is speaking (no distinction
between the simple present and the
present continuous)
I have been here
since 8 o’clock. French: Suis … depuis
The faithful are … French adjectives have plural forms.
Union for change French common nouns take the
indefinite determiner: le/la/les.
Ministry of Health (See above).

Other Language Education Programs and Official Bilingualism

Cameroonian linguistic centers were opened in 1960 to train Cameroonians from all
walks of life. Successful program completion was recognized with the Diploma of
English Studies. In response to the needs of both Cameroonian civil servants and
foreign diplomats working in Cameroon, the cultural services of the embassies of
France, Britain, and the United States established bilingual training programs in
Yaounde and Douala that have remained popular. Other bilingual structures are inher-
ent components of public administration: translation and interpretation services at the
Presidency and the National Assembly, translation services in ministerial agencies,
bilingual news broadcasts over Cameroon Radio-Television (CRTV), bilingual edi-
tions of print media (public and private), and bilingual versions of the nation’s official
journal, The Cameroon Official Gazette. By the same token, all legal forms, govern-
ment stationery, public notices, and names of government offices are written in both
languages. As some of the examples above suggest, mistranslation of public documents,
such as billboards and forms, is quite common. As many of the examples indicate, the
source texts are generally in French, so the victims of mistranslation are, generally
speaking, Anglophones and learners of English. There is no excuse for these labels:
“The Ministry of the Public Service” (for Ministry of Public Service); “Department of
Planification” (for Department of Planning); and “Christian Name” (for Given/First
Name). Even the names of some of Cameroon’s provinces are simply wrong: “Extreme
North Province” (for Far-North …); and Central Province (for Centre …); and
“Western Province” (for West …). The last example appears on a passport application
form at Cameroon’s embassy in Washington, DC. These mishaps are inexcusable in a
country with well-staffed translation services at the Presidency and the National
Assembly and whose ministerial agencies are replete with trained translators.
Tabi-Manga imputes Cameroon’s unlikelihood to achieve its goal of full bilingualism
to three hurdles: an inadequate promotional strategy; bilingualism not being fully incor-
porated into the country’s educational system; and, bilingualism not being fully incorpo-
rated into the country’s national multilingual plan (2000, p. 121). These pitfalls might
have been averted had the implementers heeded Professor Fonlon’s prophetic call in
 Language Education in Cameroon 67

1963 for “early bilingualism” in English and French starting from primary school.
Rather, Cameroon’s primary bilingual schools, Tabi-Manga regrets, are not the product
of strategic, purposeful reflection, either in terms of goals or academic expectations:

Cette école a été conceptuellement appréhendée non pas comme une structure
éducative particulière ayant une finalité propre, mais comme un établissement ordi-
naire de formation à dominante soit francophone, soit anglophone. Par ailleurs,
l’absence de réflexion approfondie sur le profil de l’école primaire bilingue a rendu
évidente la faiblesse de qualifications des enseignants engagés dans cette tâche de
formation à laquelle ils n’étaient pas préparés. (2000, p. 123)

He adds that, despite the political will, Cameroon’s policy of official bilingualism has
been out of tune with its educational system, alluding to Tchoungui’s recommenda-
tions for countering the educational disjuncture: establishment of a bilingual education
program in the primary schools and introduction of community languages at the same
level; training of secondary school bilingual teachers using a pedagogy and curriculum
that reflect a revamped bilingual policy; and, research into a pedagogy that is suitable
for bilingual education.
Tabi-Manga dubs Cameroon’s failed national language policy “linguistic liberal-
ism,” as each ethnic group has assumed responsibility for promoting and keeping alive
its own language. The risk, he points out, is that some native languages might die, as
would the corresponding cultural heritage of the linguistic community. Potential ben-
eficiaries of such death, he posits, are languages such as Basaa, Beti-Fang, Duala,
French, and Fulfulde. Pidgin-English, too, might spread even more widely, albeit at the
expense of English. Cameroon’s ostensible linguistic indeterminism today is in sharp
contrast to Law No. 96–06 of January 18, 1996 (amending the country’s 1972 consti-
tution). Article 1, Section 3 is clear on the language issue: “The official languages of
the Republic of Cameroon shall be English and French, both languages having the
same status … . It shall endeavor to protect and promote national languages.” Three
terms are particularly worth noting here: “same status,” “protect,” and “promote”;
nonetheless, during research on this chapter, only the French version of this text was
available on the web site of the Presidency. The problem of equal access to official
documents in both French and English is quite frustrating to Anglophones, particularly
those in the Diaspora. It is also common for English web pages to be unavailable,
whereas their French equivalents are.
Tadadjeu terms Cameroon’s bilingualism “institutional bilingualism,” because it
caters only to English and French. Tabi-Manga captures this inadequacy thus:

Le bilinguisme institutionnel, pour M. Tadadjeu, est une composante essentielle de

l’identité camerounaise. Cependant, le français et l’anglais ne peuvent exprimer
toutes les richesses de l’héritage culturel camerounais dans toute sa diversité.
Aussi, les langues officielles cohabitent-elles nécessairement avec les langues
nationales. Le bilinguisme ne saurait constituer le seul élément de la politique
linguistique du Cameroun. Ce bilinguisme doit évoluer vers un trilinguisme.
(2000, p. 77)
68 Ayuninjam

A possible solution to this drawback is “extensive trilingualism,” by which each

Cameroonian can communicate in three languages, including the two official languages,
and, by extension, in a Cameroonian native language as well.14 Tabi-Manga proposes four
national languages as community languages for adoption if Tadadjeu’s model were to be
implemented: Fulfulde (spoken in the North, Adamawa, and Far-North provinces), Bëti-
Fang (spoken in the Center, South, and East provinces), Basaa (spoken in the Center and
Littoral), and Duala (spoken in the Littoral and South-West). A crucial consideration in
language planning is a sense of identity in the chosen language(s). Tabi-Manga is aware
of this fact when he identifies guiding principles of a functional language policy, as
adopted by the National Education Forum of 1995: multilingualism, national unity, and
regional (or sub-regional) integration (L. I. Tambo, 260). However, none of the languages
native to either of the Anglophone provinces (North-West and South-West) make the short
list; also absent are languages of the West Province, which, as Grassfields languages,
share many features with the other Grassfields languages of the North-West Province.
Robinson (1990, p. 13) posits the following questions for consideration in crafting
a language policy:
(1) Which language(s) should be used for communication with the largest number
of citizens?
(2) Which language(s) might best promote national unity?
(3) Which language(s) could best symbolize the identity of the country?
(4) Which language(s) can be most easily and efficiently used in specialized sectors
such as higher education and technology?
(5) Which language(s) can be used with the least economic burden?
Sadembouo and Watters (1987), on their part, posit a “Language Development Thres-
hold” based on these criteria: existence/number of scientific studies of the language;
popularizing publications in the language; trained personnel; written institutional lan-
guage use; and, oral institutional language use. Below is a matrix that combines the
three above-mentioned criteria by Robinson, Sadembouo/Watters, and the National
Education Forum. Included among the languages is Pidgin-English (Table 7).

Table 7. Combined language planning matrix

Fulfulde Bëti-Fang Basaa Duala Pidgin-E

Population 1 1 1 1 1
National unity 0 0 0 0 0
National identity 0 0 0 0 0
Regional Integration 1 1 1 1 1
Adaptability for higher education & technology 0 0 0 0 1
Cost-effectiveness 0 0 0 0 1
Existence of scientific studies 1 1 1 1 1
Existence of publications 1 1 1 1 1
Existence of trained personnel 1 1 1 1 1
Institutional use: Written 1 1 1 1 1
Institutional use: Oral 1 1 1 1 1
Total 7 7 7 7 9
 Language Education in Cameroon 69

Pidgin-English, Cameroon’s only lingua franca, scores highest on this matrix. This
language has its roots in Anglophone Cameroon, and is also widely spoken in the
Littoral and West – provinces that are contiguous to South-West and North-West
provinces, respectively. It should be pointed out that several languages from the three
unrepresented provinces are included in a second tier of eight national languages, to
wit, Arabic, Fe’efe’fe, Hausa, Mungaka, and Yemba. Yet 12 languages would be far
too many for a nation of less than 16 million people as each linguistic zone would
average only 1.3 million speakers. Even with the four national languages that Tabi-
Manga proposes, each language would average 4 million speakers – well below the
UNESCO threshold of 20 million speakers per national language. The question then
is can Cameroon achieve lasting national unity linguistically while its only two
Anglophone provinces are not linguistically represented? The only reason Tabi-
Manga advances for not counting Pidgin-English among the proposed community
languages is that it is not a Cameroonian language. That justification deserves
another look, to which we now turn.

The Place of Pidgin-English in Cameroon

Pidgin-English has carried a rather unfair share of stigma in Cameroon as a language
which lacks the prestige assumed to accompany European languages, and the prestige
that now showers native languages. Until Vatican II (1962–1965), Latin was the official
language with which to communicate with God in Catholic churches around the world,
including Cameroon; and Cameroonians were punished for speaking their native lan-
guages or Pidgin-English on school grounds. While the British colonists did not find
Africans worthy of knowing and using the Queen’s language with near-mother-tongue-
level command, the French banned the use of native languages in all its territories in
1933 in order to promote or ensure French self-identification. Whose language is Pidgin-
English after all? Whence and how did it originate? How does it differ from Fulfulde,
Fulani, or Hausa – all considered Cameroonian languages? But just how Cameroonian
are these languages anyway?
It is worth noting that the Afro-Asiatic languages Fulani, Fulfulde, and Hausa are no
more native to Cameroon than Pidgin-English as these languages have become part of
Cameroon’s (and indeed much of West Africa’s) linguistic heritage thanks to trade,
pastoral agriculture, and Islam (Bohannan & Curtin, 1995, 206–214). The term “pid-
gin” itself derives from a Chinese term designating “business” and simply refers to a
mixed language. What language has ever survived the influence of other languages?
Otherwise, why has the Académie Française declared war on Americanisms? Would
French be complete without English? And how would present-day English be were it
not for the Norman Conquest? Today’s Romance languages began as dialects of Latin,
and were treated with comparable derision by the Roman conquerors. Pidgin-English
is an admixture of Cameroonian Bantu languages – Bantu contributing primarily the
underlying structural base, and English primarily the surface lexical forms.
In the early 1990s, an argument raged in southern Africa about the propriety of ele-
vating Swahili to the status of a regional language on a par with foreign ones like
English, French, and Portuguese. Some detractors contended that Swahili was not
70 Ayuninjam

“African” enough by virtue of the preponderance of Arabic and English loan-words in

it; yet Swahili is a lingua franca and community language in nine eastern and southern
African nations,15 is an official language in Kenya and Tanzania, and was nearly
imposed on Cameroon by the Germans. For millions of speakers of Swahili and an
ever-growing number of speakers of Pidgin-English, these languages are creoles (or
first languages).
Tabi-Manga begins to make the case for Pidgin when he states that the simplicity of
the phonological, morpho-syntactic, and lexical structures of Pidgin-English make it
slightly resemble Cameroonian languages (36). Many persons have branded it vari-
ously: “uncivilized English,” “bad English,” “bastardized English,” “broken English,”
“Bush English,” “incapable of civilized discourse.” In an electronic forum of the
on-line version of Cameroon Post newspaper of June 15, 2005, a contributor wrote:
“Ideas have space on this forum not Pidgin-English. Shame to whomever writes in
Pidgin-English, more to that we the chattering classes are instituting a war against
Pidgin-English on this forum.” The contributor would be much disheartened to learn
that his short text is egregiously blighted in one respect and that there are several other
minor violations of formal English (which he presumably meant to use). On the cam-
pus of the University of Buea, in the South-West province, here are some of the offi-
cial signs posted on the beautiful campus lawns: “Speak a language well to write a
language well”; “Pidgin is taking a heavy toll on your English. Shun it”; and “Be my
friend. Speak English.”
If one were to adopt the Saussurean perspective about language and appraise Pidgin-
English primarily from its communicative endowment and as, fundamentally and not
by pity, by accident, or through privation, a means of communication, one would con-
cur with Saussure that “[s]peech sounds are only the instrument of thought, and have
no independent existence” (1983, p. 9). This mind set stems from Saussure’s convic-
tion that language is a collective social gift to the linguistic community and has no
proprietary essence, as he explains:

In practice, the study of language is in some degree or other the concern of every-
one. But a paradoxical consequence of this interest is that no other subject has
fostered more absurd notions, more prejudices, more illusions, or more fantasies.
From a psychological point of view, these errors are of interest in themselves. But
it is the primary task of the linguist to denounce them, and to eradicate them as
completely as possible. (Saussure, p. 7)

Assuming Saussure’s position that speech (and by extension language) has no inde-
pendent existence, we are also to assume that the thoughts that Cameroonians verbal-
ize using Pidgin-English are formed a priori, while the actual enunciations occur a
posteriori. Consequently, an inclusive, unifying language policy in Cameroon must
take into account the most widely spoken, easiest-to-learn language in the land –
Pidgin-English, and without being either bashful or apologetic about its ancestry. This
position joins both the Saussurean perspective and the one posited much earlier about
language as the prime vector of and the key to culture.
 Language Education in Cameroon 71

Conclusion
It has been established here and elsewhere that colonial language and education poli-
cies that were implemented in Cameroon were driven not by Cameroon’s needs but
rather by the colonial governments’ geo-political, economic, and cultural ambitions.
The multiplicity of languages in Cameroon was seen and used as a tool of political
control when the nation was under the yoke of Western powers. Today, the 279 indige-
nous languages are a symbol of cultural diversity, richness, and pride. Navigating the
linguistic waters is the idyllic life of the average Cameroonian farmer, teacher, folk
artist, trader, and health professional. That anyone venturing into any of the population
centers (such as Bamenda, Bafoussam, Dschang, Buea, Yaounde, and Douala) should
be prepared to hear English, French, or Pidgin-English testifies to the country’s
cultural growth and to Cameroonians as a linguistically and culturally tolerant people.
As with most advantages, Cameroon’s linguistic endowment could be a real threat
to its advancement in an increasingly competitive age. Colonial administrations used
language to create a two-class society comprising the educated and the uneducated, the
powerful and the powerless, leaders and followers; modern-day political elite have
sought to maintain or widen the schism. The economic argument against aggressively
protecting and promoting Cameroon’s indigenous languages is persuasive, but the
failure on the national level to craft a cohesive, harmonious language policy for all lev-
els of education could wreak havoc over the long haul on an already fragile school
system. Cameroon (as other African nations) has survived colonialism and can chart a
course for itself. Any coherent language policy must give careful consideration to
Pidgin-English for the following reasons: it is Cameroon’s only lingua franca; it is spo-
ken widely throughout the territory and especially in four provinces (the North-West,
South-West, Littoral, and West) – both by the schooled and the unschooled; more
Cameroonians speak it fluently than they do even English or French; it has a literature;
it is easy to learn because it has a Bantu underlying structure (grammar) and an English
surface structure (lexicon); and it is used in and would continue to be promoted through
popular music.
In addition to Pidgin-English, French and English ought to be the two other pillars
of a cogent, pragmatic, and potentially enduring trilingual policy. English and French
that children learn in Cameroonian schools will and should always reflect the
Cameroonian socio-cultural milieu; yet Cameroonian students (from elementary
through graduate school) ought to be held to appropriate minimum universal standards
of oral and written proficiency to secure the nation’s future on all levels. No physics,
chemistry, economics, law, philosophy, or for that matter French or English books are
likely ever to be written in any of the 279 native languages; therefore, scarce material
resources should be deployed accordingly. Native languages should remain a matter
for the respective communities, which should be provided professional guidance by
the State in matters such as preparing phonetic alphabets and basic phonetic transcrip-
tion. A trilingual policy as advocated here is likely to meet the guiding principles set
forth by the National Education Forum of 1995: multilingualism, national unity, and
regional (or sub-regional) integration.
72 Ayuninjam

Notes
1. Botswana, Cape Verde, the Central African Republic, Comoros, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Lesotho, São
Tomé and Principe, Seychelles, Somalia, Swaziland, and Tanzania.
2. Burundi, Malawi, Mauritius, the Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Togo, and Zimbabwe.
3. Johannes Fabian (1986) cites from an 1885 letter from John B. Latrobe, President of the US
Colonization Society and King Leopold backer, to H. S. Sanford, the US intermediary on the État
Indépendent du Congo (EIC) as saying, “What, en passant, is to be the language of the Free State? Has
this been thought of ? It seems to me worthy of a good thought … . Of course, my preference would be
English, not because I speak English, but for reasons connected with commerce alone. What are the
natives to be taught? I mean what language, or is there to be a ‘Pidgin-English’ or ‘pidgin French’? In
the history of the world, there have never been such opportunities as are now presented to mould the
people of future ages in a vast continent,” p. 165.
4. From the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, June 2005. The figures for research and development are
based on budget years varying from 2000 to 2003, because recent data were unavailable.
5. Duala is the language spoken in Douala (Cameroon’s economic capital) as well as many contiguous
coastal towns.
6. Tabi-Manga, Les politiques linguistiques du Cameroun: Essai d’aménagement linguistique
[Translation: Language policy in Cameroon: Essay on language planning]. Karthala, 2000, p. 65.
7. This section is based partly on a revision and update of a 1999 article by this writer, titled “First lan-
guage instruction in Cameroon: A lesson learned or new wine in an old calabash?” The Literary Griot:
International Journal of Black Expressive Cultural Studies, 11(1), 17–34.
8. It should be noted that President Robert Mugabe’s decision to make Chinese mandatory in the college
curriculum may have had more to do with an ideological shift toward communism (and away from
U.S.- and British-led capitalism) than an appreciation of the role of language as a market force.
9. UNESCO map: “African Community Languages and their Use in Education,” 2005.
10. From TvRadioWorld, 1996–2004: http://www.tvradioworld.com/region3/cme/Radio.asp
11. Based on Tabi-Manga’s Les politiques linguistiques du Cameroun, pp. 107–108.
12. In Anglophone Cameroon a first official language, therefore, corresponds to ESL, while in the
Francophone region English constitutes EFL – English as a Foreign Language.
13. Referenced in Tabi-Manga, Les politiques linguistiques du Cameroun, p. 114.
14. Tabi-Manga, Les politiques linguistiques du Cameroun, p. 178.
15. Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Mozambique,
and Namibia.

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Makulu, H. F. (1971). Education, development and nation-building in independent Africa: A study of the new
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4

THE POLITICS OF NATIONAL CULTURE

AND URBAN EDUCATION REFORMS IN
POST-INDEPENDENT ZIMBABWE

Douglas Mpondi
University of Michigan-Flint, Michigan, U.S.A.

Introduction
This chapter discusses urban education reforms in post-independent Zimbabwe in the
context of the government’s project of national cultural policy and national identity-
formation. Zimbabwe is an emerging post-independent society in Africa in that it gained
its independence at a later stage than many African countries. It thus provides a raw field
of study on issues of identity, educational reform and cultural struggles. The study of
urban educational reforms provides an important lens through which to understand the
politics of transition in post-independent Zimbabwe.
In underscoring how the Zimbabwean cultural struggles over educational meanings
and representations are deeply entangled with the government’s definition of culture,
the study furthers the theoretical reflection on the political dimensions of culture.
Cultural contestations are constitutive of the efforts of the Zimbabwe people to redefine
the meaning and limits of the political system itself. This paper paves the way for under-
standing on a broad theoretical and practical basis, the trajectories of education, culture,
politics, and identity-formation in post-colonial transformations like Zimbabwe. An
analysis of the Zimbabwean educational system and national culture allows one to scru-
tinize the contradictions within official discourse on education and culture and to assess
the gap that exists between the real urgency of preserving, valorizing, and reinvigorat-
ing collective spiritual heritage and identity. The moribund and critical state of the con-
temporary Zimbabwean nation calls for a more subtle and nuanced historical analysis
of the relationship among national politics, culture, and education.
Cheru (2002, p. 72) argues that independent African governments responded to the
inherited educational disparities in two ways: (1) Africanizing school enrolments, and
(2) rapidly expanding the educational system from primary school to university. The
advent of Zimbabwean national independence in 1980 ushered in far-reaching reforms in
education and training based on the development needs and goals of the new dispensa-
tion, which included democratization and expansion of the provision of education and
75
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 75–90.
© 2007 Springer.
76 Mpondi

training. In this equation of community development enacted largely from above, the
partisan, monopolized “institutionalization” of civil society, the state and its agencies,
stood as the primary organizing instrument in the hands of the ruling party. Mungazi
(1993, p. 50) states that “the victory that the Africans eventually scored in their strug-
gle for political independence then set the stage for a more challenging struggle for
national development through education.”
The main aspect of the educational reforms in Zimbabwe was to increase the num-
ber of students enrolled in schools and colleges as a means of trying to give access to
the black majority that had been denied the opportunity during the colonial period.
This led to the “massification” of the education system. The other aspect was to “local-
ize” the syllabi and the examinations system to reflect the aspirations of a new national
identity. Local languages were to be elevated and recognized both as official languages
and as media for instruction, for languages symbolize cultures and identities. This was
in line with the Zimbabwean leadership’s socialist project of using the educational
system to create a single and unitary Zimbabwean identity. Carnoy and Samoff (1991)
argue that there is a reciprocal relationship between education and social change in
transition societies. In such societies, education becomes a center for social conflict
and contestation among competing political interests. In this perspective, educational
reforms become a challenge and a threat to long-established social values and institu-
tional interests. In postcolonial Zimbabwe, as in other countries, the government con-
trols the institutions which produce and legitimate culture – this includes the realms of
education, media, arts, popular culture, and other agencies of cultural formation.
According to Radcliffe and Westwood (1996, p. 14):

in order for the nation to become hegemonic in the identities of subjects, elite/
official versions of nationalism containing certain histories, images and repre-
sentations must be shared across class or ethnic lines, in order for an imagined
community to be created with “shared self-awareness.”

According to Raftopolous (1996), the immediate post-independence period in Zimbabwe

was characterized by a government which, though it had a fairly broad basis of legitimacy
founded on both the legacy of the liberation struggle and a general developmentalist pro-
gram, still faced the task of establishing its domination both in national governance and
over those parts of the country where its support was weak. Thus the form of its rule was
characterized by both a popular level of consent, however conditional and uneven,
and a distinctive coercive strain that sought to enforce unity and compliance where
this was not immediately forthcoming. In political terms this has meant the introduc-
tion of political structures, which have marginalized dissenting voices and counter-
narratives. The participation of parents in the massive building program was motivated
by their belief that education would bring about better employment and socio-
economic advantages for their children. The disparities that existed throughout the
colonial era were largely attributed to the fact that most Africans had been denied
access to education.
The independent Zimbabwean government considered education to be one of
the key ways to redress colonial injustices and establish a democratic and egalitarian
 National Culture and Urban Education Reforms 77

society. The new education policies were based on the following goals: the expansion
of educational facilities and school places; the abolition of racial segregation; a new
emphasis on scientific and technical education, particularly at secondary school level;
localization of the O-level and A-level examinations and revision of syllabi, to make
them more relevant to local conditions and requirements (Nherera, 2000, pp. 5–6)

Objectives
This chapter was inspired by the problems that have affected postcolonial Zimbabwe,
mainly the declining standards of education, the authoritarian political regime, lack of
democracy and a reversal of the promises that were made at independence by the ruling
party especially in education and health sectors. The specific aims of this study are:
(1) To examine the role of urban education reforms in identity-formation in post-
independent Zimbabwe;
(2) To explore the interplay of education, politics and culture in identity-formation
and social transformation.

Research Questions
The approach used to conceptualize the research question was informed by actual pub-
lic discourses and struggles for culture and education in post-independent Zimbabwe
and existing perspectives on the relationship among education, culture, and politics in
Zimbabwe. The research attempts to answer the following questions: How have urban
versus rural educational reforms helped in forming a national cultural identity in post-
independent Zimbabwe? What does the process of educational reconstruction in
Zimbabwe tell us about the politics of transition?

Urban Education Reforms vs. Rural Education

Reforms in Zimbabwe
At independence in 1980, the government set to increase enrolment of students in both
urban and rural areas so as to achieve universal primary education (UPE) for those
who had been denied access during the colonial period. Even adults attended literacy
classes in the evening. Primary education was free and secondary education was sub-
sidized for those who wanted to attended post-primary education in both urban areas
and rural areas. Urban areas in Zimbabwe include the capital Harare, Bulawayo,
Bindura, Gweru, Mutare, Kwe Kwe, Chitungwiza, Chegutu, Marondera, Masvingo,
Kadoma, Chinhoyi, and other smaller locations.
There were, however, discrepancies and inequalities in terms of reforms in poor
urban and rural areas as compared to rich urban areas and rich semi-urban areas. In
rural areas, where schools were built to expedite increased enrolment, there was a
shortage of books, many of the teachers were untrained, and some students had to walk
78 Mpondi

long distances to the schools they attended. Living conditions for teachers were also
poor and unattractive. Secondary schooling in the rural areas became a conduit for
youths to migrate to urban areas. In poor urban areas, the schools were over-enrolled
and had to use the hot-seating system (double shifts) to accommodate the increasing
numbers of students. Books were in short supply and because of the shifting system,
students did not have adequate time to use the poorly equipped libraries.
The education system in Zimbabwe was hailed as being among the best in Africa by
1990. The national literacy rate was over 85%. Zimbabwe appeared to be a nation of
teachers and learners. However, this expansion in access to education was not matched
with expansion of the economy. As a result, many graduates from secondary schools
were not absorbed by industry. Rural pupils migrated to towns and cities to look for
jobs. By 1991, the government had introduced the Economic Structural Adjustment
Program (ESAP) to recover costs of the free education and health that the government
had subsidized since independence. With the various crises in Zimbabwe since the
year 2000, there have been considerable numbers of graduates leaving the country
because they could not find productive employment and there is seen to be a lack of
commitment by the government to maintain the standards in education.
Wealthier schools in both rural and urban areas are better kept and able to pay pro-
fessional bookkeepers and keep track of revenues and expenditures. Poorer schools,
conversely, with fewer well-educated parents, experience high levels of fraud and
corruption in the running of their schools. Overall, however, the formally colonial, exclu-
sive and selective system has been transformed into a somewhat more open system in
which quantitative expansion is the main goal.
There have also been attempts at integration of formerly white schools to accom-
modate all races in the country. However, many of these schools remain expensive
for the majority of Africans and only a few African parents can afford the fees.
These schools maintain their elitist values and interests by charging prohibitive fees
and levies that are out of reach for poor African parents. The main difference
between urban schools and rural schools is seen to be that urban schools received
more attention from the national government in terms of funding, while issues such
as curriculum and examinations remain the same throughout the country. Thus,
urban areas are no more Zimbabwean in terms of national identity, but tend to be
the loci of developments in the country. One possible result of this neglect is that
some urban schools have “rebelled” against the government by supporting (and
where possible) voting for the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC).
In rural areas, where the government has imposed controls over newspapers and
other primary media, people have little access to information outside the propaganda
of the ruling party. Government militias have at various times banned the independent
newspapers that have long been sold in rural areas. The ruling party has turned rural
Zimbabwe into “no go” territory for the political opposition. Teachers in rural areas
have been blamed for teaching opposition “politics” to students, and been victimized
by the militias. This has contributed to an exodus to nearby towns, while some rural
Zimbabweans have even left for opportunities in neighboring countries, and within the
broader Zimbabwean diaspora.
 National Culture and Urban Education Reforms 79

Education and Development in Zimbabwe

According to Moyo, Makumbe, and Raftopolous (2000, p. xiii):

after Zimbabwean independence, there was the search for a common national
identity for indigenous development policy frameworks and the perceived need to
mobilize the Zimbabwean society for the development of the new and emerging
nation.

Cheru (2002, p. 64) argues that:

Education is the cornerstone of human development in every society. A sound

development strategy aimed at promoting economic development, democracy and
social justice must be fully cognizant of human resource development … … .
Development is about people: their physical health, moral integrity and intellec-
tual awareness. Through education, people become aware of their environment and
of the social and economic options available to them

The idea of the nation, according to Bhabha (1990) is the epithet commonly used to
express the “authenticity” of cultural location. National identities are expected to arise
from ceremonies and practices that draw citizens into the national sphere. Individuals
acquire consciousness at the same time as they acquire the national language, an edu-
cation and other cultural resources. The most significant proposals for change in post-
independent Zimbabwe focused on the massification and nationalization of the
educational system.
The post-independent government of Zimbabwe centered issues of nation-building
and reconstruction within the institution of education. It was felt that that the education
system was a convenient institution to build a new national culture and identity to suit the
new political environment. An essay entitled “Education and African Modernities,” pub-
lished by the African Studies Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
(2002, p. 2), summarizes how central education was to the issue of nation-building in the
immediate post-independent Africa:

At the center of it all was education, seen as a vehicle for intellectual enlighten-
ment, social engineering, cultural production, and political participation. Thus,
education as a process and project through which social and cultural capital is
acquired and reproduced, and the nation and the world are productively imagined,
has dominated African discourses about development, nationalism, and global-
ization for a long time. At independence, virtually all African governments put
great stock in education as one of the engines of social transformation, economic
development, and nation-building. (http://www.afrst.uiuc.edu/Postdoc/postdoc
03-04.htm)

In Zimbabwe, the government saw education as one of the most useful means of restor-
ing the lost connections with the past, along with the purpose and civic possibility
80 Mpondi

which had not been possible in the colonial system. Education reform meant trans-
forming the colonial curriculum and replacing it with one that had a Zimbabwean cul-
tural content and orientation. In the mid 1980s to late 1990s, Zimbabwe was hailed as
having better access to schools and a higher literacy rate than most African countries.
In independent Zimbabwe, anti-colonial nationalism eventually resulted in the replace-
ment of a Western, colonial ruling class with a Western-educated, “indigenous” ruling
class who claim to speak on behalf of the people but seem to function in ways that dis-
empower the people. Representations of nationalist struggle in Zimbabwe tend to
celebrate the inspirational activities of individual members of the elite and not
recognize the role played by less privileged individuals or groups in resisting colonial
rule. Historical, particularly divisive criteria have been used as a means of manufac-
turing national consent and “unity,” criteria based upon ideas of ethnic, racial and
geographical exclusivity. While this has rewarded some people with trappings of
power, others have found themselves restricted from positions of authority and
condemned as second-class citizens. Regions that show little support for President
Robert Mugabe’s party receive little in terms of development and access to the
national fiscal policy.
Education had been seen by the colonial government in Zimbabwe as a dangerous tool
in the hands of Africans. The colonial system of education limited the amount, content,
and quality of education that the local population could obtain to fit into the needs of the
colonial administration. At independence, the new government of Zimbabwe put a lot of
effort into educational reform and innovation. It attempted to create a “Zimbabwean
identity” by reforming the education system to meet local needs and the Zimbabwean
cultural context. Schools and streets that bore colonial names were changed and named
after African “heroes.” External examinations1 in most schools were eventually replaced
with locally created examinations, because, according to the authorities, the external
examinations did not reflect a Zimbabwean context and identity. Indigenous languages
were elevated to the level of national languages, even as English remains the official
language.
Thus, the contest of what it means to be Zimbabwean has become a matter of cul-
tural politics. In this context, cultural politics is not only about what counts as offi-
cial knowledge but also about the resources that are employed to challenge existing
relations, to defend any counter-hegemonic forms that may exist, or to bring new
such forms into existence. In their continuous struggles against the dominant proj-
ects of nation building, development, and repression, people in urban post-colonial
Zimbabwe have mobilized collectively on the grounds of very different sets of
meanings and stakes against a dominant and oppressive system. Parents in urban
areas have resisted the government’s intention to control the school fees that should
be paid in both private and government-run. Urban areas in Zimbabwe have become
sites and terrains of struggle and contestation against the excesses of the government
and leadership over how the public sphere should operate (Raftopolous & Yoshikuni,
1999). In rural areas, there have been resistance to the government’s control over
education but this has been very minimal and limited as a result of the ruling party’s
grip in those areas.
 National Culture and Urban Education Reforms 81

Politics and Educational Reforms

Paulo Freire, in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2000) and The Politics of Education
(1985) sees learning as a political act and describes people struggling for learning and
learning from struggles in many places around the world. For Freire, politics is about
power, it is about taking sides, and making decisions which often favor one’s con-
stituency, class, or group. Freire saw powerless people being excluded from and made
invisible in mainstream educational histories. Socially dominant groups create situa-
tions, in which even where there are compromises and accords to include the less pow-
erful, they are the beneficiaries of any such concessions. To Freire, viewing education
as a neutral entity is a contradiction in terms:

First, education is a political act, whether at the university, high school, primary
school, or adult literacy classroom. Why? Because the very nature of education
has the inherent qualities to be political, as indeed politics has educational
aspects. In other words, an educational act has a political nature and a political act
has an educational nature. If this is generally so, it would be incorrect to say that
Latin American education alone has a political nature. Education worldwide is
political by nature. (Freire in Segarra & Dobles, 1999, p. iv)

Freire’s argument is that education and politics feed on each other. The way curricula
are designed is political in the sense that certain material is selected that has to be
taught to preserve the values and interests of certain groups. The construction of
knowledge is never neutral and the circulation of knowledge is part of the social
distribution of power in society (Fiske in Apple, 2000, p. 42).
Limage (2001) argues that education is neither neutral nor separate from the polity
because schools are non-neutral and political. According to Sylvester (1991), for most
of the 1980s, the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-
PF) provided the most important broad framework for political and social organization
in Zimbabwe. Educational reform in a ZANU-PF controlled, post-independence
Zimbabwe must be interpreted against the social, political and educational policies of
the former Rhodesia. Segregation between whites and Africans formed the basis of the
economy, social order and consequently of providing education.
Moyana (1989, p. 8) posits that the value system of African education in colonial
Rhodesia was designed to complement the socio-economic imperatives of white
domination. Its emphasis on Christian values and devotion to manual labor, on
habits of discipline, neatness and punctuality and insistence on things British and
alien to the indigenous child’s experience were all intended to process, out of an
African, a docile set of loyal laborers as well as a loyal middle-class. This kind of
cultural invasion inevitably leads to an increased cultural “unauthenticity” of those
invaded. Thus the education provided for Africans, whether in urban or rural envi-
ronments, was inferior to that for whites and was aimed at producing a humble and
subservient student who could serve the colonial system and entrench the privileged
position of whites.
82 Mpondi

At the time of its relatively late political independence in 1980, it was thought
that Zimbabwe, having seen the post-colonial experiences in the majority of African
countries that had achieved their political independence in the period from 1957–
1975, might be able to avoid some of the pitfalls of these other countries’ experiences
of educational development. For instance, it was hoped that the quantitative expan-
sion necessary to meet the demands of mass education could be married to the high
quality of what had been an elite educational system, particularly in the urban areas.
Additionally, some saw the promise of transferring nascent, socialist educational prac-
tices from the ZANU-PF and other camps in Mozambique to a new, mass Zimbabwean
education system. The successive colonial governments had used restricted access to
education as a means to marginalize the majority black population in economic activi-
ties. There was a general belief that increasing access to educational facilities would
open opportunities that would lead to an improvement in the livelihoods of the majority
of the population.
The rate of educational expansion that was embarked on by the new Zimbabwean
government in the 1980’s was ranked as one of the highest in the world. According
to the statistics cited from the Parliamentary debates of August 1983 by Mungazi
(1993, p. 173):

by 1983, only three years after it had achieved independence, Zimbabwe, had a
total school enrolment of 2.4 million students out of a population of 7.1 million,
which meant that the government was educating more than 33% of its citizens.

A top government official echoed these sentiments in an interview,

A lot of Zimbabweans were denied access to education during the colonial

period. Only a few were educated to serve the colonial system. Now that
Zimbabwe is independent, we are saying, here is your chance. And we proved it.
It is not that the government can not provide employment for all those who finish
school, but that we produced so many graduates in a short period. (Transcript of
Interview, July 18, 2002)

The Zimbabwean government was concerned first with offering access to education to
those who had been denied in the past rather than matching enrolment and maintaining
quality. This shows the ambitious commitment the government had towards educational
expansion and access to the Zimbabwean people who were denied education as a result
of the segregationist policies of the colonial system.
While the excitement that characterized this independence-era euphoria and enthu-
siasm is understandable, it was sobered by financial limitations and the inadequacy of
economic growth. Mungazi (1993) says that the reality of the situation was that in
order to expand access to secondary education, the government had to borrow money
from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and to heavily recruit expatriate teachers.
This need was exacerbated by the unexpected economic difficulties resulting from an
extended drought that impacted Zimbabwe and other countries of Southern Africa for
several years starting in 1981.
 National Culture and Urban Education Reforms 83

The new developments, especially de-linking the colonizer-colonized relationship,

helped to explain the correlation between political independence and educational
reform in that most educational policies were towing the ruling party agenda of match-
ing Zimbabwean culture with educational innovation. It was a quest to achieve a new
national identity through educational innovation in which the recognition of the
Zimbabwean national culture in the curricula was sine qua non to the realization of
this new dispensation.
Mungazi and Walker (1997) argue that the Zimbabwean government also recog-
nized that the diversity of the educational program, the relevance of the educational
curriculum to the Zimbabwean context, and the utilization of the best resources possi-
ble, all combined to meet the needs of individual learners while giving new meaning
and direction to the purpose of a new nation and national identity. Mungazi further
states that when an individual is given an opportunity to learn according to his/her
interest and talent, there emerges a fulfillment of life, a satisfaction, and a yearning to
produce what the country needs thus helping to create a truly liberated society. For
Mungazi, this is where literacy becomes important to national purpose and justifies
the government’s efforts to eradicate adult illiteracy in the formative years of inde-
pendence. As a matter of strategy, the government launched the adult literacy cam-
paign in Zimbabwean villages in conjunction with the development of the primary
schools and secondary schools with a curricula that emphasized “Education with
Production” (Chung & Ngara, 1985). This program would be widely misunderstood
and variously interpreted in different schools and colleges, and universally resented by
teachers, pupils, parents and administrators.
The main focus of educational change in post-independent Zimbabwe was designed
to help the individual recognize himself/herself as the most important factor of
national development and also as a way of attaining self-actualization and national
identity (Mungazi & Walker, 1997). Education was seen as promoting a new cultural
enrichment, which is a product of a national pride which surfaces from a deep sense of
self-worth that education can bring about. Memmi (1965, p. 129), in his work, The
Colonizer and the Colonized, argues that, for the recently colonized “the important
thing to do is to rebuild, to reform, to communicate, and to belong” as a fulfillment of
themselves. It is this definition and conception of liberation, both political and mental,
which gives birth to a new society, a true symbol and a manifestation of the search for
a new social system. In the quest for educational reform along cultural lines and as an
embodiment of independence, the Zimbabwean government has been attempting to
launch a new cultural and social revolution which required the reconstructing of the
total society by utilizing the knowledge that Zimbabwean people must cling to their
own cultural traditions which make it possible for them to reject the educational
practices of their erstwhile colonizer.
The rigidity which Zimbabwean politicians cited as the injustice of the colonial edu-
cational system did not disappear under the new ZANU-PF government. This became
one of the major problems faced by Zimbabwe during the first years of its independ-
ence, and one that will likely to remain in place for some time to come. In the thrust for
educational innovation, Zimbabwe’s new government had hoped that it was introducing
a system of education that would inspire citizens with confidence for the future, a
84 Mpondi

system that would seek to resolve the conflict that often existed between the learner and
the school during the colonial period. But public examinations, which had become a hot
political issue during the colonial period, remained in practice after Zimbabwe became
independent. Thus, as during the colonial period, all schools in Zimbabwe took the
same examinations regardless of their local value systems and structures.
Mungazi (1993) states that, in 1983, the Zimbabwean government announced its
intention to redesign a national syllabus that would be in tune with its national devel-
opment plans. The government felt that the reform was necessary because the entire
system of education inherited in 1980 remained a colonial imposition. The mammoth
task was meant to eradicate the colonial nature of the education system and rebuild to
suit the aspirations of the new Zimbabwean nation. This was the Zimbabwean gov-
ernment’s definition of national liberation. This effort would liberate Zimbabwe from
the educational chains of its colonial past, advance the country progressively towards
the future, and develop its full human and national potential, such that all citizens
would be able to demonstrate an understanding of the benefits and importance of
equality of educational opportunity in all its aspects. Ndabaningi Sithole, founding
father of African nationalist movement in Zimbabwe, during an interview with
Mungazi, said that “Education provides an individual a mechanism of articulation and
self-expression. It gives one a wider scope, a depth to one’s thinking, a comprehensive
grasp of who one is (identity) and the problems that one faces. Adjustment to a new
social and political is impossible without educational innovation.” In this sense, edu-
cation becomes an act of national culture (Cabral, 1970).
The resulting school system in Zimbabwe is centralized, and with the establishment
of the Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council (ZIMSEC), all examinations are to be
conducted by this board and all foreign examinations have to be abolished. According
to a former director of ZIMSEC, the Council was set up to reform the Zimbabwean
educational system in terms of localizing the schools examinations which had been
done in colonial times by the University of Cambridge Examinations Syndicate. While
economic reasons are given in partial explanation of the change, the former director
said political decisions were largely behind the change:

Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council (ZIMSEC) was set up as an examina-

tion authority in order to localize exams in this country. What had happened was
that the curriculum which we inherited from the colonial period was gradually
changed at independence to reflect local conditions, in other words, more relevant
to an independent country like Zimbabwe. Therefore the body to run examina-
tions and curriculum had to be set. So ZIMSEC was set up. Clearly ZIMSEC
could not have the skills- examinations skills-so we entered into an arrangement
with Cambridge who have been … examining here to train our people in the skills
of testing our own curriculum. (Transcript of Interview, Harare, Zimbabwe, July
16, 2002)

Since the establishment of ZIMSEC there have been numerous reports about exami-
nation leaks and thefts of examination papers which led at one time to the resignation
of one Minister of Education when his daughter was found in possession of exam
 National Culture and Urban Education Reforms 85

questions which were yet to be written. The Ministry of Education in Zimbabwe

(1992) emphasized that Zimbabwean schools should teach Zimbabwean content and
Zimbabwean history. Zimbabwean history has been made a compulsory subject, with
students, interestingly, being made to read books written by the very Minister invoking
the changes. Thus we see those in power defining official and legitimate knowledge.
Schools remain the site of numerous contests over community and societal values
and priorities. The revamped Zimbabwean curricular content’s exclusion of other,
non-privileged voices serves to legitimate and sustain a group’s or class’s interests or
views by having the schools endorse and transmit them via curriculum policy and
practice. The question of what knowledge is most worth is not only an educational
issue, but also overtly ideological and political.
The curricula in Zimbabwe have never been a neutral collection of knowledge, some-
how appearing in the texts and classrooms of a nation. Apple (1996) argues that cur-
riculum was always part of a selective tradition, someone’s selection, some group’s
vision of legitimate knowledge. It was produced out of the cultural, political, and eco-
nomic conflicts, tensions, and compromises that organize and disorganize a people. The
selection and organization of knowledge for schools in Zimbabwe is an ideological
process, one that serves the interests of particular classes and social groups. According
to Apple (1996), the differential power intrudes into the very heart of curriculum, teach-
ing and evaluation. What counts as knowledge, the ways in which it is organized, who
is empowered to teach it, are part and parcel of how dominance and subordination are
reproduced and altered in society.
Sylvester (1991) aptly sums up the contradictions and dilemmas facing Zimbabwe
in its efforts at national transformation:

Zimbabweans are experiencing pressures to assert and at times to invent cultural

authenticity through ethnic identification, traditional religion, racial politics, and
artistic themes. Ironically, this is an aspect of modernity’s engulfment of differ-
ence by submerging it in a discourse of integration, unity, and commonality.
Yet positions in between and marginal to old and new also struggle for space
in Zimbabwe’s inherited matrix of identities, as does a state that is itself multi-
centered and cross-pressured (160).

The legacy of the war for national liberation in Zimbabwe had established an uneven
support and “imagined” pattern of support from and control over the African popula-
tion in post-independence Zimbabwe. The first order of business was therefore not
only to “Africanize” the state, in terms of personnel, a task which was largely com-
pleted after the first 5 years of independence (Moyo et al., 2000), but also to extend the
breadth of its control, not only to confirm existing support but to dominate areas of
opposition and uncertainty. The expansion of educational facilities in Zimbabwe com-
bined with the announcement of the establishment of a one-party state was the most
concerted attempt to establish and extend control by the state. With the ensuing state
control over electronic media, especially radio transmission, space for alternative
political perspectives became extremely limited by the late 1980s. To the extent that
radio is one means of educating rural people, and since most of the rural population
86 Mpondi

receive much of their information through the radio and the issuing of licenses is done
by the Department of Information in the President’s Office, ever more control over
education powers is held by central government authorities.

Conclusion and Findings

The institution of education was used by the government of Zimbabwe as a starting
point and site of departure for defining the postcolonial Zimbabwean culture and
condition. The idea of a Zimbabwean national culture was a way of legitimizing the
political leadership’s continued stay in power. Official discourse in post-colonial
Zimbabwe has exalted a virtually mythic “national culture” kept alive by the inflamed
rhetoric of politicians and the attendant establishment of national institutions like the
Zimbabwe War Veterans Association and the National Service Training Centers where
the Zimbabwean youth are taught “nationalism” and “patriotism.” Designed to organ-
ize and disseminate national culture through civic education, these “institutions of ter-
ror” have actually done nothing more than manage violence and force people to vote
for the ruling party. The graduates from the National Service Training Centers have
been used by the ruling party as militias and foot soldiers in urban centers to harass
people who are seen as supporting the opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC). Teachers have been punished for teaching “politics” to students and not con-
fining themselves to the national curriculum. Zimbabwe has become a political labo-
ratory and battlefield where systematic repression legitimizes a culture of violence and
selectively protects or give immunity to those who prop up the ruling regime.
The myth of prosperity and the image of Zimbabwe as “a land of milk and honey”
fostered after independence contributed to the government’s increasing rigidity and
further strengthened its reflex to shut down thought, debate and dialogue on issues of
national transformation. The attainment of independence in 1980 has failed to improve
the living conditions of Zimbabweans, and the population exhibits a clear loss of con-
fidence in the idea of the state and hence a lack of interest in the official cultural dis-
course. They however still want to belong to political parties. People distinguish
themselves politically by the political discourse, either defending the establishment
or supporting the emergent opposition. The education system in Zimbabwe used to
be among Africa’s finest and similarly, used to constitute one of President Robert
Mugabe’s greatest achievements. Even into the late 1990s, Zimbabwe had a higher
percentage of literate people than any other country on the African continent.
According to the UN, as recently as 2000, 90% of young Zimbabwean children went
to primary school. Again, the highest attendance in Africa. But today, only a few years
later, after evermore repressive government practice, schools are in crisis, the economy
in collapse, and political interference by centralized government is seen to be having a
devastating impact.
Separating the politics of education from the politics of the larger society is not all
that useful in the Zimbabwean context. The politics of the society spill over into the
schools and manifest in the choices made by parents regarding where to send their
children. Zimbabwe’s political leadership has taken its hard fought, 1980-era nationalist
 National Culture and Urban Education Reforms 87

legacy as an ongoing license to privatize the national interest, defining it in terms of

the interests of the governing rather than the governed. The government of Zimbabwe
has replaced a white autocracy with a black autocracy. The attack on shanty towns and
homeless people in June 2005, which was condemned by the United Nations, left
many urban children displaced and out of school. In addition, those in the semi-urban
areas have been affected by the chaotic land reform programs that also enrich those in
power.
The Zimbabwean government has developed an almost pathological drive towards
cultural conformity in a society that is culturally heterogeneous. Such an obsession
with a common culture becomes synonymous with the idea of one people, one nation
and with the integrity of national identity itself. The critique of a single definition of
culture and single public sphere by residents of Zimbabwean urban areas holds signif-
icance as it undermines any rigid notions of what culture is and what the public sphere
mean when they speak out. The fragmented, decentered, multiple identities that con-
stitute urban Zimbabwe might well be construed as living proof of the end of the gov-
ernment’s “imagined” single and common culture. The contesting forces, according to
Said (1993, p. xxv), “is between advocates of a unitary identity and those who see the
whole as a complex but not reductively unified one.” Said further states that as a result
of imperial history, all cultures are involved in one another, none is single and
pure, all are hybrid, heterogeneous, extraordinarily differentiated, and non-monolithic.
Zimbabwe is a post-colonial nation seeking to come to terms with its own identity. It is a
country full of ambivalence and dilemmas whose people continue to seek to identify
their own culture(s).
The need to reclaim and celebrate a culture denigrated by colonialism was at the
heart of the nationalism that led to the fight for independence in Zimbabwe. At inde-
pendence in 1980, this nationalism was used to forge a new Zimbabwean national
identity and the nation sought reconstruction not only to survive but also to re-imagine
and reconfigure its past. Said (1993, p. 50) notes that, “nationalism is an assertion of
belonging to a place, a people, a heritage. It affirms the home created by a community
of language, culture, and customs.” Thus nationalism was seen as an important means
to attain unity and became a central part of the dictum of a new Zimbabwean national
thought which assumed that homogenization of diverse ethnic and racial groups would
occur with the nationalization project of nation-building. The educational system had
to transmit a homogeneous perception of the cultural, social and political character of
a new Zimbabwean nation. For the achievement of such a purpose teachers had to be
trained in such a way that they would be capable of evaluating and promoting the sense
of nationality, and encouraging the knowledge, the respect and the love for the country
and its history, traditions and culture. This, in the end, might help to explain why the
Zimbabwean leadership under Robert Mugabe, has been using the state apparatus to
coercive hegemony to retain control of public institutions including the schools and
discouraging teachers to teach “politics” in the classroom.
The nation-state serves as a powerful model for configuring identity through its
idioms of political representation and citizenship and through its organs, be they
administrative, legal or educational systems. These systems project ground rules for
the negotiation of identities and entitlements, of representation and legitimacy. This
88 Mpondi

provides an avenue for the expression and appropriation of identities and has con-
strained the space in which negotiation and evasion of identities took place, with insti-
tutional implications for public life and ideas.
The nationalized curriculum in Zimbabwe legitimates inequality in that it creates an
illusion of a “mythic national culture,” that whatever the massive differences between
elite schools and poor urban and rural schools, they all have something in common.
They are supposedly all equal culturally, because they have a “common culture and a
common curriculum.” This was meant to disguise the differences between the rich elite
who had benefited from the “national cake” and the poor, who fought the struggle but
were denied the proceeds of the victory in the struggle. Education was and remains a
political subject, a matter of access to political power (or closure from that power) at
all levels, from the primary school to university. Nationalizing culture through teach-
ing and learning makes education an instrument of assimilation, normalization and
class stratification.

Notes
1. In the Zimbabwean case, external examinations were most often created in Britain, and shipped out to
Zimbabwe, and other former British colonies in Africa and elsewhere.

References
Apple, M. W. (1996). Cultural politics and education. New York: Teachers College Press.
Bhabha, H. K. (Ed.). (1990). Nation and narration. London, New York: Routledge.
Cabral, A. (1970). National liberation and culture. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.
Carnoy, M., & Samoff, J. (1991). Education and social transition in the Third World. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Cheru, F. (2002). African renaissance: Roadmaps to the challenge of globalization. London, New York:
Zed Books.
Chung, F., & Ngara, E. (1985). Socialism, education and development: A challenge to Zimbabwe. Harare:
Zimbabwe Publishing House.
Education and African Modernities. Retrieved December 23, 2005, from http://www.afrst.uiuc.edu/
postdoc/postdoc03–04.htm
Freire, P. (1985). The politics of education: Culture, power, and liberation. South Hadley, MA: Bergin &
Garvey.
Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.
Limage, L. J. (2001). Democratizing education and educating democratic citizens: International and historical
perspectives. New York: Routledge Falmer.
Moyana, T. (1989). Education, liberation and the creative act. Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing House.
Moyo, S., Makumbe, J., & Raftopolous, B. (2000). NGOs, the state, and politics in Zimbabwe. Belgravia,
Harare, Zimbabwe: SAPES Books.
Mungazi, D. (1993). Educational policy and national character: Africa, Japan, the United States, and the
Soviet Union. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Mungazi, D., & Walker, L. K. (1997). Educational reform and the transformation of Southern Africa.
Westport, CT: Praeger.
Nherera, C. M. (2000). Globalization, qualifications and livelihoods: The case of Zimbabwe. Assessment in
Education Principles, Policy and Practice, 7(3), 335–362(28).
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Radcliffe, S., & Westwood, S. (1996). Remaking the nation: Place, identity and politics in Latin America.
London & New York: Routledge.
Raftopolous, B. (1996). Zimbabwe: Race and nationalism in a post-colonial state. Harare: Sapes Books.
Raftopolous, B., & Yoshikuni, T. (1999). Sites of struggle: Essays in Zimbabwe’s urban history. Harare:
Weaver Press.
Said, E. W. (1993). Culture and imperialism. New York: Vintage Books.
Segarra, J. A., & Dobles, R. (1999). Learning as a political act: Struggles for learning and learning from
struggles. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Educational Review Series No.33.
Sylvester, C. (1991). Zimbabwe: The terrain of contradictory development. Boulder, CO: Westview Press;
London: Dartmouth.
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5

REFORMING THE CITY SCHOOL IN

SOUTH AFRICA: MAPPING THE HISTORY FROM
APARTHEID DURBAN TO POST-APARTHEID
eTHEKWINI

Jenni Karlsson
University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban

Introduction
As schools age, their sites and built environments become palimpsests imprinted and
overprinted with traces, shifts, removals, and additions from each subsequent social era.
In cities, the story of an urban formation’s waxing and waning is mirrored in the fortunes
of its schools and can be read off their collective histories. Even the peculiar racial, cul-
tural, and economic politics of South African cities, from the colonial period to the
post-apartheid present, are inscribed in school built environments, with each school’s
location still articulating a history of center-periphery advantage, marginality, and dis-
crimination, despite endeavors to ameliorate the inequalities of the past. This under-
standing underpins my study of schools in South Africa’s second largest city, Durban, or
eThekwini, as it is known in the more widely spoken local language of isiZulu.1
The French social theorist, Henri Lefebvre (1991, p. 54) has asserted that “a revolu-
tion that does not produce a new space has not realized its full potential.” This implies
that the social space of city and school is reworked continually as social relations
evolve from what was there before. Lefebvre has also contended that simultaneously
urban development constitutes relations of center-periphery tensions that yield social
difference and diversity (Lefebvre, 1991, 1996). These propositions about urban for-
mation and social space are the theoretical horizon for this work and frame my explo-
ration of city schools as inseparable from the geo-political history of their locale.
Urban schools are nested in areas comprising a heterogeneous population of the poor
and middle classes and many cultural and linguistic groups (Massey, Allen, & Pile, 1999).
By serving the educational needs of the diverse residents, a city gives its schools defining
characteristics that render these schools different from those of other cities. Notwith-
standing this influence, schools affect city life through the rhythms of school terms, the
start and end of each day’s lessons that show in the patterns of traffic flow, and in the
ethos and activities of the school. City schools, too, are a special type of consumer, draw-
ing on the various utilities and specialist services in the city such as museums, libraries,
91
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 91–114.
© 2007 Springer.
92 Karlsson

recreational areas and public transport. But the relationship of school and city is largely
one of supply and demand: the city as an urban center of trade and industry requires
schools for the education of citizens’ children and for preparing the next generation of
managers and workers, and – at the risk of being overly reductionist – schools meet these
(re)productive ends (Apple, 1995; McLaren, 1995; Ranson, 1994; Teese, 1997).
In this paper I show how public schools in Durban/eThekwini were harnessed to the
evolving political project of the South African city in colonial, segregated and apartheid
eras, and that this continues in the political dispensation of democracy. I present an
account of how the schools were originally established in a particular area and then
developed to respond spatially in subsequent periods as the city changed politically and
economically.

The City of Durban/eThekwini

Several years into the twenty-first century, the city of Durban/eThekwini is a rapidly
expanding polycentric conurbation on the eastern coast of South Africa. It is a distinctive
South African city in terms of its population, culture and built environment. Durban’s
population is estimated to be more than 3 million comprising roughly 60% blacks, 21%
Indians, 11% whites and the remainder being colored and other groups (Corporate
Policy Unit, 2004, p. 1).2 Durban is home to most of South Africa’s Indian population,
infusing the city with an Asian cultural orientation. The white community differs from
many other parts of South Africa by being almost totally English-speaking, a legacy of
the city’s British history as part of the former colony of Natal. In the 1990s Durban’s built
environment was increasingly defined by a creeping “squatterscape” (Beavon, 1992) that
outstripped such trends in all South Africa’s other cities (McCarthy & Bernstein, 1996).
Thus, by 2000, almost two thirds of all Durban households lived in informal settlement
shacks (Durban Metro Urban Strategy Department, 2000). Vast development of low-cost
housing across the expanded area administered by the new eThekwini Municipality has
stopped this trend and given thousands of such households access to land tenure, basic
utilities, and services such as public schooling (Corporate Policy Unit, 2004).
The naming of this place reflects a checkered history. Portuguese and Dutch sailors
referred to this area as Port Natal until European settlers named their settlement
Durban, after Sir Benjamin D’Urban, in the nineteenth century. However, the black
isiZulu-speaking community has always referred to this locale as eThekwini. This lat-
ter name derives from itheku, referring to the horns of a bull, as seen in the curvature
of the bay (UniCity Committee Durban, 2000, p. 4). The large polycentric local gov-
ernment, established in 2000, now officially is named eThekwini. It encompasses a
vast rural periphery with Africa’s busiest port city of Durban at its center.

Methodological Issues
In this chapter I use six schools in Durban/eThekwini to illuminate the relational devel-
opment of the city and school, and to show how schools reflect political trajectories of
their locale even when a local government does not administer them. My argument is
 Reforming the City School in South Africa 93

based on an amalgam of data collected in 1999–2000, comprising memory accounts

from eight selected adults who attended such schools in their youth, and now teaching
at these schools (see Figure 1), photographs taken by learners at each school and during
my visits to the school sites, personal communications with significant role players
such as a school administrator and an architect, as well as school documents such as
yearbooks.3
The six schools (see Table 1) were selected on the basis of the former race-based
education authorities that administered them prior to 1994, that is, Natal Education
Department – for whites (Heather Primary and Centenary High, the latter being a
school for girls only); House of Delegates – for Indians (Maximus Primary and
Highway Secondary); and Department of Education and Training – for blacks living in
urban areas and outside bantustan/homeland territories (Khayalihle Primary).4 The
sixth school, Simunye Secondary, was built and opened after South Africa adopted
democracy in 1994.
In their geographic location and relation to the harbor and city center, the school case
studies lay bare the unfolding history of the city. The colonial era school, Centenary
High, stands as a large beacon in a leafy middle class suburb overlooking the harbor.
Four other schools (Highway Secondary, Heather Primary, Maximus Primary, and

Figure 1. Map of Durban/eThekwini outer boundaries in 2000, and showing the location of the six
selected schools
94 Karlsson

Table 1. Description summary of selected schools

School Opened in Former Primary/ Residential Distinguishing

name dept.* Secondary zoning features

Heather 1961 NED (white) Primary Middle class Desegregated;

suburb coeducational
Maximus 1969 HOD (Indian) Primary Middle class Desegregated;
suburb coeducational
Khayalihle 1981 DET (black) Primary Working class Racially homoge-
township with nous but formally
squatters desegregated;
coeducational
Centenary 1882 NED (white) Secondary Middle class Girls only;
suburb desegregated
Highway 1956 HOD (Indian) Secondary Semi-industrial/ Desegregated;
working class coeducational
academic &
technical curriculum
Simunye 1999 Not applicable Secondary Working class Racially
development area homogenous but
with squatters formally
desegregated;
coeducational

* This column refers to the race-based apartheid education authorities i.e. Natal Education Department
(NED), House of Delegates (HOD), and the Department of Education and Training (DET).

Khayalihle Primary) that were established during the apartheid era, fall neatly within
the apartheid city pattern in that the former white school is close to the city center, the
two former Indian schools lie to the south of the city adjacent to industrial areas, and the
fifth black school is furthest away from the center in a distant area that is a formal town-
ship interspersed with informal settlement homesteads. The sixth post-apartheid school,
Simunye Secondary, lies about 2 km from the white schools, and is part of a large post-
apartheid urban renewal and planning project that serves a community of black working
class and urban poor.

The Colonial and Segregated City School

Durban’s colonial past iterates the infamous land scramble by European masters and
erasure of an earlier history when Zulu kings would come to bathe on the lagoon
verges, now the Victoria Embankment so named by colonizers after the Thames river-
side in London, United Kingdom. Many place names in Durban speak to this colonial
legacy. Following unsuccessful attempts in 1688 and 1705 by Simon van der Stel, the
Dutch East India Company representative at the Cape of Good Hope, to acquire title
deeds to the bay from Zulu chiefs, Durban was permanently settled by Europeans in
1823 after British lieutenants King and Farewell took refuge in the bay (Morrison,
1987, p. 8). In 1835, the colonial settlement was named Durban, taking its name from
Sir Benjamin D’Urban, the British governor of the Cape colony at the time.5 Durban’s
future as an important commercial harbor and industrial city, however, was assured
 Reforming the City School in South Africa 95

after a harbor engineer was appointed in 1850 and South Africa’s first railway line was
laid in 1898.
In the 1880s, a few public schools were established to meet the education aspirations
of Durban’s settler residents for their children. Centenary High School was one of
these and originally it was located on a site near to the harbor. Settler farmers, land
owners and religious organizations also established several private boarding schools at
this time in Durban as well as country districts of the colony (Morrell, 2001). Most of
those colonial era schools were single-sex (and continue to be so in the twenty-first
century), and are sought after for their high quality liberal education. In the 1930s
Centenary High relocated to its present position in a middle class, predominantly
white neighborhood. It represents approximately 120 years of tradition as a single-sex
school for girls.
Urban historians and town planners (see Lemon, 1991b) have theorized that
Durban’s spatial layout followed the model of the “segregated city” for the post-colony
period of 1910 leading up to the 1950s. In the “segregated city” model households
lived in organized but unlegislated racially homogeneous clusters.
Centenary High’s buildings that date from the 1930s comprise symmetrical three-
story wings overlooking the harbor city. The colonnaded verandahs, wide corridors
and triangular stairwells follow the Art Deco architectural style seen in other govern-
ment and residential buildings of Durban from that period and was allegedly “meant to
affirm the progressive, ‘modern’ outlook of its inhabitants” (Radford, 2002, pp. 47,
49). The wings housed classrooms, reception and administration offices, a staff room,
well-stocked library, and an elevator (exceptional for public and privately funded
schools from that era). Behind the wings stands a large school hall, equipped for theatre
productions and surrounded by colonnaded verandas, with a fully equipped gymna-
sium on the floor above. Outdoor sports facilities comprise a swimming pool, several
tennis courts and a hockey/athletics field. The generous spaciousness and variety of
facilities in this public school indicates the privileged yet classical education ambitions
that white English-speaking settlers held for their daughters in the first half of the
twentieth century. These spanned both intellectual and scientific endeavors as well as
sporting prowess.
There is a foundation stone near the main entrance to the building. Despite the tra-
dition of Centenary High being an English language school and the prime school for
English-speaking girls of a British colonial city, the foundation stone text is written in
two languages: English and Afrikaans.6 It states that:

This stone was laid by the honourable H. G[-] W[-] I.S.O. the Administrator of the
Province of Natal on 29 September 1937.
Hierdie steen is gelê deur die edelagbare H. G[-] W[-] I.D.O. Administrateur
van die Provinsie Natal op 29 September 1937.

The text in English and Afrikaans, being languages spoken among South Africa’s
white communities, indicates the exclusive bilingualism that constituted a European
linguistic supremacy in the post-colony period and still remains deeply entrenched in
South Africa. Bilingualism was enforced later at schools serving all other linguistic
96 Karlsson

communities through legislation such as the Bantu Education Act of 1953, until
Afrikaans in black township schools became an important organizing point for
resistance against the apartheid regime, as occurred on June 16, 1976 (Hyslop, 1999,
pp. 158–164).
Throughout the period of segregation, that is, until 1948, when the Afrikaner domi-
nated Nationalist Party came to power, daughters from Durban’s white families were
educated at Centenary High. The tradition of sending the next generation in the family
to Centenary High as Durban’s most prestigious public school for young ladies was
encouraged through the formation of an alumni association. The “Old Girls Club”
assisted in fund-raising for the development of the school and groomed the school girls
to provide charitable community service.

The Apartheid City School

The trauma of the Anglo-Boer War (now known as the South African War) and peace
agreement that established the Union of South Africa, followed by two crippling World
Wars, set massive social restructuring into motion throughout South Africa. A key
impetus was the rise to power of the Nationalist Party in 1948. Once elected into gov-
ernment, the Nationalist Party set about introducing legislation and implementing a
way of life. This social order became known as “apartheid” because of its provisions
that forced racially identified groups to live and, as much as possible, work apart. In
the same period, stimulated by hysteria during the World War II, concerning the “pen-
etration” of white Durban by the Indian middle class, the white City Council was a
prime mover in a combination of slum clearance and urban racial engineering (Lemon,
1991a). More than other South African municipalities, the Durban City Council was
fundamental in this process (Freund, 2000, p. 154).
After 1948, legislation was passed that proclaimed racially-constructed residential
zones, forbade marriage and sexual relations across the racial divide, and prescribed
the racial classification of all citizens, amongst other things (Dubow, 1995; Ebr.-Vally,
2001). These developments required the removal of many groups of people into
racially-proclaimed and restricted parts of the city and has led to the theorization of the
“apartheid city” (Lemon, 1991a). These removals of people consolidated and gave
preference to white residential and commercial districts. Thus, in Durban, white com-
munities lived close to the commercial center, harbor and beaches, as well as on the
hilly ridges with ocean views and along the Western highway out of the city, while
town planning pushed residential areas and townships for “non-white races” to the
periphery where they were out of sight from whites and where land was unsuitable for
commercial and industrial use. Township residents provided the steady flow of labor
for the adjacent industrial development zones that, in addition to rivers, often acted as
buffers between white and black residential areas.
In the three decades 1920–1950, Durban had experienced dramatic growth in African
urbanization (Lemon, 1991a, p. 4). Durban’s whites, however, were less threatened by
blacks than they were by Indian residents of the city who were rising in numbers and
achieving success in their commercial ventures (Lemon, 1991a, pp. 3, 13–14). By 1950,
 Reforming the City School in South Africa 97

the majority of Durban’s black residents lived in relatively uncontrolled concentrations

such as at Cato Manor near the city center. Rioting between blacks and Indians in 1949
exacerbated anxieties among Durban’s whites (Davies, 1991, p. 82) and left a painful
legacy in the collective memory of the Indian community (Thiara, 1999, pp. 161–162).
Following the proclamation of the Group Areas Act in 1953, which applied to owner-
ship and occupation of property and fixed certain geographic zones for the use of only
one racial group, Durban’s City Council rezoned the city’s residential areas along
strictly segregated lines in 1958 (Davies, 1991, p. 79). This necessitated appropriating
properties and building vast low-income Council housing estates and a few middle
class suburbs for Indians, followed by their forced removal to these areas during the
1960s (Figure 2). The townships of KwaMashu to the north and Umlazi to the south of
the city were established in 1958 and 1962, respectively (Davies, 1991, p. 82). These
developments concentrated and fixed power at the core of center-periphery relations of
the apartheid city and the arrangements were also used to justify the legal imposition
of segregated education systems (Davies, 1991, pp. 80–81).

Figure 2. Durban: Metropolitan group areas circa 1958

Source: Davies, 1991, p. 80.
98 Karlsson

There is a swampy river delta that enters the harbor precinct. This is now crossed by
a busy corridor that runs from the city center, past the harbor and south to the airport.
Nearby is a busy terminal that handles over 80,000 ship containers monthly (Local
History Museum & Portnet, 2000, p. 15). The river is canalized to drain the land for
industrial use and control flooding (Freund, 2000, p. 151). Although initially the
domain of early Indian land-owners outside colonial boundaries of Durban, the area
was incorporated in 1932 and became a densely populated and thriving Indian enclave
that is described by geographer Dianne Scott (1994) as a “communally constructed
space,” partly because the facilities and institutions, including schools, were developed
through the vision and social cohesion of kinship and relations of local residents. By
the end of the 1950s, over 50,000 residents including fishermen, merchants, artisans
and market gardeners, were housed here (Scott, 1994, p. 1). In 1956, Highway Secon-
dary was established by this local community to provide an education for their chil-
dren, which the government of the day was not adequately serving.
Now that a motorway has been built nearby, access to Highway Secondary is via an
obscure cul de sac that passes a Hindu shrine. Originally there were several schools
built together on adjoining sites. Now these form an untidy sprawl of blocks named
A, B, C, and so on, referring to previous schools that were amalgamated to form
Highway Secondary, an academic and technical high school that was once the largest
Indian school in KwaZulu-Natal province.7 The school’s proud history of serving the
local Indian community is evident in a carved school crest and Hindi symbols com-
memorating the school’s jubilee in 1980.
In the 1960s Durban’s white City Council was engaged in zoning of the city for
different racial groups. This was linked to implementation of the race-based Group
Areas Act, as well as a boom in population growth. Thus, 2 km from Centenary High,
a new neighborhood zoned exclusively for whites was established, and Heather
Primary was opened to serve the local white community. The name of the neighbor-
hood commemorates the deep valleys between the Northwest Highlands and
Grampian Mountains of Scotland, beloved by a nineteenth century settler whose farm
had once covered the hills surrounding the school site (Fielden, 1887/1973). In the
suburb, roads named after settlers from Scotland also recall this colonial past.8
Although the school was opened in 1961, there is no foundation stone to mark that
event.9 The school’s crest, displayed on signage at the main entrance, includes two
spikes of Scotch Heather that grows in the valleys of Scotland. The white and green of
the heather forms the color base for the school uniform, repeated in green cardigans
and blazers, check cotton dresses for girls and striped ties and socks for boys.
The approach to the school is from a dangerously undulating through-road, and cot-
tages for elderly descendants from English settlers and a municipal cemetery lie across
the road from the school. The parallel rows of red brick classrooms joined together by
covered corridors, open yet sheltered from the weather, are tropes of countless other
public schools throughout Durban. The wing for Grades 1–3 classes was purpose-built
with inter-leading toilet and wash areas and special storerooms for the bulky materials
and equipment used in teaching younger learners. In the 1960s, there was a large spe-
cially equipped room for teaching girls sewing and cooking, while boys had a workshop
 Reforming the City School in South Africa 99

where they went to learn about carpentry. After some years these rooms lost their gen-
dered curriculum ethos when they were transformed into a library and music room
and used by all. The school was also extended with the construction of a school hall
and addition of a swimming pool. In 2005 the school undertook further extensive
additions.10
In the same decade after Heather Primary was established, the city expanded to the
south where it proclaimed huge low-income council housing estates. In these areas
near the southern industrial belt and oil refinery, working class Indians were relocated
to act as a labor pool and buffer against nearby southern townships that central gov-
ernment had established for black workers (Davies, 1991, p. 80). Ironically, the area
was named after a wealthy country estate in England and continued the semiotic link
of former colony and empire. At the entrance to the vast council housing estate, the
Council laid out a suburb with a shell of roads, shops, schools and religious sites, and
residential plots. The latter were earmarked for middle class Indians from whom the
Council had appropriated property located in white zones near the center of the city.
The central government administrators for Indian education established Maximus
Primary as a public school to serve this local neighborhood.
One participant in this study of Durban/eThekwini schools was a former pupil of
Maximus Primary in the 1970s. She recalled that:

[the school] was built so that it [could] service the incoming residents, the new
young families that were beginning to reside and build homes in the sub-
urb … with the assistance by the [City] Council … . There was a high level of
professional people that had moved in, predominantly teachers, and then lawyers
and doctors that had moved into the area. So their kids were coming to the school
and there were a few odd families like mine where the parents were not profes-
sional but the Council had allocated them property – suppose because they could
meet the deposit and meet the payment for that kind of property. My dad was a
[supervisor] at the factory at the time when we moved in here. But he had
received assistance from his family … .

In contrast to the monotony of nearby hills covered by rows of identical terrace houses
for working class families, each home in this neighborhood was uniquely designed to
serve the needs and aesthetics of the owner. Ashwin Desai (2001, p. 23), a sociologist
and social commentator, has asserted that the Council’s placement of an affluent area
at the entrance to a low-income area served to hide the poor social conditions resulting
from the relocation program. Maximus Primary nestles in a valley between these
homes, a Hindu temple and a cluster of local shops. The lower road running along the
valley’s marsh, acts as a boundary separating the suburb from an adjacent black work-
ing class township.
The school principal reported that the community had been involved in selecting the
name of Maximus Primary. This signals the high aspirations and inspiration of an Indian
middle class community to excel educationally and is reminiscent of a classical liberal
education that would have been characteristic of white schooling. The choice of name
100 Karlsson

may also have signaled the community’s determination to rise above the spatial partition
and evictions that were meted out by the white councilors of apartheid-era Durban.
Later an administration block was added, comprising a reception foyer and the usual
rooms for management and school administration, as well as a staff room, library,
music room and tuck shop. Behind this stand the original tiered rows of low red brick
classrooms, each row opening onto an open but covered corridor facing away from
oncoming southerly weather, with a science laboratory and toilets on the flanks.
Washtubs were installed along the terraces adjoining classrooms. The grounds were
planted with trees indigenous to the coastal forests that once covered these hills, and
the inter-leading corridors were named after these trees. Various outdoor sport facili-
ties with change rooms were laid out for netball, soccer and cricket.
By the mid-1970s, the number of white learners increased at Centenary High. This
should be understood within the context of political change and independence in
Zimbabwe and the former Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique, as whites
from those countries moved to South Africa, which still had a white government. The
marked increase in enrolment at Centenary High drove the construction of extra class-
rooms. Two large blocks were built as flanks fronting the 1937-era wings. Built during a
period of economic boom and confidence when the political regime consolidated its
apartheid system, the late modern minimalist architecture presents to the city a bulkhead
of robust resolution and regimen of uniformity.
During the 1980s, Durban’s local white politicians and industrialists sought suitable
real estate for industrial expansion. As the area of Durban/eThekwini is hilly, land in the
vicinity of Highway Secondary became the targeted growth point (Scott, 1994, pp. 2–3).
This would have required Highway Secondary’s local residents to be removed – as had
happened in the 1960s on a large scale elsewhere in the city. This would have entailed
Council appropriation of properties and the relocation of the community, against their
will, to another area of Durban. Geographer, Dianne Scott (1994, p. 3), outlines the City
Council’s strategy for this southern area at that time:

When the racial segregation of space became the purview of the national state with
the promulgation of the Group Areas Act [in 1950], the Durban City Council had
to rely entirely on planning and technical procedures in order to achieve its
goal … [M]any other strategies were implemented to reduce the residential com-
ponent and character of the area and force residents to relocate either by expropri-
ating their properties or by creating a climate of uncertainty about the future. Also
occurring simultaneously with this process was the systematic removal of thou-
sands of Indian families from the shack areas in the surrounding “District” […], by
terminating their leases on Council property. This removal process dovetailed with
infrastructural developments and the provision of alternative housing in the large-
scale public housing schemes provided for to accomplish racial segregation via the
Group Areas Act.

Thus, the resident Indian community around Highway Secondary has the distinction of
being among the last to be threatened with forced removal during the apartheid era.
With the support of civil society groups the community was successful in resisting
 Reforming the City School in South Africa 101

removal. Though unrelated to those political contests, in the administration wing foyer
a commemorative plaque dates from this period, which says:

This building was officially opened by the director of Indian education, G[…]
K[…] Esq., during the silver jubilee celebration of the [Highway] Secondary
School on 30 August 1980. Hierdie gebou is amptelik geopen deur die direkteur
van Indieronderwys, Mnr. G[…] K[…], tydens die silwerjubileumherdenking van
die [Highway] Sekondere Skool op 30 Augustus 1980.

The use of the two official languages of the apartheid era, reference to “Indian educa-
tion” and name of the officiating white bureaucrat, signal the school’s history of being
caught in a contradictory space of segregation and subjugation during the apartheid
era. The rapidly expanding apartheid city also located Highway Secondary within an
ambiguous transitional and marginal space of the city: at the interstice of industry,
commerce, harbor, and neighborhood. The muddle and mayhem of this locale mani-
fests now in Highway Secondary’s amalgamated precinct. The different architectural
textures of the classroom blocks, administration wing, and warehouse-like vocational
training workshops yield a discordant urban landscape that is either over-exposed to
the sun in bare concrete and tarred courtyards, or lost in dimly lit rooms, dark passages
and rampant sub-tropical vegetation.
Two years after Highway Secondary had celebrated its silver jubilee, Centenary
High installed a bell tower overlooking the hockey field. It was to commemorate the
school’s centenary in 1982. What is striking is its contrast to the modernity of the
1970s blocks. The bell tower’s stone masonry, matching the original entrance posts at
the street, signals the school’s endurance as a significant education institution in the
city. Words on the two pillars of the bell tower state that:

This bell tower erected by past and present pupils and staff, generously assisted
by the Durban City Council, was unveiled by the Mayor of Durban, Councillor
Mrs S[…] H[…] on 26th April 1982.
“Time lost is never regained.” Erected to commemorate the centenary of
[Centenary] Girls High School 1882–1982. Fortiter Fideliter Feliciter.

The absence of Afrikaans and the use of English and Latin in this inscription signals a
subtle shift in the school’s politics and identity from the era when the 1937 foundation
stone was laid. The honorable mention given to a female elected (liberal Jewish) city
councilor, rather than a male bureaucrat, such as that from the education authorities in
the provincial capital cited in the 1937 foundation stone, suggests that in the interven-
ing years a strong connection had been established between the school and the city’s
new liberal politicians. In the 1980s, the city’s liberal politics contrasted with the
increasingly ruthless and repressive central government of the apartheid regime. The
gender shift, as noted in reading the two plaques, suggests that Centenary High had
deepened its gendered identification as a school for girls. The epigram and Latin motto
restate the school’s pursuit of a classical liberal education tradition with connections
to Europe.
102 Karlsson

What school provision was there for black children in the apartheid city? A key
component of central government’s apartheid planning was the establishment of rural
homeland governments or self-governing territories where black communities could
govern themselves. These self-governing territories were also intended to reduce the
flow of black people moving from rural areas into towns and cities. Nevertheless, in
Durban urbanization was not stemmed. Fleeing the poverty and under-development of
rural areas and in hope of employment and an improved quality of life, people contin-
ued to seek their fortunes in the city, settling informally on the fringes of townships,
such as at Inanda, which lay between the city and the KwaZulu homeland territory.11
In the 1970s, the apartheid government had reconstituted the Trust that had juris-
diction over Inanda, renaming it the South African [ex Native] Development Trust
(Hughes, 1996, pp. 305–307). The infrastructure in the area was minimal and condi-
tions were reminiscent of rural areas, with many homes built from wooden poles, a
mud or cement mix and corrugated iron sheets, with unhygienic pit latrines nearby.
In the aftermath of the 1976 township uprisings, South Africa’s largest corporations,
fearing further unrest among a discontented black working class, established the
Urban Foundation, a development initiative (Urban Foundation, 1981). Collaborative
engagements for “orderly urbanization” brought groups like the Urban Foundation
and central and local governments together, for the development of new housing
schemes on Durban’s northern fringes (Davies, 1991, p. 86).
By the 1980s, Durban had grown as a metropolis, with regional and town planners
conceiving of the city, its satellite towns and outlying rural areas as a single economic
region that deserved coordinated planning (Davies, 1991, pp. 83–84). Thus, in that
decade, the Urban Foundation led and funded the planning and development of a sec-
tion of Inanda. This new township offered prospective homeowners a house built
according to established urban building standards and with basic amenities and access
to public services, such as clinics and schools.
To serve the densely populated area, a cluster of four schools was established atop a
hill, one being Khayalihle Primary. The school’s name, meaning “beautiful home,” and
school motto, imfundo isisekelo, which means “education is the foundation,” encapsu-
late the aspirations of planners and occupants for the new houses and the futures of
their children.
The ideas of early apartheid era township planners help us to understand the way
schools were socially constructed to inflect particular center-periphery relations
between the city and school:

… sites selected for school and hostel buildings affect not only the educational
process and the school environment but also the greater area of the surrounding
neighbourhood or town. The school is, in fact, a social centre and is an important
and integral part of the locality … The site must therefore meet the requirements
of the greater town plan, provide the school with a complementary setting and
finally supply the children with a satisfactory environment in which to play and
learn. (le Roux, Nel, Hulse, & Calderwood, 1956–1957, p. 3)

The late apartheid town planning activities of the Urban Foundation continued this
early apartheid framework. In its first years, Khayalihle Primary occupied prefab
 Reforming the City School in South Africa 103

premises adjoining its present site, but once buildings were ready in 1985, the institu-
tion moved. This was a government primary school administered by the authorities for
black education within the white-dominated urban areas of South Africa. Although
these authorities had their own architectural plans for their schools, the palmate layout
and locally fired red bricks of parallel rows of classrooms and open corridors, with a
discrete administration wing is not dissimilar to other primary schools in the city.
The foundation stone inside the administration offices states that a senior manager
from the Department of Education and Training, Mr. N[…], officially opened the
school at the end of 1985. To identify the school to passers-by, the crest was once
painted on a wall facing the street, but by 2000 this had deteriorated and faded in the
weather. Though special facilities, such as a library and tuck shop, may have appeared
on architect’s plans, no such rooms were built at Khayalihle Primary.12
From the outset there were only the most essential facilities at Khayalihle Primary,
unlike schools, such as Maximus and Heather Primary Schools, in the city’s white and
Indian zoned areas. The conditions at Khayalihle Primary were consistent with the sys-
temic under-funding of black education at a central government level, though the funding
was greater than that for rural schools in the adjacent KwaZulu homeland territory. Thus
Khayalihle had a purpose-built administration wing, was electrified, and had on-site water
and flush toilets. However, compared to Heather Primary and Maximus Primary, at
Khayalihle there was no kitchen and only outside wash tubs, the lesson bell had no timer
and was rung manually, and two sets of learner toilets had been built so the septic tanks
could be rested.13 In some of these infrastructure conditions we see how the apartheid city
arrangements of locating black townships peripheral to the city, and at a disadvantage to
access the amenities offered in the city, played out in the everyday practices of Khayalihle
Primary.
To sum up the period of the apartheid city, 1948–1990, the rapid spread of Durban
was linked to its political rupture into clearly demarcated racialized areas and its eco-
nomic expansion. In addition, the city was pressured by an inflow of people seeking
refuge from the poverty and under-development associated with rurality and the politi-
cal uncertainty of black rule in South Africa’s neighboring states. These social forces
and trends are paralleled in the establishment of new urban schools that served those
removed and newly settled communities, and minimalist township schools to calm a
restive black working class. By the 1980s, Durban’s City Council was led by a liberal
female mayor although central government was still in the grip of the apartheid regime.
These changes and tensions manifested in the contrasting brave-new-world expansion-
ism of the city’s leading school for girls as it sought to accommodate an influx of learn-
ers. So, too, the disheveled reconfiguration of the school for Indian learners epitomizes
how many schools serving politically marginalized communities were neglected,
stressed and strained by a contradictory and, in the late 1980s, embattled political system.

The Post-Apartheid City School

Housing shortages became acute in South African cities at the end of the apartheid era
when influx controls, which had restricted black people’s access to the city for employ-
ment and residence, were abolished. In the early 1990s, the city also began to relax
104 Karlsson

segregated access to beaches (Davies, 1991, p. 86). The strictly segregated school sys-
tem began to fracture as Indian schools admitted small numbers of black learners.
Then, in 1990, new models of school governance and funding were proclaimed for
white schools, ushering in the first stage towards formal desegregation of public
schooling (Karlsson, McPherson, & Pampallis, 2001, pp. 145–146).
Up until South Africa’s democratic elections in 1994 and the start of transitional local
governments, white councilors had controlled Durban. However, after 1994 a non-racial
City Council was elected and was dominated by South Africa’s post-apartheid ruling
party, the African National Congress (ANC). In 2001, transitional local government
arrangements came to an end and the greater Durban region was re-demarcated and
named eThekwini after the original isiZulu name for Durban and surrounding areas.
Increasingly the name eThekwini is used in business, the media and conversation, with
Durban used to signify the developed harbor city and this name is retained where it is
more readily recognized, such as in the international arena.
In the 1990s many changes occurred in the built environment at Centenary High that
required substantial capital investment and which took the school to new heights as
one of the city’s prestigious schools.
The original wooden gates that had graced the entrance to the school since the 1930s
were replaced in 1997–1998 by automated security gates with an intercom and close
circuit camera linked to the reception office.14 Then in 1999, a three-story science and
career counseling facility following a post-modern architectural style was opened. The
wing adjoins the 1937 building and runs alongside the hall to enclose a paved court-
yard with palm trees and a drinking fountain reserved for learners in the final grade. A
granite plaque commemorating the opening of the wing bears a brass plate of the
wing’s three-story profile overprinted with the words:

[Centenary] Girls High School

The A[…] M[…] Wing
Opened 7 May 1999

The wording on this plaque differs significantly from the 1937 foundation stone and
1982 bell tower commemorative inscription. It drops the classical references and
excessive wording in the previous plaques and prefers an economical use of lan-
guage. As with the 1982 centenary inscription there is continuity in the reference to
a female leader, A[…] M[…]. However, in the new inscription, the female is not
merely an officiating dignitary; she represents the heart and the head of the school:
the incumbent principal. This may have provided the school with some political
fence-sitting by avoiding any city dignitary from the local government, which had
come under the control of the African National Congress. Rather than progressing to
recognition of a post-apartheid female (black) leader, the safe choice of the white
principal on this commemorative plaque suggests a withdrawal in 1999 into the con-
tinuity of institutional history and culture as a school traditionally for white English-
speaking girls. Further, while the previous inscriptions merely state the names of two
dignitaries present at the event, the 1999 plaque assigns the name of the dignitary to
the building, thereby fusing the identification of the subject with the new wing (the
 Reforming the City School in South Africa 105

A[…] M[…] Wing is A[…] M[…]) and ensuring such continuity well into future
decades.
The new science and counseling wing is named after the principal in tribute to her
vision of a state-of-the-art science teaching wing that would fully prepare girls to con-
sider scientific careers in the twenty-first century.15 The wing has a science lecture
theatre with data projection facilities, and nearby are a fully equipped laboratory with
an industrial extractor fan that also serves an interior design aesthetic, and a well-
appointed museum-style display of scientific paraphernalia. Another level of the wing
houses a career guidance and counseling suite. It includes a carpeted space for larger
casual group sessions, a soundproof room for confidential counseling, an office for
counselors and a records storeroom.
As Centenary High’s built environment has been elaborated over the years and as the
post-apartheid political dispensation has brought a new generation of learners com-
muting from the periphery of the city, spatial practices have been recalibrated in keep-
ing with technological advances and economic dynamics. Yet the gendered schooling
for girls and the middle class encoding of quality education remains constant. When
viewed from the street and commercial center of Durban, the wealth and weighty phys-
ical presence of Centenary High’s spatiality within its showcase of middle class
homes, represents a dramatic contrast with the modest township and flimsy informal
settlement homes where most of Durban’s population reside. This gives Centenary
High a potentially significant position in city-school power relations. However, the
school’s inward retreat since 1994, garrisoning itself behind the façade of its own
buildings, security walls and locked gates, indicates that the potential to exercise that
power positively in the city has not been exploited. Reasons for this might be related to
fears about a post-apartheid political dispensation and the ANC-led government’s
funding policy of radically reducing non-personnel funds to schools in middle class
areas so that previously under-resourced schools serving poor communities will
receive higher levels of funding than in the past (Department of Education, 1998).
Within this regulatory framework, schools, such as Centenary High are expected to
mobilize local community-based funds through enrolment fees and donations, and
these sources of funding have been utilized for much of the development in Centenary
High’s built environment since 1994.16 In her foreword to the school’s 1999 yearbook,
a representational space in which the school showcases its achievements, the principal
signaled a confident yet guarded stance that locates the school in the local position on
the multi-tiered global–local stage of world history:

Established in 1882 [Centenary] Girls High School has responsibly educated the
girls of this city for 118 years. This school will move forward into the next decade –
century – millenium with confidence. During this century meaningful education
continued through two world wars. In the last decade we have coped with the social
and educational changes brought about by democratic rule in the Republic of South
Africa.

Although the principal does not finger any particular tier of government, her reference
to the country’s official name suggests that the national rather than local level of city
106 Karlsson

government is presenting the school with the most challenge. Her phrase of “coping
with” conceals the power in the social bulwark being constituted through the school’s
spatial arrangements. The defense is for a place that secures middle class privilege,
that affords recreation and leisure in its park-like grounds, courtyards that are exclu-
sive to certain grades, sports facilities and learning facilities that ensure an offering of
diverse career prospects, and classroom conditions that ease the discomfort of the
sub-tropical heat. The defense in a post-apartheid era for such a socially classed place
has eclipsed what was forfeited of apartheid-era racial exclusivity, while the racially
integrated spatiality conceals an informal spatial practice of segregation that is seen in
the gardens where girls wander at lunchtime and in friendship group photographs in
the yearbook ([Centenary] High School, 1999). Thus, the gloss being given this public
school in the post-apartheid era continues the quality education offered down through
the years since its establishment in the colonial and segregated eras, and through the
middle years of apartheid, though it is no longer the exclusive preserve of white girls.
At Highway Secondary a very different scenario of marginalization and neglect
played out. Despite reasons to be optimistic in the first decade of democracy in the city
and even in the presence of hard urban-edginess of its durable concrete and asphalt, the
school was deteriorating. Though once a respected school with a proud history of Indian
education, by 2000 most learners were not local and were black. Further, as state fund-
ing had dwindled, the school’s vocational workshops had become obsolete technologi-
cally. In learners’ photographs of graffiti, vandalism and their misdemeanors, social
alienation and malaise were prevalent. The tensions that infused Highway Secondary
suggest a disjuncture in its identification during the unsettling aftermath of the
apartheid era and as an educational institution caught in a thoroughfare between the
city’s center and periphery.
South of the city, there was rapid expansion of low-income townships to provide
housing to the black working class. On a hill near to Maximus Primary these housing
developments eroded the buffer zone between black and Indian residential areas.
Whereas prior to the 1990s, middle class families from the neighborhood had sent
their children to this school, this had changed since. More and more learners attending
Maximus Primary were from black low-income families residing in nearby working
class townships. As a result, local Indian families no longer enrolled their children at
Maximus Primary. With these enrolment changes, Maximus had lost the resources that
had previously developed and maintained the school site. With local middle class fam-
ilies no longer associating with and supporting the school, the school’s facilities were
vulnerable and decaying.
There were signs of decline in the discontinued use of the science laboratory, the
closure of the art room that vagrants had broken into, an empty music room, peeling
paint, graffiti, sports change rooms used as the security guard’s lodging, and the addi-
tion of a concrete palisade fence topped with razor-wire to secure the school site from
the surrounding community who allegedly used water from taps in the grounds.17
Adjacent to the sports field, disused cricket nets stood rusting and overgrown with
grass and benches in the playground lay broken. The school was in need of exterior paint-
ing, there were missing doors and dankness in seeping toilets. To counteract the loss of
power and prevent further theft and vandalism, the school had adopted a defensive spatial
 Reforming the City School in South Africa 107

strategy to secure property and conserve the condition of what resources remain. This
manifested in a new perimeter fence and gate in 2000.
The secure perimeter represented the changing social relations between Maximus
Primary and its surrounding area. Whereas in the past the boundary between school
and neighborhood was not rigid and impenetrable so that mutual identification would
have been strong, in 2000 the security fence cordoned off the school and alienated it
from families living in adjacent homes. The increasing spatial isolation weakened the
school within the neighborhood and undermined the prospect of the school being a
center of community life.
Perceptions about the social climate of the city, especially concerning crime, had led
to changes at Heather Primary. Although government architects had designed the
reception and administration offices to be the first entry point for visitors from the
street, in the post-apartheid era traffic and security considerations have led the school
to permanently lock off the main pedestrian entrance to the school and set vehicle and
pedestrian gate entrances elsewhere, deeper into the school grounds. Whereas in the
past the public and local residents had had easy access to the school, by 2000 gates
blocked their access to the premises. Nevertheless, although Heather Primary shared
the same concerns about security as other schools in Durban/eThekwini, its security
measures did not appear to be isolating it from the local community. A strong bond
between the school and local community was evident when thieves murdered a local
shopkeeper; the community meeting to discuss ways to keep such shared threats in
check was held in the school’s hall.
Notwithstanding this community-school bond, Heather Primary was no longer
merely a local neighborhood school. It had opened its doors to enroll learners from all
parts of Durban/eThekwini so that many learners were commuting by taxi or private
transport from townships and other areas of the city. These are generally black children.
Not far from Heather Primary and Centenary High is one of Durban’s newest
schools opened in 1999: Simunye Secondary. These three schools are in sharp contrast
and illuminate the contradictions in city schools of the post-apartheid era.
Simunye Secondary is nested within the Simunye Multi-Purpose Community Centre,
on the second spine of hills overlooking the harbor. Its situation within the multi-
purpose centre distinguishes this school from older schools in Durban/eThekwini that
are discussed in this chapter. Although a new school in the post-apartheid city, its loca-
tion nevertheless resonates with the city’s colonial and apartheid history. The area was
formerly named in the isiZulu language after the river where Durban’s first mayor,
George Cato, farmed in 1845 (Dingezweni, 2001, pp. 12–13). By the 1930s, ownership
of the farm was taken over by Indian market gardeners who sublet pockets of land, turn-
ing the area into a culturally mixed shantytown of 120,000 people (Dingezweni, 2001,
pp. 12–13). Following riots in 1949 between blacks and Indians, and the passing of the
Group Areas Act in 1950, which the Durban City Council was among the first to imple-
ment in 1958 (Davies, 1991, p. 79), this area’s residents were forcibly removed to town-
ships on the perimeter of Durban. Lemon (1991a) notes that such removals signaled the
transition of the segregated city, in which urban residential patterns were segregated
loosely along racial lines, to the apartheid city with rigid racial zones of “group areas”
(Lemon, 1991a, p. 1). From that time, the “Cato Manor” hills stood fallow and became
108 Karlsson

reforested, pending expansionary endeavors of the white City Council to develop this
valuable real estate so close to the city center.
It was only after 1983 that fringes of the area came under residential construction by
the House of Delegates, the authority for Indian affairs. However, in 1994 the area was
marked for redevelopment by the post-apartheid government in collaboration with the
local community development association, and became one of South Africa’s largest
urban renewal programs (Corporate Policy Unit, 2004; Dingezweni, 2001, pp. 12–13).
Forty-one thousand houses are planned, serviced with shopping centers, markets and
multi-purpose centers that will incorporate 106 schools, 4 libraries, 10 community
halls, 4 sports complexes, and 5 clinics (MacGregor, 1994, pp. 23–24).
In the fluidity of the transitional period (1990–1994), informal settlements sprang
up on vacant lots nearest to transport routes. When the urban renewal program got
underway in the late 1990s, Simunye Multi-Purpose Community Centre was among
the first institutional clusters to be constructed on a narrow ridge with steep slopes
falling away into a valley. The Centre serves the urban poor living on the hills round
about in informal shelters and post-apartheid matchbox houses built as part of the
Reconstruction and Development Programme (Ministry in the Office of the President,
1994) for those in a low-income bracket.
The Multi-Purpose Community Centre was structured to contain four institutions: a
primary and a secondary school, and a community hall and public library. Durban’s
eThekwini local government is responsible for the staffing and maintenance of the hall
and library, while the schools are administered by the provincial government’s
KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education.
A brass plaque on a pedestal near the library commemorates the opening of the
Centre. The phrasing of this plaque contrasts with that for Centenary High’s new
Science Wing. Notably, in the post-apartheid era Centenary High named its Wing after
the incumbent white principal. However, Simunye Secondary, within the precinct of
Simunye Multi-Purpose Community Centre, restored local black history, endorsed the
new political elite of South Africa, and signals its service to the urban poor:

[SIMUNYE]
MULTI-PURPOSE CENTRE
THE
[SIMUNYE]
LIBRARY
COMMUNITY HALL
PRIMARY SCHOOL

and

[SIMUNYE]
SECONDARY SCHOOL
WERE OFFICIALLY OPENED
BY THE HONOURABLE
DEPUTY STATE PRESIDENT
 Reforming the City School in South Africa 109

Jacob Zuma
ON 14 AUGUST 1999

There are several points of interest in the wording of this plaque. For example, although
the Centre is located within an area where people are predominantly isiZulu-speaking,
the plaque uses only English indicating the hegemony of the colonizers’ language for
public use in the post-apartheid era. However, this is offset by the isiZulu institutional
name, which represents official recognition of the pre-1960s history when mostly people
of Zulu ethnicity populated the area. A further point is that the opening was conducted
by none other than the deputy president of the country, a popular and local political
leader respected for brokering peace in the city in the early 1990s. This underlines the
importance of the area and its development as a form of post-apartheid restitution and
social transformation of land from which communities were once evicted. Thus, unlike
the officiating dignitaries in past eras whose names appear on foundation stones and
commemorative plaques for public schools, at Simunye Multi-Purpose Community
Centre the dignitary was a black leader. Lastly, it is notable that the joint opening of the
institutions within the Multi-Purpose Community Centre signified the agreement among
the various tiers of government, including the city, to provide communities with holistic
social services. It also works towards government’s aspiration that schools should be
centers of community life (Asmal, 1999, pp. 9–10; Department of Education, 1995).
Each institution within Simunye Multi-Purpose Community Centre was designed by
a member of a team of four architects practicing within the city, working together to con-
ceptualize the optimal use of shared facilities. However, each institution was designed to
function and articulate separately since different government spheres administer them.
Thus, each institution manages its own territory and secures its property. Two funda-
mental ideas inform the conceptualization of the multi-purpose center. First, local resi-
dents should be able to access a range of public services and information offered at the
Center (Department of Public Works, 2001; Matsepe-Casaburri, 2000). This accounts for
the two public schools, free library and information service, general purpose rooms
above the library that are suitable for adult education classes, the hall that can be hired
for large group meetings, and cultural and sporting activities. Second, the Center is
designed with economic sustainability in mind, to avoid duplicating costly specialist
facilities. Thus, neither of the schools have halls or libraries since they are expected to
use the specialist facilities provided nearby.
As a post-apartheid school, Simunye Secondary has been provided with many spe-
cialist facilities that might not have been standard at older township schools serving the
urban poor – as was the case for Khayalihle Primary. One wing of Simunye Secondary
comprises fully equipped purpose-built rooms for science and technical subjects such
as technical drawing, home economics and laboratories. Another distinctive feature at
Simunye Secondary, not found at schools built in the apartheid-era, are toilets for peo-
ple with physical disabilities and wheelchair access ramps. While during apartheid the
children of the black working class had inferior and inadequate school buildings and
education, Simunye Secondary offers good teaching and learning facilities, profes-
sional support from public librarians, a library collection, and community hall that
might provide school-leavers with further study and career opportunities.
110 Karlsson

Despite the huge intellectual and economic investment in Durban’s largest and his-
torically most significant urban renewal project, photo-observations of Simunye
Secondary show signs of theft and vandalism and deliberate effacement of the buildings
within its first year. Graffiti is scratched outside cloakrooms, change rooms and toilet
areas, inside toilets, and on walls furthest from the administration offices and adult
eyes. In one of the girls’ cloakrooms, toilet seats and mirrors are missing, water leaks
onto the floor and one ceramic bowl and cistern have been smashed to pieces. Although
graffiti may not be uncommon in public toilets, the theft and damages inflicted at
Simunye Secondary after only 1 year by the very learners intended to be beneficiar-
ies of post-apartheid schooling and urban renewal, raise questions about local
geo-political relations to the school. An ambiguous politics of space is evident at
Simunye Multi-Purpose Community Centre and in the spatial field of the neighbor-
hood. Notwithstanding the boundary security fence around the Centre, the open and
easy access to the Centre’s precinct during the day signals the Centre’s endeavor to
maintain a balance between public access and security concerns. This arrangement and
the school ramps and toilets for people with physical disabilities, signal the post-
apartheid government’s batho pele [people first] public service policy (Department of
Public Service and Administration, 1997). This policy is the official discourse of center-
periphery power relations aimed at providing a caring and professional service to com-
munities. Further, the single foundation stone and perceived outer perimeter fencing
and continuous paving in the interstices between each component of the Centre, also
allows the Multi-Purpose Community Centre to masquerade as a single public institu-
tion for the local community. However, as Lefebvre (1996) notes, spatiality produces
difference and the inner security gates, roof structures and distinctive architectures dis-
tinguish the institutional components, their different functions and administrative author-
ities. Thus, while the local community may perceive institutional unity through tropes
such as the perimeter fence, they conceal administrative ruptures in the city-province
unity such as when the principal of Simunye Secondary has to negotiate access to
the municipality’s facilities. Use of the hall for any events first requires that a booking
fee is paid at an administrative office in the center of the city. As a result, the school
rarely uses the hall, and instead uses the courtyard for school assemblies.
Although Simunye Secondary is an exemplar of Lefebvre’s proposition that new
social relations render new practices and new spaces (Lefebvre, 1991, pp. 52–59),
traces of the past continue in the present and public domain. These are found in the
name of the school and in a nearby Moslem memorial and place of prayer that dates
back to when many Indians lived in the vicinity.
The last difference to note here is a disjuncture between the spatiality of the sur-
rounding homes and that of Simunye Secondary. The low-income “matchbox” houses
stand as a post-apartheid revision and reduction of Calderwood’s (1964, p. 80) notion of
the nuclear family township residence and they contrast with the elaborate customiza-
tion and complexity of the architect-designed Simunye Secondary. These contrasts
point to disparities between the public space of a government school and the private
space of the home. While Simunye Secondary appears as a richly endowed space, the
matchbox house reflects the confined space of poverty in family life. The inequality in
these power relations may account for the vandalism evident at Simunye Secondary.
 Reforming the City School in South Africa 111

Conclusion
In this chapter I have used the histories of six schools in Durban/eThekwini to illumi-
nate three periods of urban schooling in South Africa. These were the colonial and seg-
regated era (up to 1948) when well-appointed urban schools were restricted to white
learners; the apartheid era (1948–1990) when racially exclusive government schools
were established in new residential areas of the expanding apartheid city and then when
national and local governments sought to pacify urban unrest by improving living con-
ditions and social services for black working class communities on the outskirts of the
city. Lastly, I outlined developments in the post-apartheid era (1990-present) when
schools and cities were desegregated and urban renewal projects have been used to
alleviate conditions among the urban poor.
This latter period of racial integration and democracy has rendered some contradictory
urban experiences that suggest that many communities in Durban/eThekwini feel alien-
ated within the post-apartheid city. For example, many urban schools have cordoned
themselves off from the public sphere by way of their own security fences. Others appear
to be unsettled and distressed. In some this may be linked to changes in their institutional
ethos as learners commute across the city to attend schools where they might once have
been forbidden to enter. In others, we see the city reformulating its priorities to include
informal settlement communities and co-operating with other government authorities to
provide an integrated public service framework. However, even within such a new urban
school the state’s well-intentioned investment and effort jars strikingly with the dire con-
ditions among the urban poor and may account for the evident pilfering and deterioration.
Some urban schools have become racially integrated in their enrolments even
though the city’s residential areas remain largely patterned by racial homogeneity. This
is possible because of the support of the city’s transport systems and parents’ strategies
to ferry their children across the city by minibus taxi.
In relation to the city of Durban/eThekwini, two of the selected schools take up par-
enthetical and antithetical positions. Centenary High, as one of the city’s oldest
schools, represents an isolated privileged space of cumulative institutional history,
with traditions going back to the nineteenth century when single-sex schooling was the
norm. It has retained its central and middle class privileged position close to nodes of
power for the city: the university, harbor and commercial center. In contrast, Simunye
Secondary, one of the city’s new schools, represents an integrated, shared social space
that militates against a class-based entitlement to quality education with an egalitarian
rights-based education for the children of poor and working class families in a new
space not yet encumbered with tradition. It is ironic that Simunye Secondary lies just
3 km over the hill from Centenary High. Simunye Secondary stands to reclaim the
black history of Durban in the vicinity where apartheid injustices of racially motivated
riots and forced removals once took place. It is a rebuttal of that history of violence,
dispossession, and discrimination, affirming the rights of blacks and poor people to
live in peace and with adequate shelter, schooling, social services and leisure, near
their places of work in the city center.
It was the relations of we-them nested in center-periphery spatiality of the city and
school that enabled the white Durban City Council to use the spatial arena for rendering
112 Karlsson

socially constructed difference. While center-periphery geographic differences continue,

the blurring of apartheid race/class divisions in the current changing urban environment
have slowly begun to effect changes in schools. This is most pronounced in the daily
movement of learner populations transported to schools across the city. Learner mobility
is enabled by education policies that prohibit schools in the post-1994 era from restrict-
ing enrolment to learners from a geographic area and that allow parents to exercise
choice in selecting schools for their children. Learner mobility has desegregated former
white and Indian schools more rapidly than home ownership and residential patterns.
Although public schooling continues to be confounded by race and class issues, the daily
commuting of working class learners to schools across the city has desegregated subur-
ban schools and brought new issues of spatiality to the fore, such as the working class
learner’s mobility, contingent on safe and affordable public transport, to schools beyond
the local neighborhood. That points to the need for research that will consider the signif-
icance of the street as the interstice of school and city space in the post-apartheid era, the
street as a fluid city space that bridges home and school and in which learners are
vulnerable, especially in a city such as Durban/eThekwini that has known taxi wars
between rival minibus taxi operators.
The post-apartheid urban project, exemplified in Simunye Secondary, testifies to
the vision and capacity of the city authorities in collaboration with provincial and
national governments. Amidst the present tangle of rapid infrastructure installation,
low-income housing construction, public utilities, markets, and shacks, stand such new
centers of learning, offering the urban poor their constitutional right to (quality) basic
education and lifelong learning. Just over the hill, Centenary High is witness to the
continuing commitment to tradition and quality public schooling among middle and
working class families willing and able to pay the school fees. The contradictory
co-existence in such close proximity of Durban/eThekwini’s old and new schools is a
disquieting yet charismatic feature of the city. As the rural population increasingly
drifts to the city and families establish new homes in urban centers, such schools and
cities will point to the complex challenges in the urban experience and they may pro-
vide lessons for the better development of urban schooling in the “new” South Africa.

Notes
1. This chapter is based on parts of my doctoral thesis on apartheid/post-apartheid discourses in urban
school space.
2. Legislation that classified racial groups in South Africa was repealed in 1991 although differentiation
through various descriptions (such as language/poverty/previously disenfranchised) is still used for the
purposes of tracking redress and employment equity. In this chapter four race descriptors are used for
South Africans: black (i.e., indigenous African), colored (descendants of mixed race origin), white
(descendants of European origin) and Indian (descendants of those originally from the continent of India).
3. Fictitious school names are used in this chapter.
4. The selection was aimed at providing a range of schools that served the main population groups in
Durban/eThekwini in the past. Schools for Afrikaans-speaking white learners and schools for “colored”
learners were omitted because these groups are minorities within the city.
5. http://www.durban.gov.za/visitors/about/history/index.asp (Consulted on July 25, 2003).
6. Afrikaans is a derivative from Dutch, the first language of many early settlers from Europe.
 Reforming the City School in South Africa 113

7. Pers. Comm. Gregory McPherson, March 2000, in Durban. By 2007 the school no longer offered tech-
nical subjects for the training of artisans.
8. Pers. Comm. Neville Brooks, resident, in April 2001, in Durban.
9. Pers. Comm. Principal, May 22, 2003, in Durban.
10. Pers. Comm. Mr B. Cockwell, November 2005, in Durban.
11. The vast area of Inanda, north of the city, is where Mahatma Gandhi had established his Phoenix
Settlement in 1904, comprising the Kasturba Gandhi Primary School, printing press, museum, library
and clinic (Nyathikazi, 2000, pp. 14–15). Gandhi had emerged as a community leader when, as a
lawyer, he helped Indian communities fight discriminatory laws and practices. Phoenix Settlement
was badly damaged during the riots of 1985 and taken over by informal settlements.
12. Pers. Comm. Patrick Culligan, Deputy Chief Architect, KwaZulu-Natal Department of Works, on
November 14, 2002, in Durban.
13. Pers. Comm. Acting Principal, August 17, 2000, in Durban.
14. Pers. Comm. School Administrator, on June 22, 2000, in Durban.
15. Pers. Comm. School Administrator, on June 22, 2000, in Durban.
16. Pers. Comm. School Administrator, on June 22, 2000, in Durban.
17. Pers. Comm. Principal August 17, 2000, in Durban.

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6

URBAN PRIMARY SCHOOLING IN MALAWI:

OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES

Samson MacJessie-Mbewe and Dorothy Cynthia Nampota

University of Malawi, Malawi

Introduction
The notion of urban/city schools in developing countries in Africa, such as Malawi, is
different from that of developed countries, such as America. For instance, while city
schools are considered poor schools by American standards, urban schools in Malawi
are regarded as high-status schools by Malawian standards. In the context of develop-
ing countries, such as Malawi, urban schooling is considered a privilege or an oppor-
tunity by both parents and children. However, there are some challenges that urban
schools face that render their opportune status questionable. It is therefore the purpose
of this chapter to discuss the opportunities a child attending urban schools has in
Malawi and the challenges urban schools face in providing education to the urban pop-
ulation and the socially disadvantaged. In order to contextualize urban schooling in
Malawi, the chapter begins with a brief discussion of the geographical characteristics
of Malawi, its socio-economic and political contexts, and the education system. This
discussion is followed by a brief description of cultural capital and education as a guid-
ing theoretical framework for the chapter. Thereafter, the opportunities of attending
urban schools in Malawi are presented, followed by discussion of the challenges. These
are illustrated using the city of Blantyre as a case-study. In some instances, compara-
tive references to rural schools are made in order to clearly explain issues of urban
schooling in Malawi. The chapter concludes with recommendations to improve urban
schooling in Malawi. It is important to note that the urban schools discussed in this
chapter are those that are public.

Geographical Characteristics
Malawi is a landlocked country in Sub-Saharan Africa. It shares borders with Tanzania,
Zambia and Mozambique. It was under British Protectorate until July, 1964. The total sur-
face area of the country is 118,480 square kilometers of which 24,000 square kilometers
115
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 115–128.
© 2007 Springer.
116 MacJessie-Mbewe and Nampota

is freshwater from Lake Malawi (CIA, 2003). The main natural resource of the country is
arable land with hydropower from river Shire as another added resource. In terms of min-
erals, the country has limestone and small unexploited deposits of uranium, coal and
bauxite (CIA, 2003).
Malawi currently faces environmental challenges in form of deforestation, land
degradation, water pollution from agricultural runoff, sewage and industrial wastes and
siltation of the lake and the river Shire. These challenges affect the lives of Malawians
both directly and indirectly. For instance, land degradation has led to loss of fertility of
arable land that has in turn resulted in low agricultural productivity. The siltation of the
lake and rivers endangers fish populations. Wood is the main source of energy and this,
along with uncontrolled agricultural practices, lead to deforestation and consequently
loss of arable land and therefore, again, low-agricultural productivity. The eventual
results of all these challenges are reduced household income, high-food insecurity and
poor health.
The population of Malawi is estimated at 12.0 million of which 91% live in rural
areas while 9% live in the main urban areas (National Statistical Office, 2002, p. 3).
Young people constitute a large part of the Malawi’s population. According to the
Malawi Education Status Report (n.d., p. 1), half of the population are under 18, hence
of school going age. However, in urban areas alone, 41% of the population is aged less
than 15 years (National Statistical Office, 2002, p. 3).

Socioeconomic Context
Malawi is generally a poor country. It is ranked 164 out of 174 countries on the Human
Development Index with an estimated GNP per capita of US$210 in 1997 (UNDP,
1999). According to the 1998 Integrated Household Survey (Government of Malawi,
2000), 65.3% of the population is poor and about 28.2% of these are in dire poverty. It
should be noted however that poverty is more prevalent in rural than urban areas. The
Malawi Poverty Reduction Paper (Government of Malawi, 2002) for example shows
that 91.3% of the poor and 91.5% of the ultra poor live in the rural areas. Therefore, in
general, people living in urban areas in Malawi are of higher socioeconomic status
than those living in rural areas.
The relatively higher socioeconomic status of the people living in urban areas is
further substantiated by the findings of the National Statistical Office. In a survey con-
ducted in 2002 (National Statistical Office, 2002), it was observed that there is a big
difference between rural and urban heads of households in relation to the socioeco-
nomic sectors to which they belong. The Survey indicated that 20% of the heads of
households in urban areas work as public servants and only 5% of their counterparts in
rural areas are in public service. In addition, 45% of the household heads in urban
areas are employed in the private sector compared to 12% of the household heads
in the rural area. This means that the majority of the people living in the rural areas are
in subsistence agriculture, which, although important for the economy of the country
(CIA, 2003), does not result in adequate personal income.
The indicators on education do not stand in good stead partly due to the generally
bad economic conditions. The country has an estimated adult literacy rate of 60.9%
 Urban Primary Schooling in Malawi 117

(Ministry of Education, 2004), with illiteracy more prevalent in rural than urban areas.
Statistics show that the adult literacy rate in urban areas is 90.5% while that in rural
areas is 58.7%. This shows that many adults in urban areas are educated and have the
culture of reading and writing.
The low literacy levels could be a factor of low enrolment of pupils in school. For
instance, the enrolment rate for children aged 6–13 is estimated to be 77.76%, such
that the challenge to the Malawi government is to get the remaining 22% in school in
order to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of Universal Primary Education
(UNDP, 2003), to which Malawi is a signatory. The children who are not in school
include those that live on the streets of the major cities of Blantyre, Lilongwe (Afrol
News, 2003) and Zomba. This is a challenge for urban primary schools and will be
discussed later in the chapter.
The health indicators for the country are equally bad. In particular, affecting the
education sector of both urban and rural primary schools, is the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
In general, life expectancy at birth has dropped over the years from 43 years in 1996 to
39.5 years in 2000 and 37.98 years in 2003 partly due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic
(CIA, 2003; UNICEF, 2000). HIV/AIDS prevalence is at 15.96% for adults and 8.8%
overall. Although there are no settled statistics showing the prevalence of HIV/AIDS
for urban and rural areas, Chisomo children’s club (2002) estimated that 25% of the
urban population is infected with HIV/AIDS. The consequence of this is the existence
of an increasing number of orphans in urban areas, some of whom end up as street
children. For instance, Chisomo children’s club estimated that of the 1.2 million chil-
dren orphaned by AIDS, 0.4% became street children. On the other hand, Afrol News
(2003) estimated that AIDS orphans account for 80% of the street children in Malawi.
The challenge for urban schools is to include and retain such children in school.

Political Context
Malawi had been a one party state for 30 years, that is, from 1964, when it gained inde-
pendence from British rule, to 1994. However, in 1993, the people of Malawi indicated
that they wanted a multiparty system of government through a referendum. In 1994, a
new multiparty government was ushered in via elections. The ascent of multiparty pol-
itics has seen a number of changes in the education system, the most significant being
the introduction of Free Primary Education (FPE) soon after the new government was
voted into power. The introduction of FPE aggravated the inequalities that existed
between urban and rural schools. Some of the benefits and challenges urban schools
got from FPE and the impact of multiparty democracy will be discussed later in the
chapter.

Education System
The education system in Malawi is 8-4-4. That is, there are eight years of primary, four
years of secondary and at least four years of tertiary education. The system is realized
in a pyramidal sense, with very few spaces available for students at the tertiary level.
Consequently, as students move further into their education, the system becomes ever
118 MacJessie-Mbewe and Nampota

more competitive and selective. Students are required to write national examinations
in order to move from one level to another. For instance, for them to move from pri-
mary to secondary level, students sit for a national Primary School Leaving Certificate
Examination (PSLCE), and only about 30% who pass the exam with high marks are
selected to secondary level, regardless of how many have passed the PSLCE. As is the
case with other developing countries in Africa, students’ access to secondary and
higher education has been a growing problem because of the mismatch of the number
of students in one level and the available spaces in the next level. So it is only those
schools that are well equipped in terms of teaching and learning materials, qualified
teachers, good advisory, and supervision services, as well as those with a high-culture
of competition, that manage to send their children to the next level. The competitive
nature of the education system in Malawi has some implications for urban schools,
which this chapter will attempt to unveil.

Cultural Capital and Education

This chapter uses the theory of cultural capital as a guiding framework for the discus-
sion of issues of urban education in Malawi. The main proponent of this theory is
Pierre Bourdieu. Bourdieu refers to cultural capital as a “cultural wealth” (Bourdieu,
2000), the accumulated values, dispositions, habits, and information that are transmit-
ted from one generation to another. According to Coockson and Persell (1985, p. 74)
“cultural capital is socially constructed.” As stated by Bourdieu and Passeron (1977),
though not inherently superior, high culture is constructed as superior in various fields
using “symbolic power.” It is through cultural and educational practices that dominant
classes institutionalize their high culture (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977). This high cul-
ture “consists mainly of linguistic and cultural competence and that relationship of
familiarity with culture which can only be produced by family upbringing when it
transmits the dominant culture” (Bourdieu, 2000, p. 58). Consequently, “the curricu-
lar, linguistic and pedagogical biases of educational institutions tend to be misrecog-
nized by the subordinate classes and are thus viewed as inherently legitimate rather
than class-based and arbitrary” (Moss, 2005, p. 6).
According to Bourdieu (2000), the education system plays a significant role in the
social reproduction of the structure of cultural capital. Schools try to reproduce a set
of dominant cultural values and ideas. These schools expect students to possess the
capacity to receive and internalize a complex body of high culture (Moss, 2005).
Nevertheless, “students who acquire this capacity generally do so as a result of a
complex and largely unplanned acculturation process that occurs within their family
origin” (Moss, 2005, p. 2). This cultural preparation of students is invested in their
“scholastic pursuit,” hence, students’ educational achievement becomes high (Moss,
2005). Students who are socialized in families that do not honor high culture enter
school with very low levels of cultural capital while those socialized into the dominant
culture enter school with enriched cultural capital. As a result, students socialized into
a dominant culture have a big advantage over those not socialized into this culture. For
instance, Roscigno and Ainsworth-Darnell (1999) define cultural capital in relation to
 Urban Primary Schooling in Malawi 119

household educational resources, which may be physical resources, such as books or

computers, or cultural resources like reading habits or speaking the language of the
school, which create the cultural capacity necessary for success in school.
It is against this framework that this chapter attempts to discuss urban education in
Malawi as an opportune ground for students coming from families with high culture and
a challenge for the children that are not socialized into this high culture. Furthermore, the
chapter discusses cross cutting challenges that students both socialized into the high cul-
ture and those not socialized in this culture face in trying to pursue education in urban
primary schools.

Urban Schools and Educational Opportunities in Malawi

Many parents and children in Malawi work to create the opportunity to attend an urban
school. A number of reasons contribute to this, including provision of teaching and
learning resources and availability of advisory and supervisory services. The urban
elite control schools in Malawi. Elites make sure that urban schools are well equipped
with both human and material resources. This ensures that the schools reflect the urban
families’ high culture and perhaps more importantly it ensures that the children of the
urban elite acquire high-quality education. In so doing, the elite maintain their position
of power.
To begin with, schools in urban areas generally have adequate teachers, many of
whom are categorized as well-qualified. While the Malawi Government’s Policy and
Investment Framework (PIF) (Ministry of Education, 2001) targets a pupil to teacher
ratio of 1:60, in urban schools the ratio is 1:44 and in rural schools the ratio is as high
as 1:77 (Ministry of Education, 2004, p. 10). These different ratios imply that pupils in
urban areas get greater levels of individual attention from teachers, which may con-
tribute to higher student performance. In terms of professional qualification, by 2004,
85.6% of teachers in the urban schools were qualified as compared to 73.8 % of those
in rural schools (Nsapato, 2005, p. 35).
In addition, urban schools reflect the culture of urban families where pupils come
from. As indicated in the socioeconomic context, many adults in urban areas are able
to read and write. As a result, these families transfer the reading and writing culture to
their children and also encourage them to go to school, which helps them excel in
school. As research shows, educated parents are more likely to encourage their children
to go to school than uneducated parents (Lewin, 1993). In addition, urban children have
access to a variety of reading materials including newspapers and books that are avail-
able in libraries. Such facilities are seldom available in rural areas.
Furthermore, urban schools have relatively better infrastructure than rural schools.
For instance, in Lilongwe district, where Malawi’s capital resides, schools are both
rural and urban, it is generally the case that urban schools have higher quality school
blocks than rural schools. As indicated in the education statistics (Ministry of
Education, 2004, p. 46), 90% of urban schools have piped water compared to 4% of the
rural schools. Moreover, the same statistics show that 38% of the schools in the urban
area have electricity compared to 2% of the rural schools.
120 MacJessie-Mbewe and Nampota

Another opportunity for attending urban schools is that education advisors regularly
visit them. This is because such schools are closer to the offices of the education advi-
sors and also that there are better roads in urban areas. Besides, education advisors live
in urban areas and their own children attend urban schools. The regular visits by edu-
cation advisors therefore work to ensure that children in urban areas are provided with
high-quality education.
Finally, education statistics show that urban schools have relatively more female
teachers than rural schools (Ministry of Education, 2004). For example, according to the
current education statistics, the female teacher to pupil ratio is 1:54 for urban schools
while for rural schools it is as high as 1:245. This means there are more potential role
models in urban schools for girls gaining their education.

Challenges in Urban Schools

Even though urban schools in Malawi are advantaged in several ways, there are some
challenges that make their opportune status questionable. These challenges include over-
crowding, misinterpretation of multiparty democracy, and inclusion of street children.
Some of these challenges emanate from the very opportunities discussed previously.

Overcrowding
Overcrowding is one of the chief challenges experienced by urban primary schools in
Malawi, and one that has an effect on education quality and the participation of chil-
dren in education. Relatively more pupils enroll per school in urban areas than in rural
areas. There are a number of factors that contribute to the overcrowding in urban
schools.
To begin with, overcrowding in urban schools is a result of having more educated
parents, including mothers, in urban areas than there are in rural areas. As argued
earlier, education statistics show that although the average literacy rate for Malawi is
60.9%, that for urban areas is 90.5%. In terms of mothers, James and Kakatera (2000)
found that those in urban areas have an average of 5.7 years of schooling compared to
3.4 in rural areas. Since one aspect of cultural wealth for educated parents is the value
for education, and as research worldwide has shown, educated parents, especially
mothers, are more likely to send their children to school than uneducated ones (Lewin,
1993). It is therefore not surprising that urban schools in Malawi have more pupils.
In addition, some of the overcrowding in urban schools is due to lower dropout rates
in these schools relative to rural schools. It should be noted that one of the nationwide
problems in primary education in Malawi is the dropout rate. It is found that every year
some pupils drop out of school for various reasons, most notably lack of interest, which
is responsible for over 90% of the dropouts (Ministry of Education, 2004). There is evi-
dence however that pupil retention rate in Malawi is related to the socio-economic sta-
tus of the family of the pupil (James and Kakatera, 2000). Although the finding is more
applicable to primary schooling than other levels of education, the general impression
is that children from lower socio-economic status households are more likely to drop
 Urban Primary Schooling in Malawi 121

out of school than children from higher socio-economic status households. For exam-
ple, in a study of out of school youth, Kadzamira and Nell (2004) found that the main
occupation of the parents of out of school youth is small-scale farming. In Malawi, fam-
ilies involved in small-scale farming are generally poor. Although not all parents in
urban areas may realistically be described as enjoying a high socio-economic status, it
is a fact that they are relatively better off than the rural poor. This, coupled with the fact
that literate parents appreciate the value of the long term benefits of education more
than illiterate parents do (Dzimadzi, Chimombo, Kunje, & Chiuye, 2003), means that
relatively fewer pupils drop out of school in urban areas.
Furthermore, overcrowding in urban schools is augmented by the rural–urban
migration of primary school pupils, especially those in the senior classes of standard
six to eight. From our experience, many pupils migrate to urban areas in order to get
high-quality education and increase their chances for selection to secondary school.
The pupils that migrate are those who have somebody to stay with in urban areas while
they attend urban schools. These pupils take advantage of the extended family system
in Malawi and go to urban areas to stay with their aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers and
so on. Because of the competitive nature of education in Malawi, schools that offer
low-quality education fail to send children to secondary school. With most of these
weaker schools being in rural areas, children seeking higher quality education are
somewhat forced to migrate to urban schools.
Overcrowding in urban schools has side effects to urban education and the partici-
pation of pupils in these schools. Because of overcrowding, there is frequently a lack
of infrastructure in urban schools, especially the school classrooms. According to the
Education Statistics (Ministry of Education, 2004), the pupil to classroom ratio for
urban schools is 138:1 as compared to 105:1 for rural schools. To some extent, this
high pupil-classroom ratio compromises the quality of education in urban schools and
it offsets the benefits of low teacher–pupil ratio cited earlier. In trying to decrease class
sizes, some pupils are taught under trees or in the open air. This has been found to be
problematic especially during rainy seasons (Dzimadzi et al., 2003). When it rains, stu-
dents no longer attend classes hence losing time they would have used to learn.
Furthermore, learning under the tree and sitting on the ground due to lack of desks has
adverse effects on children from high socio-economic status families. At home, these
children are used to sitting comfortably on a chair when either reading or doing other
work. When they come to school and do their work under a tree sitting on the ground,
the comfort of the home is missed then their concentration on education is affected.

Misinterpretation of Multiparty Democracy

The second challenge affecting urban schools in Malawi results from misinterpretation
of multi-party democracy. Multi-party democracy in Malawi was introduced in 1994
after over 30 years of one party, autocratic rule. Following this change, a number of
effects, both positive and negative, of the new democratic system especially in the tran-
sition period have been felt in different sectors. The effects on the education sector in
general and urban primary schooling in particular can best be understood from the
historical perspective.
122 MacJessie-Mbewe and Nampota

Missionaries first introduced formal education in Malawi in the 1800s. The empha-
sis of their curricula was on reading and writing. When the colonial government took
over education, following World War I, education was for the elite and still emphasized
reading and writing.
Following the dissatisfaction with the colonial administration by the Malawians and
British, the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), under the leadership of Kamuzu Banda, took
over the government in 1964. When Banda first came to power, he advocated education
for all, a democratic society and the right of every individual for self-determination.
However, following an alleged coup attempt by some leaders of the MCP in 1965, Banda
started to reshape the education system to provide access to a select few. Politically, his
rule has been described as undemocratic, he could “hire and fire” even members of par-
liament. He advocated political centralization that put him in control of everything,
including education. During his reign, curricula emphasized the importance of one cor-
rect answer for every question and discouraged inquiry for fear of educating pupils who
would in turn question his motives and actions. Banda’s autocratic approach to gover-
nance infiltrated all organizations including schools. As stated by MacJessie-Mbewe
(1999, p. 19):

The political atmosphere of the country instilled in people fear of those in authority
and encouraged the power-holders to dictate to their subordinates. This type of lead-
ership in schools and other organizations penetrated throughout Malawian society.

This type of dictatorial leadership became the leadership of the day and was embedded
in the Malawian’s cultural capital, which was transferred to all institutions including
families and schools. For instance, a head teacher had power over teachers although
this power did not extend to direct hiring and firing. In turn the teachers had power
over pupils. According to Clifton and Robert (1993) power is the ability to force some-
body to do something regardless of their resistance while in authority, “orders are
voluntarily obeyed by those receiving them.” So punishment (mostly corporal), in
Banda’s regime, was given to pupils who could not behave accordingly. The teacher
had the right answer and pupils had to look to the teacher for everything.
The 1980s however saw a slight weakening in Banda’s tight control of the education
sector, when policies to widen participation in education started to be discussed and
implemented with the influence of international donors. Eventually, pressures on
Banda’s autocratic rule would lead to a referendum being held in 1993 on creating a
multiparty democratic government. The next year, 1994, thus saw the first multiparty
elections that put a new party, the United Democratic Front, into power under the lead-
ership of Bakili Muluzi.
The change from autocratic rule to a democratic government meant that any reforms
to governance had to reflect the definitions and values of democracy. Gordon (1992,
p. 129) argues that in a democracy:

Leadership could not be exercised by those at the top of a hierarchy solely at

their discretion. Rather leadership depended for its effectiveness largely upon the
willingness of others (followers) to accept and respond to it.
 Urban Primary Schooling in Malawi 123

The implication here is that the local community should participate in decision mak-
ing on issues that concern them and that the leaders should be accountable to the
people they represent. The values of democracy are therefore participation, accounta-
bility and representativeness (Pindani, 1994). These values are in contrast to those
advocated in the autocratic one party state by Banda, which also formed part of the
cultural capital of most Malawians. As a result, the transition to multiparty democracy
required creation and strengthening of some structures and perhaps more importantly,
a true shift in the mindset of both the leaders and the general populace about their
rights and responsibilities, hence need for change in the cultural capital. People had to
understand that those in authority have an important but accountable role to play in
their lives and that the people themselves have rights that should be exercised with
responsibility.
While some post-1994 reforms, especially in the education sector, seemed to have
reflected, to some extent, the values of democracy, there have been indications that
these were not always democratically carried out. One example of such reforms is the
introduction of Free Primary Education (FPE) in 1994. Although this could be taken as
an example of the democratic value of increasing participation, its implementation did
not follow democratic procedures. For example, communities, teachers, Ministry of
Education (MOE) officials and other actors in the education system were not con-
sulted. As a result, MOE officials and international donors opposed its wholesale
implementation, in favor of gradual implementation, in part for fear of compromising
on quality. Despite this, the government went ahead in implementing the policy and
local communities initially received it with enthusiasm. School enrolment rose from
about 2 million to nearly 3 million, representing a 50% rise in enrolment (Ministry of
Education, 2001). However, the government was unable to adhere to the structural
demands of the expanded school population. Consequently, indicators of quality edu-
cation, such as pupil/teacher ratio, textbook/pupil ratio, classroom/pupil ratio and
average years of teacher training were indeed affected.
The lack of consultation in the formulation and implementation of democratic
reforms to the education sector was also true regarding other policies such as those
concerned with school uniform and pregnancy, which were also implemented soon
after FPE. While the uniform policy removed the burden of buying school uniforms
from parents, some people, especially those from urban areas who could afford to buy
uniforms, were not happy with it. The fear was that pupils, especially girls, who might
walk without the school uniform on, are more prone to abuse than those in school
uniform. Besides, it was thought that this could promote truancy in that some pupils
could simply not attend school and instead would engage in small income generating
activities, such as casual labor, and then return home when schools closed for the day.
Generally, both truancy and abuse are more experienced in urban than rural schools
(Dzimadzi et al., 2003).
Decentralization of Ministry of Education delivery services to regional, district and
local levels is another of the education reforms that took place after the introduction of
multiparty democracy. This led to the increasing role of parents, local leaders and local
Ministry of Education officials in school management and operations. However under
the decentralization plan, local participation was to be done through locally elected
124 MacJessie-Mbewe and Nampota

councils. To date, some dozen years after multiparty democracy arrived, the local
councils have not yet been elected, thus the implementation of the decentralization
plan is not complete.
What appears to contribute to this situation is a widespread misunderstanding of
democracy that starts from government leaders and extends to school pupils. From inter-
views carried out in 2000/2001 for example, Kaunda and Kendall (2001, p. 2) found that
people of all regions, of both sexes and of all ages, tended to define democracy as, “free-
dom to do whatever a person wants, regardless of the consequences of their actions to
others.” According to this study, democracy is perceived to be associated with rudeness,
changes in cultural practices, robberies, corruption and even murder. This perhaps
explains why although the majority of Malawians prefer democratic to non-democratic
forms of government, most of them still applaud some aspects of one party rule and most
could not defend democracy if it were under threat (Tsoka, 2002).
Beyond this, in urban schools, teachers and head teachers fail to control students
when they misbehave for fear of how their parents, who are often well educated and
among the political elite, will react. So, this kind of misunderstanding of the concept
of democracy has brought deterioration of educational standards in urban schools,
where democracy has been interpreted to mean lawlessness and no one seems respon-
sible for anything. In a situation where neither the teacher nor the head teacher is in a
position of authority, both give up once they cannot control a pupil. Corporal and even
light punishments are no longer practiced and pupils have taken advantage of such a
situation to behave in whatever way they want. Furthermore, human rights activists
and the nation’s courts have taken precedence over school discipline such that both
teachers and Ministry of Education officials are unsure how to handle pupil discipli-
nary issues. Inasmuch as these activists and courts are largely urban phenomena, and
in some cases the activists, lawyers and judges are parents to some pupils, the urban
primary schools are more adversely affected. In addition, many teachers in urban
schools have themselves misinterpreted the concept of democracy so that they do not
want to be tightly controlled by the head teacher and MOE officials.
In general, multiparty democracy poses a challenge more to urban than to rural pri-
mary schools in Malawi. Some democratic policies have been counterproductive as a
consequence of poor consultation of different stakeholders in their formulation and
implementation. The urban populace in general, and pupils and teachers in particular,
have yet to be fully enlightened regarding how to exercise their rights with responsi-
bility, And, finally, activists and the courts have tended to uphold human rights without
emphasizing responsibility in exercising them.

Urban School Inclusion of Street Children

Children who are commonly known as “street children” occupy the streets in the cities
and peri-urban centers of most countries of the developing world. While these children
are commonly found during the day, some are present in the streets even at night.
A number of factors contribute to the migration of children to the streets. The major
ones are poverty and orphanage due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. UNICEF (1994)
identifies three different types of street children:
 Urban Primary Schooling in Malawi 125

(1) Children who have continuous family contact;

(2) Children who spend their days and some nights on the street but have occasional
family contact; and,
(3) Children who do not have any family contact.

Despite the gravity of the problem there are no exact figures for the numbers of street
children in Malawi. However, it is increasingly acknowledged that the problem of
street children is real in Malawi and needs to be dealt with in the immediate future.
Although poverty was the main contributing factor to the problem of street children
in the past, in recent years, HIV/AIDS has proven even more devastating. As argued
earlier, the HIV/AIDS prevalence in Malawi is high with an estimated 16.4% of the
population between the ages of 15 and 49 being infected. It is with this realization
that, in 2003, it was estimated that 80% of the street children in Malawi had been
orphaned by the epidemic (Afrol News, 2003). In addition, Afrol News reports that
food shortages are occurring as a result of recent droughts and the continued loss of
arable land due to environmental degradation, and these have contributed signifi-
cantly to the increasing number of children found in the streets in the cities of
Malawi.
It is important to note that the effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Malawi are
aggravated by the food crisis that periodically hits the country, creating a vicious cycle.
Increased malnutrition weakens the resistance of the people infected with HIV thereby
reducing the workforce for agricultural and other work.
There are also allusions to the breakdown of the extended family structure in Malawi as
another contributing factor to the increasing number of street children in recent years. The
general observation is that many families are not willing to take on the responsibility of
looking after the children of relatives, partly because they cannot provide for them a bet-
ter life, and partly because they are already overburdened with children from other closer
relatives like sisters and brothers. The extent of this problem may, however, benefit from
further research.
That there are an increasing number of children living in the streets in the cities,
especially Blantyre, Lilongwe, Zomba and other peri-urban areas in Malawi, is a cause
for concern. Such children have limited opportunities to uplift themselves out of
poverty because they are not in school. Although there are some organizations, clubs,
and churches that attempt to feed them, these are only temporary solutions. If the
claims made by human capital theorists, such as Schulz and Becker are anything to go
by, accommodating such children in school could be one way of ensuring that they rid
both themselves and the nation of poverty. Shultz (1971), for example, argues that edu-
cation is a form of investment that results in profits that could be recouped later in life.
If the street children are educated, they increase their chances of getting employment
that could result in some income. However, to date, there is no policy on the inclusion
of street children in schools in Malawi. As a result, there is no deliberate attempt to
bring the children in school.
The challenges of including street children in school are many, and in the absence of
policy, it is an almost impossible task to carry out. Such children require such basic needs
as food, clothing and shelter, before they require even such other basics as access to
126 MacJessie-Mbewe and Nampota

schooling. It is imperative therefore that policies relating to street children be formulated

and implemented if Malawi is to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of achiev-
ing universal primary education by the year 2015. In addition, urban schools must rec-
ognize that street children develop their own culture, which is often contrary to that
cherished in schools. When street children go into an urban school, they often find them-
selves unfit for the demands of a school culture that reflects the values of the elite.
Consequently, they drop out of school and go back to the street where they feel relatively
more secure. Unless urban schools understand the cultural capital of street children and
work towards dealing with it, many of the school interventions to retain street children in
school will be futile.

Urban Schooling in Blantyre City

Blantyre is the largest commercial and industrial center in Malawi. It has an estimated
population of 620,000 with an annual growth rate of 3.3% (Government of Malawi-
District Education Plan, 2005). According to the District Education Plan (DEP), there
are 79 primary schools in Blantyre, 31 of which are private schools. Total enrolment in
the city’s public schools is 130,700 comprising of 49% boys and 51% girls, which
reflects an increment of 12% from 1994 to 2005.
Blantyre has a relatively high number of qualified teachers, and has a qualified
teacher-pupil ratio of 1:57. This is nevertheless higher than an average teacher-pupil
ratio for urban schools cited earlier because unqualified teachers are excluded.
Moreover, 85% of teachers are female (Government of Malawi, 2005), which is con-
ducive to the education of girls.
The DEP further indicates that schools in Blantyre are easily accessible because of
the good roads and adequate transport facilities. This enables education advisors to reg-
ularly visit the schools for quality control. In addition, a sizable portion of the popula-
tion of Blantyre earns steady income through employment or business. The income
allows parents to participate in school development activities and support the education
of their children.
Despite the advantages, schooling in Blantyre faces a number of challenges. One of
the challenges, as outlined previously, is overcrowding. For example, the DEP indi-
cates that there are inadequate classrooms, which results in a pupil to classroom ratio
of 178:1, which far outstrips the sought after ratio of 60:1 according to the Policy
Investment Framework. Furthermore, the pupil to desk ratio is 16:1 against the
expected ratio of 2:1 and pupil to latrine ratio is 164:1 against the expected ratio
of 100:1.
Furthermore, the DEP indicates that vandalism of buildings and theft of teaching
and learning materials is a key problem in Blantyre schools. Although the DEP does
not state the reasons for this, misinterpretation of democracy and its resultant impact
on pupil indiscipline (Kuthemba-Mwale, Hauya, & Tizifa, 1996) could be among the
contributing factors.
The issues discussed are not unique to Blantyre schools, but are also common to
schools in other urban areas in Malawi.
 Urban Primary Schooling in Malawi 127

Conclusion
In conclusion, it is clear from this chapter that schools in the urban areas in Malawi
face challenging issues even though they are treated as better places for most children.
Indeed it is widely known that urban schools enjoy the availability of adequate and
well-qualified teachers, that they reflect the culture of most urban dwellers that facili-
tate urban children’s participation in education, that they have good infrastructure and
are regularly visited by education advisors so that there is greater quality control, and
that they are staffed with a considerable number of female teachers who then serve as
role models for girls.
However, urban schools are challenged by a number of factors that render their status
problematic. Such challenges include overcrowding which results from the encourage-
ment that the children receive from their parents to remain in school, the relatively low
pupil dropout rate for urban schools and the rural to urban migration of school pupils, the
effects of multiparty democracy that have led to loss of authority by school administra-
tors and teachers over both pupils and themselves resulting in rudeness and lawlessness,
and the failure to enroll and retain street children in school.

Recommendations
In order to make urban schools a real heaven for children of different socio-economic
status, the Government of Malawi, through the Ministry of Education, should consider
implementing the following recommendations:
● Expand infrastructure in all urban schools in order to cater for the growing popu-
lation of both pupils and teachers in these schools.
● Provide civic education to the general population and teachers and pupils in par-
ticular on human rights and the importance of exercising human rights with
responsibility.
● Educate parents, pupils and teachers on the relationship between education and
democracy and also how the educational process should be carried out in a dem-
ocratic society.
● Introduce feeding and clothing program in urban schools in order to keep street
children in school.
● Introduce guidance and counseling services in urban schools to help street chil-
dren adjust to the school culture and eventually remain in school.

References
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Bourdieu, P. (2000). Cultural and social reproduction. In R. Arum, & I. R. Beattie (Eds.), The structure of
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Publishing Company.
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(Ed.), Lessons in hope: Education for democracy in Malawi, past, present, future (pp. 19–30). National
Initiative for Civic Education (NICE) series no. 1. Zomba: Chancellor College Publications.
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www.sociology.org/content/2005/tier1/moss.html
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7

ETHNICITY, POLITICS, AND STATE

RESOURCE ALLOCATION: EXPLAINING
EDUCATIONAL INEQUALITIES IN KENYA

Alwiya Alwy and Susanne Schech

Flinders University, South Australia

Introduction
Despite international and national level recognition of the importance of education for
all, both for development purposes and as a basic human right, its achievement still
remains a huge challenge. Persistent inequalities of gender, class, ethnic, and regional
context are evident in education systems worldwide, whether at the stage of enrolment
and attendance, in outcomes and achievement, or in terms of consequent opportunities
to which education is expected to give rise (Watkins, 2001). While gender inequalities
in education are at their most extreme in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia (Challender,
2003), inequalities relating to ethnic minorities and indigenous people are widespread
in many African countries, where they are often strongly linked to regional inequalities,
and to the distribution of poverty (Watkins, 2001).
In Kenya, despite heavy government investment in education, enrolment at various
levels of education is characterized by regional, socio-economic and gender disparities
and declining gross enrolment ratios (SID, 2004). Researchers have also identified
imbalances in terms of financial allocations, inadequate facilities, poor teacher quali-
fications, and high teacher-pupil ratios as further evidence that not all is well in the
Kenyan education system (Abagi, 1997; Kimalu, Nafula, Manda, Mwabu, & Kimenyi,
2002; Oyugi, 2000; SID, 2004). But research on education, as presently constructed,
has tended to treat the issues of inequality as specific to the Kenyan education system,
and consequently assumed that they can be addressed through educational reform. By
seeing inequalities in education as a symptom of wider social processes and structures,
this chapter aims to connect the issue of educational inequality to the broader notions
of equity and the right to education.
In pursuing this approach we argue that social inequality emanates from the unequal
distribution of resources, power and privilege among members of society. In many
societies, particularly in Africa, ethnicity is one of the instruments of division by which
access to opportunities and power is distributed among the population. Some ethnic
129
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 129–144.
© 2007 Springer.
130 Alwy and Schech

groups appear to have better access to national power, and thus are in a better position
to enhance access to resources, such as education, when compared to other ethnic
groups.
Hence, the first challenge we face when looking at inequalities in education is the
silence around ethnicity as a factor of inequality. Although ethnic divisions are a fact
of life in Kenya, there is a lack of research that focuses on the impact of an individual’s
ethnic identity on his or her life choices and opportunities. The everyday presence of
ethnicity encourages a primordialist “blood and soil” notion of ethnicity that refer to
“inherited” or “objective” characteristics such as kinship, culture, “race” and territory
shared by a group. Although this notion of ethnicity is still pervasive in African stud-
ies, a growing literature recognizes that ethnicity is not simply an objective fact (e.g.,
Banton, 1998; Kornblum, 1991). Rather, ethnicity is created, imagined and felt with a
group of people in interaction with their surroundings, and “typically has its origins in
relations of inequality” (Comaroff, 1995, p. 250). Such a constructivist perspective on
ethnicity opens the door for an engagement with ethnic inequalities in education that
allows for the possibility of change and reform. In using this definition of ethnicity, we
are also arguing that it cannot be discussed in isolation; other concepts such as race,
inequality, and stratification also come into play.
As in many African countries, ethnic inequalities in Kenya can be traced back to the
colonial period. In the early 1900s the British colonial administration divided the
Kenyan territory along ethnic lines into eight provinces, each with a different ethnic
majority, and sub-dividing each province into districts, often according to ethnic groups
and subgroups or “clans” (Oucho, 2002). Upon independence in 1963, the post-colonial
government consolidated this ethno-political structure by aligning parliamentary con-
stituencies with ethnic boundaries, which still continue to frame Kenyan politics and
provincial administration today. Despite demographic growth and population move-
ments, the provinces have basically retained the ethnic or clan-based boundaries as cre-
ated by the colonial administration. For example, Nyanza Province is predominantly
inhabited by Luo people, Western Province is the home to the Luhya, Rift Valley
Province is the traditional home of the Kalenjin, and the Kikuyu inhabit the Central
Province and predominate in Nairobi Province. North-Eastern Province is an exclu-
sively Somali-speaking region, and the Coast Province is mainly inhabited by the
Swahili and the Mijikenda (Table 1).
Hence, from the district to the provincial level, ethnic groups are clustered together,
so that regions in Kenya are ethnically distinct. An argument can be made, following
Oucho (2002), that ethnicity is the fulcrum of administrative boundaries, constituen-
cies and development patterns in Kenya. Political power in Kenya, as Kanyinga (1995)
notes, has been associated with a few ethnic groups since the onset of colonialism.
Under the first president Jomo Kenyatta (1963–1978), political and economic power
was vested in his trusted circle of fellow Kikuyu. This benefited the Central Province
(including the capital city, Nairobi) where the Kikuyu form an ethnic majority in terms
of public investment and development, while other provinces received fewer resources.
After Daniel Arap Moi assumed the presidency in 1978, political power became
concentrated in the hands of Kalenjin elites. By the early 1980s, Moi had purged many
Kikuyus and non-Kikuyu allies of Kenyatta from both central cabinet and senior posts
 Ethnicity, Politics, and State Resource Allocation 131

Table 1. Distribution of ethnic groups in Kenya by province

Province Total Dominant ethnic group

provincial
population Name Population Population
(No.) (%)

Nairobi 1,324,570 Kikuyu 428,775 32.4

Central 3,112,053 Kikuyu 2,919,730 93.8
Coast 1,829,191 Mijikenda 994,098 54.4
Eastern 3,768,677 Kamba 2,031,704 53.9
North-Eastern 371,391 Ogaden 133,536 36.0
Nyanza 3,507,162 Luo 2,030,278 57.9
Rift Valley 4,981,613 Kalenjin 2,309,577 46.4
Western 2,544,329 Luhya 2,192,244 86.2

Source: Kenya Population Census, 1989.

located within administrative districts, and deliberately promoted the Kalenjin in these
positions (Ogot & Ochieng, 1995; Oucho, 2002). Cooksey, Court, and Makau (1994,
p. 211) argue that Moi adopted a laissez-faire development approach that was not con-
cerned with the alleviation of regional disparities in development, including education.
The Rift Valley was the main beneficiary of the change of power from the Kikuyu to
the Kalenjin (Ogot & Ochierg, 1995, p. 15):

[Moi] started purging or cleaning the civil service that was dominated by the
Kikuyu. He replaced them with the Kalenjin. By 1983, the Kikuyu were a minor
force in both the civil service, the army, and in politics. He played one Kikuyu
leader against the other until they exhausted themselves. Like Kenyatta, he realised
that for one to succeed in African politics he had to have trusted generals from home
ground. […] There is open Kalenjinisation of most sectors both private and public.
Funds were channeled to develop the infrastructure in the Kalenjin land.

A succinct summary of the socio-economic inequalities in Kenya is provided by a

recent report by the Society of International Development which states that

Inequality in Kenya is much more than is conveyed through unflattering figures:

it, in fact, leads to discrimination and exclusion, thereby becoming not only a
matter of social injustice, but also a matter of human rights and governance. (SID,
2004, p. 5)

According to the Third Human Development Report on Kenya, the Central and Rift
Valley Provinces had better human development performance than other areas due to
policy bias from the colonial and successive regimes. Policies and allocation of
resources have tended to favour the high potential areas (UNDP, 2003).
Looking at the issues of urban educational opportunities in Kenya, we find very few
studies which explicitly look at the issues of urban educational inequalities. However,
as discussed earlier on, that other than the Nairobi Province, the urban areas in the
132 Alwy and Schech

eight provinces in Kenya, are mostly (over 50%) covered with people from the major-
ity ethnic group of the province. For example, Nyeri, the largest urban area in the
Central Province is mostly populated with the Kikuyu ethnic group; the Rift Valley
Province with the Kalenjin ethnic group; Nyanza Province with the Luo ethnic group,
and so forth, as discussed earlier on. Thus, if the Province has had a strong political
presence in the government it is bound to have better educational opportunities for its
students in the urban areas, respectively. This rings even more true if the ruling
President comes from that constituency. Comparatively, students from the rural areas
in Kenya have better educational opportunities if their community has strong political
influence in the government. A case in hand is Baringo District, the home constituency
of President Moi. During Moi’s term as President (1978–2002), the District continu-
ally received educational resources such as new public schools, highly qualified teach-
ers, libraries and other educational facilities. Other comparably rural districts in Kenya
without this kind of strong political influence, areas such as those in Coast Province or
North Eastern Province, continually received far fewer educational resources.
We argue that the underlying cause of inequalities in education is the patron-client
relationship between the ethnic group of the ruling elite and the government that pre-
vails in Kenya. Political and economic power, and the wealth affiliated with it, is
highly skewed to the ruling ethnic group, whose exclusionary practices have created
marked inequalities in access to resources, including educational resources. Our argu-
ment is that the ruling group uses the resources of the state for the special benefit of its
own ethnic community and its allies, and this is reflected in the educational develop-
ment pattern in the urban and rural areas.
The rest of the chapter is organized as follows. In the next section, we seek to
bring greater clarity to the concept of equity in education, explaining its links to the
rights-based approach to development and education. We then offer an analysis of sta-
tistics relating educational resource distribution and opportunities in Kenya, followed
by the conclusions. Our motivation for shining a spotlight on the country’s education
policies is primarily due to Kenya’s position as an African country with a consistently
high public expenditure in education, both as a percentage of GNP and as a share of
total government expenditure (Abagi, 1997), and yet home to the largest contingent of
students subject to socially unjust or unfair educational disparities (SID, 2004).

Educational Equity and the Rights-Based Approach

The need for greater clarity about the definition of educational equity has arisen in the
context of recently proposed rights-based approaches to educational reform
(Subrahmanian, 2002). Assessing educational equity requires comparing education
and its social outcomes among more and less advantaged social groups, like the mar-
ginalized ethnic groups, and the rural and urban poor. Without this information, we are
unable to assess whether policies and programs are leading toward or away from
greater social justice in education.
Equity is an ethical concept, grounded in principles of distributive justice (Rawls,
1985). It implies that greater resources should go to those with greater needs in order
to aim at more equal levels of well-being overall. In this sense, equity incorporates a
 Ethnicity, Politics, and State Resource Allocation 133

concept of justice, which recognizes some fundamental humanity, but still attempts to
respond to the differing and increasing complex needs that exist within a society. This
approach seeks to ensure that the less advantaged members of society (whether the
poor in the urban areas or the poor in the rural areas) have a fair opportunity of receiv-
ing a reasonable amount of education that would enrich their personal and social life
(Rawls, 1985). Amartya Sen brings to the discussion on equity the concept of capabil-
ity, which conceives justice not only in distributive terms but also considers a person’s
capability to convert primary goods into his or her ends – that is, to achieve a life he or
she has reasons to value (Sen, 1999, pp. 294ff.; see also Sen, 1993). This is an approach
which takes into account the need to empower all students, including the marginalized
groups, or the poor in urban and rural areas, with educational opportunities and choices
to uplift their life status.
One of the tenets of distributive justice is that resources at the disposal of the state
should be apportioned fairly (Jupp & McRobbie, 1992). Therefore education, which is
generally reckoned to be a primary good, and which is largely financed by public
funds, should be made available according to some just principle of distribution.
However, because social justice and fairness can be interpreted differently by different
people in different settings, a definition is needed that can be operationalized based on
measurable criteria. For the purposes of operationalization and measurement, equity in
education can be defined as the absence of systematic disparities in education between
social groups who have different levels of underlying social advantage/disadvantage –
that is, different positions in a social hierarchy. Inequities in education systematically
put groups of people who are already socially disadvantaged at further disadvantage
with respect to their education – a good that is essential to their human development
and well-being and to overcoming other effects of social disadvantage.
Underlying social advantage or disadvantage refers to wealth, power, and/or pres-
tige – that is, the attributes that define how people are classified within social hierar-
chies. Thus, more advantaged and less advantaged social groups are those groups of
people defined by differences that place them at different levels in a social hierarchy.
Examples of this kind of definition by difference include: socioeconomic groups (typ-
ically identified by measures of income; economic assets; occupational class; and/or
educational level); racial/ethnic or religious groups; or, groups defined by gender,
geography (urban or rural), age, disability, sexual orientation, and other characteristics
relevant to the particular setting. This is not an exhaustive list, but social advantage is
distributed along these lines virtually everywhere in the world.
Equity in education means equal educational opportunity for all population groups.
If schooling can be viewed as a continual process that operates as a mechanism for
selection, then equity in education can be viewed from the perspectives of access, sur-
vival, output, and outcome. Equality of access refers to the probabilities of being
admitted into school. Equality of survival refers to the probabilities of staying in
school to some defined level. Equality of output refers to the probabilities of learning
the same thing at the same level. Equality of outcome refers to the probabilities of
living similar lives as a result of schooling (Farrell, 1997).
Equity in education thus implies that resources are distributed and processes are
designed in ways most likely to move toward equalizing the educational outcomes of
disadvantaged social groups with the outcomes of their more advantaged counterparts.
134 Alwy and Schech

This refers to the distribution and design not only of educational resources and programs,
but of all resources, policies, and programs that play an important part in shaping
education, many of which are outside the immediate control of the educational sector.
A selective concern for worse-off social groups is not discriminatory; it reflects a con-
cern to reduce discrimination and marginalization. At its core, the right to education
refers to the legal rights of an individual to seek and receive education, and a corre-
sponding duty on the state to provide such opportunities.
According to human rights principles, all human rights are considered interrelated
and indivisible (UN, 1993). Thus, the right to education cannot be separated from other
rights, including rights to a decent standard of living and education as well as to free-
dom from discrimination and freedom to participate fully in one’s society. Equalizing
educational opportunities requires addressing the most important social and economic
determinants of education, including, as stated earlier, not only equal educational
resources for all but also access and opportunities, and policies that affect any of these
factors. Concern for equal educational opportunities is the basis for including within
the definition of equity in education the absence of systematic social disparities not
only in educational status but also in its key social outcomes.

Statistical Contours
Inequalities in the distribution of educational resources and opportunities among the
provinces/districts constitute a formidable challenge to Kenya’s development. For
equity in education it is important to know at which level of schooling the constraints
on the socially disadvantaged are most binding. Additional data1 analysis was there-
fore undertaken in order to help pinpoint the current location of inequalities within the
education system. The issue of regional disparities will be explored using the existing
administrative provinces2 as units of analysis.
It is seen that inequalities in educational access and participation often take a
regional dimension in Kenya. These differences are observed between urban and rural
areas, and between defined administrative regions. Inequalities in regional or geo-
graphic educational opportunities often, but not always,3 coincide with ethnic identi-
ties because ethnic groups often reside in given geographical regions as discussed
earlier in the background section.
Key education statistics for the year 2002 are summarised in Table 2 below. The
statistics show wide disparities in respect of access to education across the provinces. In
Central Province, the gross enrolment rates (GER)4 in primary school in 2000 was
106% compared to only 17.8% in North Eastern Province. The corresponding figures
for secondary school for the two regions are 37.7% and 4.5%, respectively. There are
also wide disparities in the pupil-teacher ratio at the provincial levels. Eastern and
Central Provinces have the most favourable (lowest) teacher-pupil ratio while North
Eastern Province has the least favourable (highest). It is notable that the regions differ
also in terms of school drop-out rates with the highest being in North Eastern Province.
The data analyzed by rural-urban residence, reveals that about 36% of the rural pop-
ulation was attending school compared to about 31% of the urban population. A larger
 Ethnicity, Politics, and State Resource Allocation 135

Table 2. Access to education 2002

GER Pupil-teacher Dropout

% ratio rates
%
Primary Secondary Primary Secondary

Province
Nairobi 52.0 11.8 33.7 11.4 11.3
Central 106.0 37.7 32.2 16.2 7.1
Coast 71.0 14.4 35.7 15.7 11.8
Eastern 96.9 23.3 30.4 16.0 8.8
N/Eastern 17.8 4.5 43.8 19.3 12.6
Nyanza 94.0 23.5 32.7 17.8 6.8
Rift Valley 88.3 18.3 33.1 16.9 8.2
Western 93.3 25.1 34.1 17.2 16.9
Kenya 87.6 22.2 32.9 16.5 8.1

Source: Ministry of Education Statistics Division 2003.

Table 3. Number of primary schools and trained teachers by province, 1999

Province Nairobi Central R/Valley Eastern Nyanza N/Eastern Coast

No. of schools 248 1,799 4,494 4,091 3,806 175 1,121

No. of
trained teachers 4,537 25,320 44,764 35,454 30,586 1,145 10,567
Population
age 6–13 305,175 816,629 1,702,318 1,136,941 1,088,530 268,827 543,175

Source: Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Statistics Section, 2000.

difference existed between rural and urban populations for those who had left school, as
well as for those who had never attended school. Some 55% of the urban population had
left school compared to 39% of the rural population. On the other hand, 22% of the pop-
ulation never attended school in rural areas, compared to 11% of the urban population.
The number of schools is an indicator of the supply of education in a particular area.
It determines the capacity of the education system in a given area to provide for
educational needs. Table 3 indicates a large disparity in the provision of government
schools in the different provinces, with the Rift Valley having the highest number of
schools and the Northeastern having the least number of government schools.
Educational inequalities are closely related to regional disparities in the sense that
some rural districts have fewer schools, which are far from each other, and attendance
is thus more difficult. This is not the case with non-slum urban areas, where there are
many schools, which are located closer to one another. The long distances that many
rural and urban poor children must walk are a serious deterrent to school participation.
Rural inhabitants, in particular, do not enjoy many opportunities in this regard.
There are also variations in the distribution of schoolteachers across regions. In
the Rift Valley Province, trained teachers are the majority, standing at 44,764. This is
136 Alwy and Schech

Table 4. Gross and net rates of enrolment by gender, Kenya, 1994

Group Gross enrolment rate

Primary Secondary

Rural females 92.56 20.37

Urban females 90.20 42.74
All females 92.28 23.78
Rural males 96.21 23.64
Urban males 89.22 63.65
All males 95.40 28.21
National 93.88 26.01

Source: Welfare Monitoring Survey, 1994.

compared to the Northeastern Province which has 1,145 trained teachers. Table 3 shows
the extent to which some areas are being understaffed while others are overstaffed.
Gender inequalities in education remain an issue of concern in Kenya. The percent-
age of girls going to school is still low and becomes even lower as they move up the
educational ladder, as seen in Table 4. However, the Kenyan government has tried to
narrow the gap between girls’ and boys’ enrolment, and has made great strides in gen-
der equality, as Deolalikar (1999, p. 35) observes:

The ratio of male to female gross secondary enrolment ratios in Kenya is far
lower than would be predicted at its level of GNP per capita, given the observed
relationship between per capita GNP and gender disparity in secondary enrol-
ments in Africa. Indeed, Kenya’s ratio of male to female gross secondary enrol-
ment ratio is comparable to countries such as Egypt, that have a per capita GNP
that is three times as large as Kenya’s.

Data on access to education by wealth group reveal that the wealthier groups in Kenya
have generally better access to education than the poorer ones (Table 5). The poorest
20% of Kenyans, both in rural and in urban areas, do not have adequate access to primary
education. These disparities increase in secondary school enrolment due to the fact that
the relatively high costs of secondary education are affordable only to richer families,
which also tend to benefit more from government subsidies and bursaries. Education,
then, acts to perpetuate socio-economic inequalities rather than bridging them.
The attendance ratio in primary schools for the top wealth group is 86% compared
to the lowest wealth group whose attendance ratio is only 61%. Although attendance is
much lower in secondary schools than in primary schools, the richer segments of the
population still maintain their dominance over lower wealth groups. The net attendance
gap in both primary and secondary schools between the top and bottom wealth groups
is about 25%.
The degree of inequality is even more severe if one looks at the distribution of public
spending across all school-age children instead of across households, due to the fact that
poor households in urban areas have more out-of-school children of the relevant age
 Ethnicity, Politics, and State Resource Allocation 137

Table 5. Access to education by wealth group in Kenya, 2003

Wealth group Net attendance ratio

Primary Secondary

Poorest 20% 61.3 4.0

Second 20% 79.9 7.3
Middle 20% 83.8 11.4
Fourth 20% 88.1 16.2
Highest 20% 86.0 28.2

Source: 2003 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey.

range. Children from poor households who do go to school are further disadvantaged
by the fact that schools in poor communities tend to receive less public resources, such
as teachers from the government.
The increase in poverty has exacerbated the problem of access. Many of the poor are
unable to afford even the low costs associated with participation in school or training
programs. They also feel a greater need for the involvement of their children in their
household economics and in the generation of the resources they need for survival. The
result is an increasing number of children who do not enroll in school, who do not
complete the primary cycle, or who are withdrawn early by their parents. Cultural and
social practices, particularly those affecting girls, also contribute to this failure to
make adequate use of existing facilities for education.
Poverty is frequently accompanied by extensive child malnutrition, tuberculosis,
sicknesses caused by poor sanitation and inadequate access to safe source of drinking
water, as well as a range of vitamin deficiencies. These factors adversely affect child
development and the possibility of profitable participation in education. The nation-
wide impact of HIV/AIDS further aggravates the situation for young children, partic-
ularly by increasing the number of orphans and child-headed households, and for
youths and adults whose health or economic situation debars them from further par-
ticipation.
One distinctive issue that calls for immediate public policy intervention is the basic
education coverage in urban slum areas. For example, the urban slum areas cover over
60% of the population in Nairobi. Public school coverage is in general low and leads to
the low GER in these areas. In addition, the existing public schools in these areas tend to
be over-crowded. Although many community schools exist, they usually are not covered
under school census, and thus have limited support and supervision from the Government.

Education as a Basic Right: Performance Benchmark

in Kenya
The rapid development of education in Kenya was an aftermath of the Sessional Paper
No. 10 of 1965 on African Socialism and its Application to Planning in Kenya, which
emphasized combating ignorance, disease and poverty. It was based on two long-standing
138 Alwy and Schech

concerns that: (1) every Kenyan child, irrespective of gender, religion and ethnicity,
has the inalienable right to access basic welfare provision, including education; and
(2) the Kenyan government has an obligation to provide opportunity to all citizens to
fully participate in the socio-economic and political development of the country and
also to empower the people to improve their welfare. For nearly four decades therefore,
the education sector has undergone several reviews by special commissions and work-
ing parties appointed by the government.
The U. N. Convention on the Rights of the Child was ratified by Kenya on
September 30, 1990. However, the convention has not been incorporated into Kenyan
law,5 as children’s rights are not explicitly enshrined in the country’s constitution, and
nor are there specific sections in the constitution that focus on children. Although the
Kenya Constitution guarantees citizens rights, it is silent on education as a basic right
and need. In this connection, Chapter V, Sections 70–86, entitled “Protection of
Fundamental Rights and Freedoms of Individual,” does not directly mention education
as one of the fundamental rights. Further, although the sections of the constitution may
reinforce the right to education and public participation in policy formulation and
debates, they do not make non-attendance or denial of schooling to a child a legal
offence. This is why basic education is not compulsory in Kenya.
Cooksey et al. (1994, p. 211) argue that the post-colonial Kenyan leadership adopted
a laissez-faire development approach that was not concerned with the alleviation of
regional disparities in development, including education. The official government
response to inequality in educational opportunities was less equivocally stated than was
in Tanzania, which had inherited a similar colonial segregated education system. For
example, according to Kenya’s 1974–1978 Development Plan:

Government’s provision of education and health services will be accelerated.

The present plan provides opportunities for everyone to participate actively in the
economy … . [however] … . Equal income for everyone is therefore not the
object of this plan. Differences in skill, effort, and initiative need to be recognized
and rewarded.

This implied the ruling elite used the functional theory of social stratification as their
social ideology and henceforth development policies. As a result, inequalities were
justified because they reflected differences in achievement and in the individual’s con-
tribution to society. The unstated rationale for this meritocratic ideal was the notion
that people will accept inequalities and personal relative deprivation if they believed
that they had an equal chance to benefit and did not choose to question the criteria by
which merit and hence mobility were determined (Court, 1979).
The lack of policy efforts to tackle the inequalities in education has been lamented
widely, most notably by Amutabi (2003) in his study on the effect of the politicization
of decision making in the education sector in Kenya since independence in
1963–2000. Amutabi (2003) argues that political decisions have marginalized the role
and contribution of professionals and thus impacted negatively on educational policy
formulation and implementation in Kenya. Utilizing a catalogue of major political
 Ethnicity, Politics, and State Resource Allocation 139

decisions that have influenced trends and patterns of educational growth and policy
formulation in Kenya, he demonstrates how such decisions have interfered in the
running of education, causing the inequalities and decline in educational outcomes in
the country. One example still relevant today is the introduction of the quota system in
1985, where a Presidential directive stipulated that each school must draw at least 85%
of its students from its local area (Amutabi, 2003). This was a political move to prevent
Kikuyu residing in the Central Province and other ethnic groups in other provinces
from accessing schools in the Rift Valley which experienced greater investment in
schools under President Moi at the expense of the rest of the country. This directive
contravened the policy of national integration that was recommended in the Ominde
Report of 1964 (GoK, 1964), as well as denying students the chance of joining better
equipped secondary schools in other provinces.

Conclusion and Policy Recommendations

The proposed definition of equity supports operationalization of the right of education
to the highest attainable standard of education as indicated by the education status of
the most socially advantaged group. Assessing educational equity requires comparing
education and its outcomes between more and less advantaged social groups over a
period of time to assess its trend. These comparisons are essential in determining
whether national and international policies are leading toward or away from greater
social justice in education. Inequities in education systematically put groups of people
who are already socially disadvantaged (e.g., by virtue of being poor, female, and/or
members of a disenfranchised racial, ethnic, or religious group) at further disadvan-
tage with respect to their education.
The principle of equity requires fair opportunities both to enter education programs
and to succeed in them. Applying the principle of equity implies, on the one hand, a
critical identification of existing inequalities which are the product of policies, struc-
tures, and practices based on economic, ethnic, gender, disability, and other forms of
discrimination or disadvantage, and on the other, a programme of transformation with
a view to redress inequalities. Such transformation involves not only abolishing all exist-
ing forms of unjust differentiation, but also measures of empowerment, including finan-
cial support to bring about equal opportunity for individuals. Hence, the rights-based
framework is important because it ensures that resource allocation and policies are not
just based on limited calculations of returns, but on the perspectives and interests of the
most powerless and disadvantaged, too.
The chapter has shown that the ethnic element has been, and continues to be, one of
the salient features of Kenyan politics. A combination of factors account for this: the
existence of relatively ethnically homogeneous geographical spaces in pre-colonial
Kenya; the colonial policy of divide and rule which intensified ethnic separation by
establishing administrative jurisdictions along ethnic and racial lines; and, two ethni-
cally biased post-independent regimes that have legitimized ethnic representation and
state resource allocations.
140 Alwy and Schech

Kenya’s development strategy sanctions growing socio-economic inequalities and

these are inevitably reflected in the education system. The data has shown substantial
inequalities in educational opportunity and educational resources between students
from the Kenyan provinces where the ruling elite have originated, past and present, a
difference that has remained largely unaddressed by current public educational
policies. The issues of access to schools, distribution of qualified teachers and other
educational resources are equity issues and influence the educational outcomes and
achievements of the disadvantaged groups. Nairobi Province, Central Province and
Rift Valley Province have the highest enrolment rates in all education sectors, primary,
secondary and tertiary. Inequities also exist in the number of schools and higher insti-
tutions, where schools in the three better resourced provinces are more numerous than
in the other provinces, and these inequities are compounded by the fact that students
from other regions, like the North Eastern Province and Coast Province, are more
likely to have poor parents, inaccessible road networks, and poor qualified teachers.
Available data also indicate the greater disadvantage of girls at the primary level, and
the widening gap as one ascends the educational ladder, suggesting that the achieve-
ment of gender equality and the empowerment of women through education are still a
remote dream for Kenya.
To equalize educational opportunities for all students in Kenya, it would seem
pertinent that in its educational policies the government should give preference to
those groups which seem to be currently disadvantaged. Spending additional public
resources on urban poor and underserved districts and fewer resources on better-off
and well-served districts would thus not only be more equitable but also increase the
effectiveness of public spending on education.
Taking into consideration the current economic and educational situation in Kenya,
there is a need to shift policy in ways that will reinforce the right to education. The
Kenyan Government has already signed numerous international and regional declara-
tions and conventions guaranteeing every citizen the right to education. What the
Government now needs to do is to translate the provisions of the signed declarations
into practice.
This study relied on the Kenyan national surveys. While the surveys were useful in
raising questions and generating new hypothesis for testing, this usefulness is limited
by the fact that the surveys were not designed, nor the data gathered in ways that fully
suit the purposes of our research. While the descriptive evidence of ethnic inequality
in Kenya is conclusive, this study is exploratory with respect to understanding the
determinants of education inequalities among ethnic groups in Kenya, insofar as it
highlights provincial inequalities among selected groups and offers an explanation of
the findings based on the limited data at its disposal. The consistent results presented
here strongly support placing the notion of ethnicity at the forefront of analyses of edu-
cational policies in Kenya. Based on these results, this chapter argues that ethnicity
should be placed at the forefront of analyses of educational development in Kenya, as
well as in policy efforts to reduce inequalities in education.
 Ethnicity, Politics, and State Resource Allocation 141

Appendix 1: Kenya’s International Obligations on Education

United Nations Treaties Date of admission to UN: December 16, 1963.
-International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural
Rights – ICESCR
Acceded: May 1, 1972.
Reports submitted/due: 1/2
No reservation related to the right to education
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – ICCPR
Acceded: May 1, 1972.
Reports submitted/due: 1/5
No reservations
- International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of
Racial Discrimination – CERD
Acceded: September 13, 2001.
Reports submitted/due: 0/0
No reservations
- Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination – CEDAW
Acceded: March 9, 1984.
Reports submitted/due: 4/5
No reservations
- Convention on the Rights of the Child – CRC
Ratified: July 30, 1990.
Reports submitted/due: 1/2
No reservations

ILO Treaties ILO 98 Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining Convention

(1949) – date of ratification: January 13, 1964.
ILO 111 Convention concerning Discrimination in Respect of
Employment and Occupation (1958) – date of ratification:
May 07, 2001.
ILO 138 Minimum Age Convention (1973) – date of ratification:
April 04, 1979.
ILO 182 Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (1999) – date of
ratification: May 07, 2001.

African System The African Charter on Human and People’s Rights

Date of ratification: January 23, 1992.
The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child
Date of ratification: July 25, 2000.
142 Alwy and Schech

Appendix 2: Constitutional Guarantees on Education

Kenya
Date of Adoption/Date of Entry Into Force 1969
Relevant Provisions The Constitution includes human rights guarantees, but not
the right to education.
But, see:
Chapter V – Protection of fundamental rights and freedoms
of the individual
Art.78 – Protection of freedom of conscience

Full Text of Relevant Provisions Art.78

(1) Except with his own consent, no person shall be hindered
in the enjoyment of his freedom of conscience, and for the
purposes of this section the said freedom includes (…)
freedom, either alone or in community with others, and both
in public and in private, to manifest and propagate his religion
or belief in (…) teaching, (…).
(2) Except with his own consent (…), no person attending any
place of education (…) shall be required to receive religious
instruction (…) if that instruction (…) relates to a religion
other than his own.
(3) Every religious community shall be entitled, at its own
expense, to establish and maintain places of education and to
manage any place of education which it wholly maintains; and
no such community shall be prevented from providing religi-
ous instruction for persons of that community in the course
of any education provided at any place of education which it
wholly maintains or in the course of any education which it
otherwise provides.

Notes
1. The data used in this report is from three main sources: the 1999 Population and Housing Census; house-
hold surveys; and administrative records. The Population and Housing Census cover mainly demographic
data such as population size, distribution and socio-economic characteristics. This dataset was collected by
the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) and covers all the districts, locations and divisions in the country.
Three Kenyan Welfare Monitoring Surveys (WMS), conducted in 1992, 1994 and 1997, were used to
access information about enrolment rates, completion rates, the teaching force as well as the physical
resources in the different provinces. While not comprehensive, these household surveys sampled both
rural and urban areas in all provinces of the country. For other administrative records, we rely on govern-
ment data made available by the Ministries of Education. These include budget figures disaggregated by
province, and unit costs calculated using statistics on the number of students in each province and districts.
2. The province is the most convenient unit of analysis because government opportunities and resources
tend to be distributed more or less on a provincial basis. It must be borne in mind, however, that there
are definite limitations to analysis in terms of such large units, for differences within provinces, districts
 Ethnicity, Politics, and State Resource Allocation 143

and urban centers tend to be obscured. Nevertheless, since the goal of the chapter is to demonstrate the
general disparity patterns, we feel that this may not be a major limitation likely to affect the conclusions
drawn based on the overall trends at the provincial level. National statistics do not show socio-cultural
and economic disparities in educational access and opportunities. At best, provincial educational statis-
tics do not reflect the anomalies except by inference, but as mentioned earlier on there is a strong inter-
relationship in Kenya between ethnic groups and the region they populate.
3. Rural areas are more ethnically homogenous than large cities which have a more ethnically diverse
population due to urban migration.
4. Gross enrolment ratio refers to the number of students enrolled in a given level of education, of what-
ever age, reflected as a percentage of the total population of official school age individuals for that level.
The GER can be greater than 100% if grade repetition occurs, or if school entry at ages either earlier or
later than the typical age for that grade level occurs.
5. See Appendices 1 and 2 for details on Kenya’s International Obligations and Constitutional Guarantees
on Education.

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8

DIMENSIONS OF DIVERSITY: EDUCATING

URBAN TOWNSHIP LEARNERS, A CASE OF
UMLAZI TOWNSHIP SCHOOL IN DURBAN,
SOUTH AFRICA

Thabisile Buthelezi
University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban

Introduction
This chapter examines educational tensions and social constraints existing in the South
African urban township environment that make it difficult for learners in these contexts
to receive quality education. In the learners’ perceptions and experiences reported in
this chapter, I identify the specific daily challenges that learners experience in both
township life and the township school. Here, I argue that these challenges make youth
in the township settings more vulnerable to HIV infection, different forms of violence,
substance and alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy, suicide, child abuse, and so on. Based
on the analysis of stories, drawings and poems that were written by learners from a sec-
ondary school at Umlazi Township, near Durban in South Africa, I further discuss the
negative effects of the township context on learners.
Central to this discussion of negative effects is my argument that effective educa-
tion can mediate these effects. Schools and teachers, with substantive support from
communities, government and other sectors, can develop social competence in this
group of learners. In order to realize this, schools should effectively implement the
new South African school curriculum, particularly the subject field that is called
Life Orientation (LO), which is outlined in the South African curriculum policy
document, the Revised National Curriculum Statements (RNCS) (Department of
Education, 2002).
Nevertheless, in order for the effective delivery of the school curriculum to happen,
schools should provide an enabling environment. In other words, schools should
employ democratic and transformational strategies to school organization and class-
room management. My recommendations, therefore, include further research proj-
ects that aim to assist urban township schools to engage fully with transformation and
to implement the RNCS document effectively in order to improve the learners’ quality
of life.

145
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 145–182.
© 2007 Springer.
146 Buthelezi

Central Issues
Recent studies in education, and some educational interventions in South Africa, focus
on disadvantaged African students living and schooling in urban townships. In most
literature, African students from urban townships, together with students from rural
areas, are often referred to as students from “disadvantaged backgrounds” (Mangena,
2005; Marais, 2002). The growing interest in researching African students from disad-
vantaged backgrounds arises because a great proportion of school-leavers from this
group of learners are not adequately prepared for higher education (Hay & Marais,
2004). Many of them have lower academic achievement in Matric,1 which does not
qualify them to enter into tertiary education and this severely restricts their educational
and career choices.
In order to qualify for university entrance in South Africa, a “Matric endorsement” is
required. This means that of the total Matric subjects passed, a minimum of three
subjects should be passed with higher grade.2 Students, who do not meet this require-
ment, obtain a standard school-leaving certificate, which allows them to apply only in a
technikon or technical college (Garson, 2005). Because many of the school-leavers in
urban townships obtain neither a “Matric endorsement” nor a standard school-leaving
certificate, they join a large unemployment “pool” of people in society. Research has
also revealed that students who successfully enter university are often underprepared in
terms of the skills needed in Higher Education. They have very low literacy levels, lan-
guage and critical thinking skills. As a result, they struggle to succeed in higher educa-
tion courses.
In trying to support school-leavers coming from “disadvantaged” backgrounds who
are not ready to enter into higher education, different universities in South Africa are
making a number of efforts to increase access and success rates in Higher Education.
For instance, various universities have developed access programs, which are some-
times called foundation courses, or bridging courses (Hay & Marais, 2004; Mapesela,
2004; Paterson, 2005), which aim to support students who come from disadvantaged
backgrounds and require additional academic tutoring.
Remarkably, several authors have used the concept “students who are coming from
disadvantaged backgrounds” to describe students coming from urban townships. This
signifies that the context in which one lives and is educated plays a role in determin-
ing the nature and quality of education that one receives and the chances of success
that one has in life. Furthermore, from the concept we see that while South Africa is
now governed by one constitution and a single set of laws, persistent inequality based
on the diversified urban contexts still prevails. Given the unequal distribution of
resources that happened during the apartheid3 system of government, urban townships
(including urban township schools) were the most poorly resourced areas in South
Africa. Africans who lived in urban townships were employed in poorly paid jobs in
the mines, industries or cities.
Authors such as Brink, Malungana, Lebelo, Ntshangase, and Krige (2001),
Nhlengethwa (2004), Bhengu (2004), Thloloe (2004), and Le Roux (1993), have docu-
mented the difficult life – characterized by poverty, crime, violence, and death – that
 Dimensions of Diversity 147

Africans endured over the years in urban townships. Miyeni (2004), who was born in
Soweto (a township near Johannesburg), briefly comments about his traumatic life
experiences during his growing up years in Soweto. His story exemplifies the traumatic
life that many Africans had endured in urban townships during the apartheid and post-
apartheid era in South African urban townships. He writes:

But it is so difficult for me to write about my childhood township. I grew up in an

asbestos-roofed, three-roomed house in Soweto. Most weekends involved watch-
ing drunken death stabbings of neighbours over girlfriends and old grudges of no
real importance. Monday trips to school often meant walking past weekend
corpses that had not yet been claimed by relatives or collected by authorities. In
addition, I had to duck and dive from glue-sniffing young hooligans who wanted
to rob me of my meagre food money and tear my books apart. Miyeni (2004)

However, more than ten years of democracy in South Africa have not eradicated
poverty, deprivation and inequalities that are experienced by people living in urban
townships. South African urban township learners still experience the “history” of
social disadvantage, which is embedded in both the township social life and town-
ship schools. The unchanging urban township context has resulted in the migration
of learners from urban township schools to urban city and town schools previously
occupied by Whites. This happened after 1994 when South Africa achieved democ-
racy, when some parents in urban townships started to send their children to the privi-
leged multiracial schools in towns and cities so that they could get better education.
In this way, African learners from urban townships came to form an emerging group
in South African privileged multiracial schools in towns and cities. However, only
the African middle class families can afford to pay more for school fees and for
transport to send their children to privileged schools in towns and cities. Most par-
ents can only afford to send their children to urban township schools. The experi-
ences that learners who live in urban townships bring to the public classroom setting
are significantly different from those of other groups of learners who live in towns
and cities.
Generally, South African urban township learners come from a distinct cultural
background – where life is “survival.” In urban townships, you have not only to survive
gangsters, rape, and road accidents, but putting a plate of food on the table is a strug-
gle that needs one’s survival strategies. The combination of poverty with a materialist
and consumerist culture means that having money forms the key part of the world of
youth who live in urban townships. Because of the changes in the way families are
organized and function, which have resulted in lower quality “adult-child” closeness,
parental authority is sometimes lacking or challenged. Formal urban township schools,
which can play a secondary socialization role, are not adequately resourced and sup-
ported to play this role. Besides, schools are seriously undermined as many young men
(the role models for in-school youth) who lack marketable skills have access to money
through their involvement in crime as gangsters.
148 Buthelezi

This study, therefore, addresses the following two main questions:

1. In which way are urban townships and township schools a disadvantage to learn-
ers in these settings?
2. What are the effects of the township context on learners in these settings?
To address these questions, I begin by giving a brief overview of South African urban
township life. In the second section of the chapter, I highlight some challenges that are
still facing the South African education system. This is followed by a third section that
discusses Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory of Human Development
which postulates that the environment with its complex structures such as the family,
school, church and culture, exert negative or positive pressure on the child’s develop-
ment (McCollum, 1997; Paquette & Ryan, 2001). Supporting Bronfenbrenner’s theory
about the influence of context, I discuss the anti-child culture phenomenon (Smith &
Le Roux, 1993) in order to provide a framework for analyzing the oppressive nature of
the township context to the learners. Furthermore, I discuss Van Greunen’s (1993) con-
cepts of co-existentiality and co-essentiality, to argue that while the environment influ-
ences the development of the child, the child herself or himself as a human being
cannot be reduced to the status of a mere response to his or her environment. I argue
that when adequate education and support are given, a human being can alter his or her
environment.
This is followed by fourth section, which presents a detailed discussion of the
research strategy where I highlight the setting, design and methodologies that I used in
the study, including the arts-based methodologies, particularly the category of draw-
ings and poems. By identifying and analysing the life experiences and perceptions of
learners in a secondary school situated at Umlazi Township, in Durban, I discuss, in
fifth section, the day-to-day sociocultural and educational challenges faced by urban
township learners. Here, I argue that an interplay of social and school factors such as
violence, inadequate family life, exposure to crime, gang culture, availability of drugs
and alcohol, particular gender relations, and traditional authoritarian school culture,
render youth in these settings more vulnerable to HIV infection, teenage pregnancy,
substance abuse, child abuse, suicide, and so on.
I conclude the chapter by arguing that the school and teachers, with substantive sup-
port from communities, government and other sectors, can develop and promote social
competence in this group of learners by employing transformational strategies in their
approaches to school organization, leadership, management (including classroom man-
agement) as well as effective teaching of the Life Orientation (LO).

Democracy in the Context of Apartheid – “Urban Townships”

in the New South Africa
All over the world, definitions of “urban” and perceptions of urban areas differ
widely (Haberman, 2004). One dictionary meaning of the term “urban” is “a city or
town” and it is used to oppose “rural” (Allen, 1992). However, when viewed
through South African history, this definition is insufficient to describe urban areas in
South Africa, as there are different kinds of urban environments; for example, urban
 Dimensions of Diversity 149

cities and towns, urban townships and informal settlements. In this chapter, only one
category of urban residential area will be discussed – the urban townships.
Urban townships have their origins in South Africa’s apartheid past, which was
rooted in the various legislative acts such as the Bantu Education Act of 1953, the
Natives (Black) Urban Areas Act of 1923 and the Extension of University Education
Act of 1959. Systematic racial segregation was not only prevalent at social, political,
economic and educational levels, but was also used as a criterion to allocate urban res-
idential land. For instance, the Group Areas Act of 1950 forced physical separation
between races by creating different residential areas for different races. Townships
emerged when the government permitted that certain areas (usually some distance
away from each town or city and near rubbish dumps and smog-producing industries)
would be set-aside for Africans. In this way, towns and cities became almost exclu-
sively for whites while townships were exclusively for Africans. The only Africans that
were allowed to live in towns and cities were domestic workers who were working for
white families. The division of South Africa into urban cities (towns) and urban town-
ships created the diversity of urban contexts with distinct standards and resources. For
a range of reasons, it is likely that this social order will remain for a long time.
As Miyeni (2004) puts it, urban townships are the “true symbols of racist triumph
over innocent victims.” South African urban townships are still characterized by lim-
ited space, poverty, crime, violence and poor schooling. Because of the apartheid laws,
which restricted Africans from formal economic activities, many people in townships
turned their three- or four-roomed, “match box houses” into shebeens4 (Brady &
Rendall-Mkosi, 2005, p. 136; Mona, 2005). The continued existence of many shebeens
in townships increases the availability of alcohol. Moreover, the abundance of alcohol
in the context of unemployment and poverty that exist in urban townships leads to the
escalation of crime rates. Robbery, car hijacking, torture, and murders, had long
become the daily ritual of township life.
In most townships, certain areas such as bus stops have become common crime
spots where people are robbed and killed. Such areas have acquired nicknames that
describe the common criminal activities that take place in them. For example, many
townships have areas nicknamed KWAMSHAYAZAFE (which means that, you beat a
person until they die), or EMPHELANDABA (which means, where all stories end –
usually where people fight each other) or KWADLULA-WAFA (meaning that you pass,
you die) or EMLAMLANKUNZi (meaning, you survive by your strength). Because of
crime and violence, gangsterism has become a common feature in township life. As
Sampson (2004, p. 76) accurately says:

If you offend them, they’ll beat you up. If you bring a case against them, they will
beat up the witness. If you cause them any trouble, they will kill you. At inquest,
the witness will be absent.

Given this context, the survival of young men depends on keeping on the right side of
gangsters. Therefore, some young males either join the existing gangs or form their
own in order to develop skills and gain support to survive in the harsh environment of
the township. Gangsters are role models for young ambitious males because they have
big power, big money, big cars and the best girls (Sampson, 2004, p. 76). They wear
150 Buthelezi

expensive clothes, drink expensive liquor and can afford expensive drugs and expen-
sive weapons (guns). From the young man’s perspective, they are “cool.”5
However, not all Africans in townships become involved in crime in order to improve
their financial situation. Many still see education as a solution to their problems and
they study continuously. As a result, a new aristocracy of doctors, nurses, teachers,
lawyers, and other professionals had emerged over the years in townships, though few
of this group of African aristocrats have chosen to remain in townships. However, even
if they stay in townships, most send their children to better schools in towns and cities
because they can afford the higher fees in such schools and can pay for the transport that
takes their children to school. Poor families, some headed by single women, send their
children to urban township schools where there are affordable fees.
One of the gains made in the difficult life in urban townships is the involvement of
illiterate and semi-literate African women in the country’s economy. Although an
argument can still be made about the low-paying jobs such as domestic work, shop
assistantship, factory work, and so on, most women in townships are hard workers
who maintain their families and make sure their children go to schools. Women also
may become informal traders, selling vegetables, fruit and clothes, and other goods in
taxi ranks as well as juice or sweets in school gates. Because of their low income,
these women, together with other poor families, can only send their children to town-
ship schools. Unfortunately, the system of education is still failing these families and
their children because the quality of education in most township schools is greatly
compromised.

Urban Education and Issues Haunting the South African

Education System
Though South Africa has fixed most of the apartheid policies, it still has to improve
its educational quality, particularly in urban township and rural schools. Since 1994,
the South African Government has made impressive gains in terms of transforming the
education system through various legislative instruments and policies such as the
South African Schools Act (Department of Education [DoE], 1996), Revised National
Curriculum Statement (DoE, 2002), and others. Nineteen different educational depart-
ments separated by race, geography and ideology, which were operating under
apartheid have been replaced by a single system of education. All schools have to fol-
low a single curriculum (DoE, 2002) underpinned by one ideology. Through the appli-
cation of the policy of Norms and Standards for School Funding (DoE, 1998), the
Department of Education is able to differentially allocate funding to schools according
to individual school needs. In this, the government has made serious efforts “to redress
inequities arising from past discrimination” (Taylor, Muller, & Vinjevold, 2003) in
terms of providing resources to poor schools. Besides these and many other legislative
provisions that are geared to transform education in South Africa, a number of initia-
tives that aim to support teachers, curriculum delivery and management in schools, are
being implemented. Here, I can mention the Dinaledi project, which supports the
delivery of numeracy, math, science and technology in schools. In this project, selected
 Dimensions of Diversity 151

teachers from a number of disadvantaged schools across the country are re-skilled to
effectively teach science and technology subjects in schools.
Although the current government, through interventions such as the Dinaledi proj-
ect that I have mentioned above, is intent on rectifying the imbalances in education, the
apartheid legacy lingers on as Cele (2004) correctly says:

Even as we aspire to create productive non-racial, multi-ethnic democracies, we

need to acknowledge and study the ways our past responses to difference have
shaped fundamentally the conditions in which we now seek to create new forms
of community. These legacies of strangeness and estrangement must be con-
fronted, because they accompany us into our current social encounters, providing
the warp and woof of our social tapestries. They are like irons on our legs, and we
stumble because of them even as we try to move forward.

While in the budget allocation of the national Government, education gets a big slice,
usually 20% of the total budget each year (Garson, 2005), more money is needed to
address the immense backlogs in schools owing to more than 40 years of apartheid
education, when money was pumped into “white education” at the expense of African
schools in urban townships and rural areas. Even now, most schools in townships and
rural areas are still struggling for resources.
Despite the unequal resources across schools, all schools are now expected to
deliver on the new school curriculum. Given the differing access to resources, it is not
surprising that troubling reports have documented that most schools have difficulty in
implementing the new curriculum (Chisholm & Muller, 2000; Taylor & Vinjevold,
1999). Furthermore, inadequate training of teachers on the new curriculum, lack of
appropriate materials for the new curriculum, and the challenges related to the lan-
guage of learning and teaching (LoLT),6 have also been offered as explanations for
teachers’ difficulty with the new curriculum. However, these are not the only reasons.
The pedagogical shift that the new curriculum demands from teachers is perhaps the
most crucial one.
Outcomes-Based Education (OBE) forms the foundation for the new curriculum
that is outlined in the RNCS document (Department of Education, 2002). The OBE
approach challenges the traditional pedagogy where teachers were transmitters of
knowledge. In OBE, the classroom becomes a space where knowledge is processed
and produced. All learners as well as the teacher bring into the classroom their exist-
ing “knowledges” and experiences (which might be full of stereotypes, prejudices,
beliefs, and so on). The teacher facilitates activities aimed at processing the shared
knowledge and challenging existing domains of knowledge. In this situation, the
learners are highly cognitively involved and the process aims to empower them with a
number of skills, including decision-making skills, which they will use to develop
their own individual principles and values.
This pedagogical shift requires that classrooms be managed democratically. The
teachers themselves have not been prepared for this change. Most teachers in township
schools were poorly trained by the previous system of education. Their college train-
ing did not develop in them critical thinking and analysis skills (Wieder, 2003).
152 Buthelezi

Overwhelmed by curriculum change, teachers resort to traditional methods of teaching

where they stick to theory and “spoon-feeding.” This does not prepare the learners for
life and for entering into higher education.

The “Context Debate” – Some Theoretical Reflections

In highlighting the importance of context in child’s education and development,
Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory of Human Development emphasizes a
person-process-context model (McCollum, 1997), where the child’s development is
looked at within the system of relationships that form his or her environment (Paquette &
Ryan, 2001). The theory postulates that child development is fundamentally social
since individuals construct their learning through interacting with their environment
(McCollum, 1997). The child’s environment is comprised of “complex” layers each of
which has particular structures such as the family, church, culture, school, community,
and so on. The interaction within and between the systems and structures in the child’s
environment may directly or indirectly exert negative or positive force on the child’s
development. One example given by Bronfenbrenner (1984, p. 52) (as cited in
Paquette & Ryan, 2001) is that the instability of family life, which results from the
society’s economic crisis, may be a destructive force in the child’s life. In such situa-
tions where family life is compromised, the child may feel insecure and he or she may
present with problems such as antisocial behavior.
In South Africa, the interplay between bigger environmental systems and struc-
tures at different levels, such as capitalism, the former political system of apartheid
with its ideology of segregation and social factors that resulted from it, created an
environment that was not conducive to the development of the African child in
particular. The traditional, rural family and community lifestyle was replaced by
urbanized township life, in which many parents struggled to provide for their fami-
lies, because the apartheid policy of unequal distribution of resources among differ-
ent race groups meant that African urban townships and families would get the least
of resources, including land. Given the economic imperatives faced in urban town-
ships, many African children were affected because parents had neither the time nor
adequate resources to effectively care for their children. As a result, most African
children in townships grew up in an environment where the quality of life was
greatly compromised.
To describe the negative social, economic and political influences in South Africa,
which undermined the African child’s family life, education and development, Smith
and Le Roux (1993) came up with the concept of “anti-child culture phenomenon.”
They give the following definition of the anti-child culture phenomenon:

An anti-child culture is an anti-child educational environment. In an anti-child

educational environment, the education of children is seriously hampered by edu-
cational and societal factors. A child accordingly experiences his [or her] family
and society as situations in which he [or she] has no legitimate place. Smith and
Le Roux (1993)
 Dimensions of Diversity 153

From this, I deduce that the anti-child culture phenomenon is consistent with the ideas
of Bronfenbrenner because it posits that the environment with “negative” factors will
have negative influence on the child’s development. According to Smith and Le Roux
(1993), the South African urban township environment, with its inadequate accommo-
dation, lack of adequate health and recreational facilities, poor quality education and
poverty, constrains many African children.
However, Van Greunen (1993) has the view that while we recognize the importance
of the environment in the development of a child, we should guard against overempha-
sizing the influence of the environmental factors because this could result in subjecting
a human being to his or her environment. In this way, we would be “reducing the child
to the status of a mere response to situational events” (Van Greunen, 1993). According
to this view, the child cannot become a victim of the environment because the child is a
human being and all human beings possess (within themselves) hereditary factors,
which Van Greunen (1993) has termed the “genetically determined multipotentiality.”
Such hereditary factors mean that the child has a range of possibilities or dimensions
for development that can be categorized into physical, emotional, cognitive, conative,
moral, spiritual and social (Van Greunen, 1993). In support of this idea, I argue that the
outcome of the child’s development is not always reflective of the nature of the envi-
ronment in which the person grew up. However, it may be reflective of how that partic-
ular person interacted with their environment. This means that the nature of the
relationship or interaction between the person and the environment might be a determi-
nant of the outcome of development.
To conceptualize the idea of a relationship between the child and his or her envi-
ronment, Van Greunen (1993) came up with the concepts of co-existentiality and
co-essentiality. Co-existentiality means that the child and the environment are inter-
dependent, inseparable and interwoven, and should both be present at the same time
for the child’s development to occur because they need each other. The concept of
co-essentiality implies the interrelatedness between the child and the environment,
where there is interaction between the self-developing child and the environment.
According to this postulate, the child is not passive but actively participates to change
and affect his or her circumstances. He or she is also “simultaneously being changed
and affected by the very same circumstances he or she is trying to change and affect”
(Van Greunen, 1993). In this regard, the nature of the interaction between the child
and their environment is important as it determines the outcome of the developing
child. Then, what is the role of education in this relationship between the child and the
environment?
Van Greunen (1993) has the view that education acts as a mediating factor between
the child and his or her environment. He says:

In this sense, education is not only essentially an interaction between the child
and the educator, but also a purposeful endeavour to facilitate meaningful inter-
action or dialogue between the child and his [or her] environment. [Education]
thus becomes a powerful agent in helping the child constitute a meaningful life
world, a world he [or she] can meaningfully orientate himself [or herself ] by
being actively and purposefully involved in it. Van Greunen (1993)
154 Buthelezi

From this definition, we understand that education is part of the process of interaction
between the child and his or her environment and that it enriches this process.
Therefore, in an educational situation the educator leads, guides, or helps the child to
reach out to his or her environment and assign meaning to its realities.
For education to effectively play this mediating role, an important relationship needs
to be established and maintained between the child and the educator who is guiding the
child. Both the educator and the child have to fulfill their responsibilities in order to
maintain this relationship. For instance, the educator has a responsibility to trust,
accept, respect, understand the child, apply meaningful discipline and create an educa-
tional climate where the child is adequately engaged in exploring the environment. This
learning environment should be safe, exciting, challenging and should provide oppor-
tunities for personal development (Davidoff & Lazarus, 2002, p. 4). However, it is not
only the classroom environment (during formal subjects) that constitutes the learning
environment, but also all the experiences that the child has at school (e.g., the values the
school holds, the way teachers relate to each other and to learners) are part of the learn-
ing environment. The total sum of this environment shapes the thinking, insights, per-
ceptions, skills and behavior of learners (Davidoff & Lazarus, 2002, p. 4). On the other
hand, the child has the responsibility to actively participate and engage with and learn
from their environment.
To reflect on the South African situation, I argue that the urban township anti-child
cultural environment successfully constrained the lifestyle of many African children,
because apartheid education did not facilitate interaction between the child and his or her
environment. It did not act as a mediating factor between the children and their environ-
ment. As Wieder (2003) puts it, apartheid education “was a kind of built-in learning dis-
ability and extreme disadvantage.” The inferior curriculum had nothing to do with what
was going on in the everyday lives of the children. As a result, children became victims
of the negative urban township environment, which negatively affected them. From this,
I can therefore conclude that it is possible for the child to become the victim of the
environment if education does not actualize hereditary factors (Van Greunen, 1993).

Research Strategy
This paper is the result of the research conducted in one of the secondary schools in
Umlazi Township near Durban. It is situated to the southwest of central Durban. Like
all South African townships, Umlazi Township is designated for African people. It
originated in 1845 when the British forcefully occupied Natal and established a num-
ber of “locations” (townships) for the Zulus (Tourism KwaZulu-Natal, 2005). Not
different from other South African townships, Umlazi Township offers shebeens,
izinyanga’s (traditional doctors’) shops, artwork and township music such as jazz and
kwaito (South African Townships, 2005). As is typical of South African townships,
Umlazi Township has more than 30 sections, which are differentiated by alphabetical
letters, for example Section A, Section B, Section C, Section AA, and so on.
Established in 1983, the school that participated in the project is situated in one of the
sections of Umlazi Township. Adjacent to the school is an informal settlement. Not
 Dimensions of Diversity 155

typical of township schools that are characterized by vandalized buildings, the school has
good buildings and a well-maintained schoolyard, which are little different from some of
the city or town schools that are well resourced. On entering the overcrowded classrooms
and seeing the empty bookshelves in the school library, however, one immediately rec-
ognizes the difference between this school and city schools. I purposefully selected the
school because it is one of the biggest schools in the area with about 2,600 learners and
110 teachers. Learners come from several sections of Umlazi Township, as well as from
other townships in KwaZulu-Natal since the school has some boarding facilities.
In order to gain entry into the school, I formally applied to the school management
to work at the school. Then followed a meeting with the principal. Having obtained
permission from the school, and obtained ethical clearance from the University of
KwaZulu-Natal, my home institution, I worked with two guidance teachers in the
school to select the sample and to set up dates to visit the school. Because I had to use
the school time to work with the learners, it was therefore more appropriate to work
with learners in one class to utilize some of the class periods in the timetable.
As is common with all South African urban township schools, the classrooms are
overcrowded. The class I worked with, the Grades 11, had 9 classes and the number of
learners in each class ranged between 47 and 60. I worked with a class that has the least
number of learners, 47 (35 females and 12 males). In this class, learners come from
several sections of Umlazi Township (Sections A, C, D, E, K, M, N, R, U, and Z). Some
come from other townships near Durban; Amanzimtoti, Chesterville, Lamontville,
while others come from townships that are next to other South African cities and
towns, such as Imbali Township near Pietermaritzburg (about 72 km from Durban),
Emondlo Township near Vryheid (situated in Northern KwaZulu-Natal and within
striking distance of both Durban and Johannesburg) and townships near Stanger (about
80 km in the North coast of Durban) and Newcastle. Therefore, the sample included
perceptions and experiences of learners who come from a number of sections at
Umlazi Township and from several other townships in KwaZulu-Natal Province.
Several concerns informed the choices I made about the kind of data collection
methods that I used. I considered the focus of the study, which has as its main purpose
to gain a deep level of understanding of the township social context and how this con-
text affects learners’ lives and their education. Based on this view, a neat, “scientific”
approach to data collection was deliberately avoided in favor of an individual learner
narrative, in the hope that this would lend itself to an in-depth analysis. To collect data,
I therefore used arts-based methodologies: the drawings, language arts, such as writ-
ten poems and written songs as well as the textual narratives that were completed in the
dialogue journal. By using arts-based methodologies I wanted to uncover the youths’
frame of reference (Babbie & Mouton, 2002) on such issues existing in their environ-
ment. It is important to note that by developing a study that places particular emphasis
on learners’ voices about their perceptions and experiences, my intention is to nurture
an understanding of the township context and the difficulties learners experience in
such contexts. I also incorporate learners’ experiences and viewpoints in recognition
of children’s rights and the principle of young people’s participation as set out in the
Convention on the Rights of a Child (CRC) (1989) as well as in the South African
Constitution, Act 108 of 1996.
156 Buthelezi

The arts-based methodologies used in this project draw from a growing body of
work on visual and arts-based participatory methodologies such as photo-voice, per-
formance arts, video documentary, collage and drawings (Mitchell & Reid-Walsh,
2002; Walker, 1993). The use of these methodologies is meant to expand an ongoing
research and teaching agenda within the social sciences in the area of media education
studies and participatory visual and arts-based approaches to inquiry and representa-
tion with young people and HIV prevention (Mitchell, De Lange, Moletsane, Stuart, &
Buthelezi, 2005), where research has a social change orientation. In the project at
Umlazi, I was interested in the category of drawings as forms of art and narrative mode
of inquiry in working with young people. Scientists have discovered similarities
between art experiences and the function of the human brain and as Silver (2005) says:

Art tells a story. Through pictures, images and symbols, the art maker communi-
cates feelings and thoughts and creates pathways for others to understand what
often lies just beyond the realm of verbal awareness.

Drawings are also used in psychology to assess aggression and depression in adoles-
cents. As an activity that emphasizes a focus on meaning, while providing a natural
space for learners to express their experiences, views, values and the meanings they
make of their lives, a dialogue journal that was titled “Dear Diary, Sawubona Dayari”
was given to each of the 47 learners who were participating in the study. Validity and
reliability was ensured by the use of several themes in the dialogue journals. The dia-
logue journal had the following four themes with instructions:
● Theme One: My Self
● Learners had to draw a self-portrait; write a song or poem about, for and to

themselves; write about themselves, for instance, what they like, do not like,
what other people say about them; their future dreams and plans and unforget-
table moments in their lives.
● Theme Two: My Home
● Learners had to draw and write about their home, and neighborhood. Then they

had to write about safe and unsafe spaces in their home and neighborhood and
what they think should be done to make all spaces safe.
● Theme Three: My Education
● Learners had to write about what they like and not like about their school; their

typical school day; the school day they will never forget; and safe and unsafe
spaces at school.
● Theme Four: Experiences and thoughts about issues
● Learners had to write about their experiences and thoughts about HIV, AIDS,

education and employment, alcohol and drugs, violence and gender-based vio-
lence, sex and sexually transmitted infections, teen pregnancy and abortion and
what they liked and not liked about the project.
The dialogue journal provided an avenue for spontaneous conversation with the learn-
ers. For most learners, the concept of the dialogue journal combined with the arts and
 Dimensions of Diversity 157

free writing expression required by the project was novel, exciting, fun and led to a
sense of freshness and authenticity. Respondents’ anonymity was fully protected by
omitting the use of names on the written responses. The notion of a diary that was
embedded in the title of the journal “Dear Diary, Sawubona Dayari” affirmed confi-
dentiality. This, together with the permutation of an “outsider” (researcher) rather than
a class or subject teacher as a dialogue partner, granted the learners anonymity and
therefore greater freedom of expression. Learners could use the language of their
choice to respond to the “Dear Diary, Sawubona Dayari” dialogue journal, as all the
learners were not first language speakers of English. The majority of learners speak
isiZulu, and a few speak isiXhosa.
Forty-six learners (35 females and 11 males) between ages 14 and 19 years all from
grade eleven responded – one male learner returned an uncompleted dialogue journal.
The high response rate and the wealth of information suggest that respondents felt
comfortable in participating in the project and they wanted to use the opportunity to
talk about issues that affect them in their context. Most learners expressed their views
openly that such opportunities, which allow them to talk about issues that affect them,
should increase.
I did not consider it appropriate to apply statistical analysis to the qualitative data
collected. Therefore, data were captured, analyzed and creatively organized by means
of codes. The most frequently occurring items were re-coded and organized into
themes. Drawings were analyzed at a narrative level and not artistically, via such ele-
ments as colors and shapes. Significant thematic overlaps were noted and the results
presented below.

Urban Townships, the “Disadvantaged Backgrounds”

A total of 46, 32 page dialogue journals titled “Dear Diary: Sawubona Dayari” were
completed by learners who participated in the project. Together the dialogue journals
express narratives of danger, survival, violence, crime, alcohol and drug abuse,
poverty, anger, resilience and hope. For most children in South African urban town-
ships, “being a child” is a traumatic experience and life is a risk. The insecurity in
township environments presents a situation in which children are routinely exposed to
gang violence, with the possibility of being raped (with its possibility of HIV infec-
tion), assaulted or robbed by gangs. The learners’ responses expressed in dialogue
journals reveal structural problems in the community, systematic problems in the
school and unresolved personal, emotional and family problems that they experience.
In this section, I present the day-to-day socio-cultural and educational challenges
faced by urban township learners at Umlazi Township, in Durban, to reveal the disad-
vantaging nature of township situations.
As discussed earlier, Le Roux (1993) came up with the concept of “anti-child cul-
ture,” to explain situations that children experience in societies, where “… [children]
cannot be adequately accommodated” because of the nature of the context. As such,
from the learners’ narratives, there is considerable evidence to suggest that the urban
158 Buthelezi

township environment provides this anti-child culture situation. In urban townships,

the fear of gang-related violence, as well as alcohol and drug related crimes restricts
learners’ freedom to use many of the public spaces such as the roads, bus stops, shops
and tuck shops. Almost all learners in the project mentioned home and school as the
only places where they feel safe. Their route to and from school is not safe. When learn-
ers leave their homes in the mornings to catch a bus or taxi to school, they risk being
mugged, robbed, assaulted or killed by criminals at the bus or taxi stops. Learners
expressed the following concerns:

A place, which gives us problems near my home, is an important place. At the

bus stop of my home it is not safe because if you happen to be delayed until
evening not even at about 7.00 (P.M.) I am talking about 5.00 (P.M.) you must
know that you have little chances of passing at the stop. And, in the morning it is
not easy that you reach where you are going to … As far as I am concerned, I can
say that the only way that can help is that there should be about three law people
(meaning police) so that they see to it that it is safe. Another thing that can help
is that robots should be put because road accidents are so many. Every year we
bury people who have been run over by cars others have been stabbed others
have been shot. I would be happy if we can get help near my home. {Translated
from isiZulu} (Female 06: 17 years)
… if it is in the morning I go to school and it is winter I feel unsafe because it
is still dark. {Translated from isiZulu} (Female 11: 16 years)

Clearly, learners are not only exposed to criminals and gangsters on their route to
and from school, but they are also prone to road accidents, as female learner num-
ber six above has expressed. Again, three participants mentioned that they had been
involved in serious road accidents and they expressed how traumatic their experi-
ences were. For instance, the first participant would not forget how shocked the
class was when she came on crutches after the accident; the second participant,
would not forget the day he was in a speeding taxi that overturned; and; the third
participant, was in a coma after being run over by a car and she was hospitalized for
a month.
As stated previously, along with the home, most learners mentioned school as a safe
space. Almost all participants in the study – male and female – said they feel very safe
everywhere within the school premises. To emphasize how safe the school is, a few of
the learners mentioned that the school had stamped down theft that had occurred in the
school hostels. This was when people from outside the school started to break into the
schoolyard to steal learners’ clothes. However, it should be noted that the school
participating in this project is one of what the provincial Department of Education rec-
ognizes as best, or safe schools, both in Umlazi and in the province of KwaZulu-Natal.
Otherwise, several studies have revealed that safety is an issue in most South African
schools. One study, by Human Rights Watch (2001), reported that most South African
schools are places of violence, particularly gender-based violence such as rape and sexual
harassment.
 Dimensions of Diversity 159

However, respondents in the project reported that they are only safe when they enter
the school gate. As soon as they leave the school in the afternoon, learners, particularly
girls, face harassment from gangs in the bus stop:

I am very safe if I am at school. When I am outside the school [premises] that is

when I am not safe. Because some boys who did not finish school, wait for us and
demand our moneys. As we are at school, they just say we are children of rich
people. {Translated from isiZulu} (Female 13: age not indicated)
When it [is] after school at the stop, but inside the school I don’t have an unsafe
spaces. (Female 05: 15 years)

Because of the gang culture that is a common feature of youth sub-culture in South
African townships, learners in townships daily survive harassment and violence. The
presence of gangsters in many public and sometimes private spaces was a theme run-
ning through several responses:

Their [there] is a speace in my neighbourhood called ka Joe I real real do not live
[like] that place because the [there] is a corruption boys like to rape girls and they
real not good for me I do not love them they have storng laugage. [strong lan-
guage] (Female 04: 16 years)
At Kwa-Joe, at Umlazi, in every place we meet with hooligans because at
times when you are just walking you sometimes suddenly feel a cold thing on
your neck [meaning you feel a knife or a gun], then you realise they [hooli-
gans] want what you have got, which is not theirs and they’ll end up killing
you. All places in my neighbourhood are not safe. {Translated from isiZulu}
(Male 08: 19 years)
There are a lot of corners where hooligans hang out and do bad things. To be
on the safe side you just have to stay at home and be sure to be at home before
seven P.M. (Female 01: 16 years)
I was walking with my brother there came many boys who wanted to take our
bag. We refused [to give them the bag] and we fought with these boys. They took
out the gun trying to shoot us. They missed; only one of them was shot.
{Translated from isiZulu} (Male 11: age not indicated)

Brady and Rendall-Mkosi (2005) have mentioned “Having too many liquor outlets in
one area puts people who live in that area at risk because of possible alcohol-related
crime problems.” This is because the high consumption of alcohol is likely to result in
public drunkenness, car crashes, fights, rapes and homicide. While a source of income
for many families in townships, numerous shebeens and taverns provide too many out-
lets for alcohol and this increases consumption in urban townships. Furthermore, some
tuck shop owners have (illegally) combined their businesses to also serve as shebeens.
In such places, when drunken people fight each other and use weapons such as guns,
160 Buthelezi

children who have come to buy anything from the tuck shops risk being shot by stray
bullets, as one learner expressed it:

The places we buy from like tuck shops are now also used as shebeens. If people
are drunk they fight each other and shoot you find yourself being shot by a stray
bullet. {Translated from isiZulu} (Female, 29: 18 years)

Given the economic constraints faced in townships, many parents are preoccupied with
the daily struggle of earning income for their families. As a result, adult-child closeness
is compromised. This leads to the lack of adequate childcare and open communication
between children and their parents, which communication is necessary for a balanced
upbringing and socialization. Sometimes the family’s supportive and protective roles to
the child’s life are also affected. For instance, instead of parents (families) protecting
their children from the unsafe environment of the township, some parents expose their
children to the risks of being robbed, harassed, shot, stabbed, and even killed when they
send them to the shops and tuck shops as the following learners said:

We have shops, which sell cards for electricity. It ends up that children are robbed
of the money when they are sent to the shops. We need safety and security there
is unemployment at Umlazi I am not blaming anyone. {Translated from isiZulu}
(Male 8:19 years)
I feel safe when I am in my room. I am not safe if I am in the sitting room
because my father sends us even at night to shops or to his brother’s house. My
father does not think [carefully] before he sends us. {Translated from isiZulu}
(Male 01: age not indicated)

The earlier discussion expressed that most participants reported that they are safe in
their homes; conversely, a few learners stated that they were not safe even when they
are at home. Because there is limited space in townships (Smith & Le Roux, 1993),
properties are small, and houses are built too near each other as well as too near the
roads. Lack of sufficient income often means that properties are not properly fenced
and secured. When this situation is coupled with increasing crime and violence rates,
and the common use of guns in townships, people are not safe even in their houses as
the following respondents reported:

The most safe place at home it’s the passage because no-one can see me. The unsafe
places at my [home] are the kitchen, at the dining room near the door and outside.
It is unsafe at the kitchen because there is a big window and anyone can see me. The
dining room is unsafe because it is near the door and I don’t even study at the din-
ing room. Outside it unsafe because there is no fencing. (Female 10: 15 years)
The safe place at my home is inside the house it very safe cause it always
locked and the unsafe place is in my room. It unsafe because my room is out side.
So it realy unsafe I can get raped without being herd (heard) by anyone. The thing
that should be done is my mom have to buy a new house that the only solution.
(Female 19: 17 years)
 Dimensions of Diversity 161

In an environment where the anti-child culture sentiments prevail, children do not

experience personal relationships, security and support that are often found in a stable
family environment. Understandably, the African family in urban townships has
become unstable, because of the increasing socio-economic forces that are continually
producing family patterns that are undesirable for the “adequate nurturing of the grow-
ing children” (Smith & Le Roux, 1993). Some learners mentioned domestic violence
and alcohol abuse within the family itself:

My home has a lot of domestic violence, My mom my dad and my dad’s girl-
friend. I also like my dad’s girlfriend. (Transvestite7 04: born in a leap year)
… What I do no like in my home is my father who drinks. And, I can see clearly
that I’ll end up not respecting him at all because of certain reasons. (Female 13:
age not indicated)
When my uncle gets drunk he acts strange and calls us names and when we ask
him the next days he denies everything. (Female 31: 15 years)

The critical concerns to the above representations are that South Africa has many urban
townships, which provide this anti-child culture environment. For millions of African
children, each day is a battle to survive poverty, violence, harassment, and death.

Education as Dialogue – a Gap in the Dialogue

In his or her development, the child continues to interact with the environment in which
he or she grows (Smith & Le Roux, 1993). Again, as Van Greunen (1993) states that edu-
cation facilitates this interaction so that it becomes more meaningful – what happens at
schools, lays the foundation for what happens later on in the children’s lives. Therefore,
the ultimate goal of education is to develop learners’ knowledge, skills, capacities and
attitudes they need in order to make clear decisions about their lives. In other words, edu-
cation provides them with a base to participate and contribute towards a meaningful life.
However, in most South African schools, it is still difficult to realize this educational
goal. With schools having a different history and traditions, the “social history of dis-
advantage” is still evident in historically disadvantaged schools, such as the urban township
schools. Due to apartheid-era exploitation and economic oppression of the urban townships
and the rural areas, urban township schools still lack vital educational resources: class-
rooms, equipment and teachers. Because of a large number of people concentrated in small
townships, schools are never adequate in townships, and classrooms are characterized by
overcrowding. Although I was working with a class which has the least number of learners
(47), compared to other classes in the same grade, I still did not have a space to move in
between desks. Most learners use their laps to put their school bags on, so that they can
have a space to write on the desk. Some of the learners expressed their concerns that the
large classes meant destruction of learning and overstretched resources:

What I don’t like: the crowdiness in classes because it causes (sometimes)

distruction. (Female 18: 18 years)
162 Buthelezi

As discussed earlier on, education acts as a mediating factor in the interaction process
between the child and his or her environment (Van Greunen, 1993), and this means that
education has to be relevant to the child’s environment. The South African new school
curriculum (Department of Education, 2002), which was implemented soon after
1994, aims to realize this ultimate educational goal as it envisions a learner who will:

… act in the interest of a society based on respect for democracy, equality, human
dignity, life and social justice. The curriculum seeks to create a lifelong learner
who is confident and independent, literate, numerate, multi-skilled, compassion-
ate, with respect for the environment and the ability to participate in society as a
critical and active citizen. (Department of Education, 2000)

While the new school curriculum is moving towards a more holistic and integrated
understanding of educational practice, the effective implementation of such a curricu-
lum rests with teachers. The curriculum alone cannot bring about transformation. The
quality of the teacher who is delivering on the curriculum is equally important. As
Luthuli (1982, p. 29) accurately says:

… in a pedagogic situation, it is only a competent, efficient and mature teacher

who is able to implement the desirable educational reforms and innovations
reflected in a school curriculum.

However, most teachers in urban township schools have been poorly trained by the pre-
vious apartheid system. As mentioned previously, in that system, it was not just that the
curriculum was irrelevant to learners’ lives, but the teaching methodologies were dam-
aging. It is unlikely that the teachers’ previous training prepared them for what is
expected of them now in the new curriculum. Several learners questioned the compe-
tence of some teachers in the subjects that they teach:

What I also do not like in my school is that other teachers speak wrong English
which you can see that even a six-year old child will not speak but I ask myself and
I do not get an answer how are the teachers employed. Another thing is that they do
not want to be corrected they say you take advantage of him/her. He/she is a teacher
they cannot be told by a learner. {Translated from isiZulu} (Female 28: 17 years)

For education to play a mediating role, an important relationship that is built on trust,
acceptance, respect, understanding and meaningful discipline should be established
between the child and the teacher who is guiding the child (Van Greunen, 1993). The
Revised National Curriculum Statements document for South African school curricu-
lum is more engaging and requires teachers who will interact differently with learners.
However, this essential relationship between the teacher and the learner cannot be
established when teachers still exercise the authoritarian mode of communicating with
the learners. In most township schools, the history of top-down control of schools,
learners and the curriculum that was part of the apartheid legacy, remains part of the
school culture (Davidoff & Lazarus, 2002). In this culture, rules were made for people
 Dimensions of Diversity 163

to unquestioningly obey and discipline was not meaningfully applied. Rote learning,
together with textbook and telling methods were the dominant modes of instruction in
the classrooms. It is within this context that corporal punishment (which teachers
harshly and sometimes unfairly exercised on misbehaving learners), was the common
disciplinary action in South African schools.
However, the current South African legislative framework declares corporal punish-
ment illegal (Human Rights Watch, 2001, p. 7; The Abolition of Corporal Punishment
Act, 1997). And to assist teachers in disciplining unruly learners, the National
Department of Education has developed a manual for teachers on alternative modes of
discipline. Despite this new framework, evidence from responses shows a learning
environment that is typical of the previous apartheid schools. The traditional formality
of the teacher-learner relationship that is characterized by power, control and undemo-
cratic practices by the teacher, was evident not only from the classroom seating
arrangement (all learners are sitting in straight rows facing the chalkboard), but also as
many learners mentioned that harsh and unfair corporal punishment was still adminis-
tered by teachers, including the principal:

The principal and classmates beat me to death when I was in grade 7. (Trans-
vestite 04: born in a leap year)
… when we were drunk at school, they called the police and the police beat us.
I will never forget. {Translated from isiZulu} (Male 01: age not indicated)
… What I do not like is that if a teacher is angry about his or her own things,
he or she just pour that anger on us who were not there (when those things
annoyed him or her). Then he or she would beat us for indaba kaZibandlela
(IsiZulu expression that has a literal meaning “for a December story”––which
means that so severely that we’ll not forget that story for the whole year).
{Translated from isiZulu} (Female 11: 16 years)
Kwaku (It was) last year when uthisha ongasifundisi engena kubangwa
umsindo (the teacher who does not teach us, got into the class) and I was asleep
but he hit us all ezinqeni (at the back) even if I didn’t talk in my class. Sorry
Shame!!! Angikaze ngikhale kanje ngangikhaliswa nanokuthi (I had never cried
like this, I cried because) I did not make noise with other but!! (Female 14: age
not indicated)

The harsh discipline that certain teachers impose on learners, and the learners’ (and
parents’) silences about it indicate that the school environment is still oppressive to
learners. Although some learners mentioned that corporal punishment was not chang-
ing the behavior, there was little evidence that learners know it is a criminal offence as
only one male learner saw corporal punishment as a rights violation. Many learners
saw it as justifiable. For example, one learner stated:

First thing I don’t like in my school is standing for hours at assemble and
ukushawa (to be beaten) I can say I don’t like it but we do deserve it and I don’t
think any one likes to be punished by being hitted on the bums or hands. (Female
14: age not indicated)
164 Buthelezi

From Van Greunen’s (1993) view of education that I discussed earlier, it is clear that edu-
cation is part of the process of interaction between the child and his environment and it
enriches this dialogue. Moreover, the quality of education on offer to the child will deter-
mine his or her outcome of development. As I argued earlier, and in support of what Van
Greunen (1993) calls co-essentiality, the developing child actively participates in the
interaction process to change and affect his or her circumstances while he or she is also
simultaneously being changed and affected by the same circumstances. In South Africa,
the new school curriculum, based on the values expressed in the constitution, attempts to
facilitate this kind of dialogue between the learner and his or her environment. However,
evidence presented in the previous section indicates that the school culture and ethos has
not changed so as to adopt human rights values and deliver on the new curriculum.
This situation means that for children who live in urban townships, and receive edu-
cation that does not facilitate the dialogue between the child and his or her environment,
the danger is that such children might lack a base on which to participate and contribute
towards a meaningful life. In other words, they may not be able to make meaningful
decisions about their lives and may become victims of the environment. The following
section reveals evidence of how the urban township life and the ineffective township
education negatively affect learners in these settings and make them victims of the
township environment.

Effects on Learners
Literature has proved that the township environment, which Van Greunen (1993) has
described as an anti-child culture environment, has negative social, economic and edu-
cational influences that are not conducive to the development of the child. In the absence
of effective education, children who grow up in such an environment might be negatively
affected by it. Miyeni (2004), who grew up in Soweto Township (near Johannesburg) has
expressed his hate of Soweto in his brief story “How I hate the place” and he says:

If I could wave a magic wand and make a wish come true, I would wipe Soweto
off the face of the earth and have leafy suburbs for all its residents. I hate the place
with an unfathomable passion because it reminds me of my oppressor’s hold over
me as I wriggled in pain under his grinning red face. Miyeni (2004)

Similarly, learners who grow up in urban townships are affected by township condi-
tions. The interpretation of learners’ drawings and poems provides us with an indica-
tion of some of the effects of urban township life on African learners. Not all
participants were able to draw their self-portraits. Some learners started to draw, but
gave up when they discovered they could not draw. I analyzed 30 learners’ drawings of
their self-portraits (10 from male and 20 from female learners).

Female Learners
The female learners’ drawings mostly show strongly positive attitudes of subjects who
are achieving goals in their lives. The solitary figures are wearing beautiful, fashionable
 Dimensions of Diversity 165

and sometimes professional clothes, necklaces, earrings and beautiful hairstyles. At

least one drawing has a car next to the subject. However, 64% of the drawings do not
have legs and feet, only 36% of the drawings have feet and legs. A few do not have
hands and fingers. Only two of the female learners’ drawings are portraying subjects in
particular scenes. For instance, see the descriptions of drawings below:

Drawing 1.
This drawing reflects an independent, bright and progressive life of a woman. In
this, we see a woman wearing a dress, a necklace and carrying a small handbag.
Next to the woman are a car and a flower above the car. The sun is shining from
the back of the woman. (Female 33: 17 years)
166 Buthelezi

Drawing 2.
This drawing shows a peaceful, prayerful woman with inner strength and pro-
gressive life. Here, we see a portrait of a woman at the centre and arrows radiate
from the centre to point at other objects (the bible, trophy, heart, candle, flower,
musical instruments) drawn in all corners of a page. The learner has given labels
of what each object symbolizes: the heart symbolizes peace and love, the trophy
symbolizes success, the flower symbolizes everlasting life, the candle symbolizes
light and the bible represents prayer. She describes herself as the Christian who
loves music. (Female 18: 18 years)
 Dimensions of Diversity 167

Drawing 3.
This drawing portrays isolated parts of the body with funny sexy gestures.
For instance, we see a face with one eye closed labeled ‘ordinary,’ six iso-
lated mouths two smiling, two with lips closed and one with a tongue stick-
ing out of the mouth. The labels scattered among the parts of the body are
‘fit,’ ‘short hair,’ ‘tall,’ ‘long legs,’ ‘small lips’ and ‘small hands.’ (Female 17:
17 years)
168 Buthelezi

Drawing 4.
This drawing portrays a woman dressed in beautiful fashionable clothes, with a
label. She is wearing earrings and a beautiful hairstyle, but she has no feet.
(Female 09: 18 years)
 Dimensions of Diversity 169

The solitary figures indicate that learners have a positive self-image – they value self.
The positive self image that the drawings project reflects the resilience that the girls
learn from their mothers. As mentioned earlier, in townships, most females work hard
to keep life going in their families. In the study, most female learners mentioned their
mothers as role models. Assertiveness was evident in both the drawings and the poems,
and contrary to what is commonly discussed in most literature on gender, that is, that
females see themselves in relation to men, the female learners in the project described
themselves as independent. Resilience and inner strength was also reflected from all
the poems that the female learners wrote about themselves; for example:

Me, Myself and I

I’m independent
(Female 3, 17 years)
… I am a girl, a young township girl
I may not be the pretty girl but
I try to keep myself looking neat and
Beautiful
I’m not a person who lives up to
The people’s expecties
And for that I am glad
To know that people don’t
Like the way I am
That keeps me going in life
Female 01: 16 years
… I’m going to rise
and the day I rise
you will be down
I’m down but not for
Long and I’m going up
Slowly but surely
I can’t give now
I’ve come to far from where I started from.
(Female 17: 17 years)

The beautiful, seemingly expensive clothes and jewelry in the drawings is representa-
tive of the materialist and consumerist culture of the township life. However, while
learners dream about this life and about achieving their goals, they do not have realis-
tic plans of how they will realize their dreams. Therefore, the absence of feet and legs
in most drawings indicate their insecurity in life.

Male Learners
As in the females’ drawings, the male learners’ drawings show evidence of materialist
and consumerist culture. The males drew subjects in fashionable clothes and most
subjects were wearing neckties. About 50% of the drawings have solitary subjects. The
170 Buthelezi

rest of the drawings have subjects drawn in social contexts, reflecting alcohol drinking,
drugs, guns and smoking, condoms and cars. One drawing has an accompanying
female and an expensive BMW car. See descriptions below:

Drawing 5.
The drawing reflects a solitary subject wearing decent clothes and a necktie. He
is smoking and the words written at the bottom say: “I’m smoking weed, Folishi
bbolwabishi.” (Male 03: 17 years)
 Dimensions of Diversity 171

Drawing 6.
This drawing shows a solitary subject lying down, stoned with drugs, the tongue
is protruding and saliva dripping from the mouth. Next to him are injection,
dagga, benzene, glue, ugologo (alcohol), petrol and drugs. (Male 11: Age not
indicated)
172 Buthelezi

Drawing 7.
This drawing shows a solitary subject holding a bottle in one hand and a gun point-
ing up, with another hand. There is a car next to the subject. (Male 02: 18 years)

Drawing 8.
In this drawing, the male subject is with the female subject. The male is smoking.
There is a small table with several bottles of alcohol on top and some bottles are
scattered on the floor. There are two chairs on the others side of the subjects and
on another side is a BMW car, which has what I can call here a gun-firing device
attached at the back. (Male 06: 17 years)
 Dimensions of Diversity 173

Unlike females’ drawings, which showed some insecurity, only 20% of the subjects in
males’ drawings were without feet and legs. This reflects that male learners feel that
they are in control of their lives although there was no evidence that they have clear
plans for their lives. Apart from the socially defined male status that they have, male
learners might belong to gangs, a position which also gives them a sense of security.
The social scenes which show expensive clothes, expensive liquor, the presence of
guns as well as “binge and booze” in dagga smoking, condoms, doing drugs and
drinking alcohol, indicate tensions between male power (defined by the resources that
one has: money, cars, guns) and male powerlessness (which shows itself through
174 Buthelezi

engagement in risky and self-destructive behavior). This reflects that beyond feelings
of security and being in control, males have deep-seated insecurity that projects itself
as self-destructive behavior. This is also in line with many gender studies that have
revealed that societies socialize males not to show their true feelings.
Contrary to the female learners, who mentioned their mothers as role models, none
of the male learners mentioned fathers, mothers, teachers or anybody else as role mod-
els. Nevertheless, there is considerable evidence that male learners see gangsters as
role models. One would not normally associate the wearing of a necktie with “binge
and booze” in drug, alcohol and sex. However, male learners’ drawings reflected sub-
jects wearing neckties, though in social scenes where there is indulgence in drugs,
alcohol, sex (indicated by the presence of condoms), and so on. From this, I conclude
that male learners fantasize about power. Moreover, from the township point of view,
power is associated with powerful gangsters who rule all spaces in the township. The
gangsters’ power is defined in terms of their involvement in risky behavior as well as
what they have: the expensive clothes, the expensive liquor, the powerful guns, the
beautiful girls, the big money, the big cars as well as what they can do: their involve-
ment in risky behavior like doing drugs and crime.
In line with what is reflected in the drawings, drug and alcohol abuse is obviously a
growing problem and many male learners are involved in the abuses. Most expressed
that they had been at some stage arrested by police although they did not mention the
kinds of crimes they did. Crime, violence and drugs, feature as a common theme in
many responses from male learners, see for instance the following prose and stories:
What can I tell u about me, the name is anonamous, with no house, also known as
a suicidal vigilanty, Addicted and evicted by my crazy sisters Aunti, I walk with a
bounce, Talk while im smocking an ounce, stalk all my prey then pounce, right
before they announce, that he was the forgotten spouse, silence sharper than vio-
lence, this Geometric alliance, is fucked up like defiance, Domestic violence,
thretoning my innocence, please do confess that I travelled a parralel universe,
into an uncoatios diverse, lyrical curse, this clinical curse, has made most of my
thoughts worse, moving forward in reverse, for these words, are made real, by my
conscious skill, A contest of poing pills, Just like I fear ivy, I scribble on my Dear
diary. (Transvestite 04, born in a leap year)
… I have a problem of liking drugs now I cannot stop, and I have a problem of
liking girls too much and that disturbs me in my schoolwork. And I have a prob-
lem, with my relationship with my parents because I have given them too much
trouble, I take other people’s things and loose them and people report at home.
My parents no longer buy me any clothes because they say I am still doing drugs;
I will sell them and buy drugs. And I do not feel all right in my head. I need a per-
son who can help me with all the problems I have. And help me reduce the drink-
ing of alcohol because it makes me mad. And at school, I am troublesome to
teachers. Now I do not like this thing. I need a person who can advise me so that
I listen and stop being rude to teachers, and I become popular with good things
and not bad things. {Translated from isiZulu} (Male 11: age not indicated)
The unforgettable moment in my life is when I was arrested. It is when I expe-
rience crime. (Male 02: 18 years)
 Dimensions of Diversity 175

Some More Effects

High rates of crime and violence in townships greatly compromise the lives of children
in these settings and make them vulnerable. Much behavior that is violent, harassing
and degrading has become normalized in urban township societies in that it remains
unchallenged by communities and not addressed by relevant structures such as police
services. For instance, if the bus and taxi stops were unsafe for children in towns and
cities, the parents, teachers, police and security companies would immediately address
the situation. This exemplifies how in South Africa the different contexts still influence
service delivery.
The numerous shebeens in urban townships that lead to common public drinking
and drunkenness has normalized alcohol drinking. Several learners did not see alcohol
as bad and at least one said drugs were not bad either. However, the following learner
expressed contrasting views:

… I wouldn’t say alcohol is bad because I’m one of those who drinks alcohol but
infact it is bad for us because uma sesiphuzile umuntu akakwazi (if we are drunk,
one cannot) even control him/her self. (Female 11: 16 years)

Some learners have developed “unhealthy” coping strategies to deal with crime, con-
flict or violence. They do not assume the victim status in their communities; instead,
they return violence with violence. In addition, they view violence as the solution to
any conflict:

… I do not like a person who gossips about me, tell lies about me, and provokes
me I do not want to fight with people because I am quick to fight and I am not
scared of anybody. I do not rely on anybody except myself. (Female 12: 18 years)

As another learner expressed it:

Near my home I am not scared because when a person does anything to one of us
(people in the neighbourhood), we all go straight to that person and we teach
him/or her a lesson that he/she will not repeat that in future. {Translated from
isiZulu}(Female 11: 16 years)

A number of gender stereotypes including sexual prowess for boys and “bitching” by
girls emerged. Although there was no evidence of a passive, dependent and conven-
tional female, girls still embrace traditional gender expectations for the future, such as
getting married. Such beliefs may hold young females in abusive romantic relation-
ships and raise their risk to HIV infection, pregnancy and violence.
For the boys, power and sexual prowess is still important, as the following expresses:

Many people regard me as isoka lamanyala (a man who is valued because of his
many girlfriends) because I have had many girlfriends. Everywhere I go, I am
also known for my playing of soccer, and I always speak about my football club
which I support the-Orlando pirates. (Male 10: 18 years)
176 Buthelezi

However, there was evidence of some transformation from traditional gender role stereo-
types. For example, female learners were more assertive. As discussed earlier, almost all
female learners were comfortable with themselves and valued self, though they still men-
tioned beauty as an important quality. Particularly, female learners saw general cleanli-
ness as important although one male learner expressed that he values cleanliness. The
females’ career aspirations covered a wide range of fields. Interestingly, females men-
tioned careers that were traditionally for males such as being an advocate or accountant.
Again, as is evident in the earlier quotations, fighting and alcohol drinking was not only
associated with male learners, but also involves some female learners.

Implications – Life Skills Education and

Social Competence
Though more South African children are now being sent to schools, many African chil-
dren are still confronted with an anti-child culture in their contexts. In the absence of
effective curriculum delivery, the urban township environment greatly affects the lives
of children in these contexts.
However, the urban township environment cannot be held solely responsible for
the proper development of children. As Van Greunen (1993) states, children are not
passive recipients of home and environmental influences, but are actively involved in
their own development. However, in order for this involvement to be meaningful for
the child, education should intervene and facilitate the dialogue between the child and
his or her environment. In this way, the child will become an author of his or her own
life rather than a follower of meaningless behaviors, rituals and rules that are prevailing
in his or her environment.
Having said that, not all kinds of education can facilitate this dialogue. As Davidoff
and Lazarus (2002, p. 4) state, a particular kind of education that:

… provides a learning environment, which is safe yet exciting and challenging;

where self-confidence is developed; where self-concept is positive and intact;
and where there is meaning; where there is provision of rich enjoyable times; and
where there are opportunities for personal development in the context of a humane
society.

The classroom is not the only space where such education is obtained. But, all the
experiences that learners have at school shape their thinking, their values, their
insights and their skills. For example, the values that the school holds, the way teach-
ers relate to learners, the conditions of buildings, and all other practices and behaviors
prevailing in the school. Clearly, the quality of the teacher that provides such education
is equally important.
In his theory of multiple intelligences, Gardner (1993) included interpersonal
intelligence (the ability to understand people and relationships), and the intra-
personal intelligence (the ability to be deeply aware of one’s inner feelings, intentions,
and goals). Gardner (1993) argues that one can learn and nurture these intelligences.
Given the context of the urban townships in South Africa, there is an urgent need to
 Dimensions of Diversity 177

make these humanistic personal intelligences an integral part of the school curriculum
through social and emotional education. As defined by Weinstein and Rosen (2003),
social and emotional education means “strategies and techniques used to promote
social and emotional competences.” In this education, learners learn to “read” them-
selves and others and then use that awareness to develop themselves, to be creative and
to solve problems. In South African schools, this could be incorporated in Life
Orientation (LO).
The current school curriculum in South Africa has a new learning area, Life
Orientation (LO), which is relevant in developing social competence in learners. As
mentioned earlier, LO is outlined in the South African curriculum policy document,
the Revised National Curriculum Statements (RNCS) document (Department of
Education, 2002). The RNCS document is based on the Constitution of the Republic
of South Africa (Act 108 of 1996) one aim of which is to “improve the quality of life
of all citizens and free the potential of each person.” Of the eight Learning Area
Statements identified in the RNCS document, LO is central to the realization of this
aim. Within the post-apartheid South African context, which is characterized by
socio-political change and the fact that the country is facing many challenges such as
socio-economic development, unemployment and environmental degradation, LO
was introduced as a subject in schools. This was done in order to develop a sense of
confidence and social competence that will enable learners to live well and contribute
productively to the shaping of a new society.
LO is an inter-disciplinary subject that “draws on knowledge, values, skills and
processes embedded in various disciplines such as Sociology, Psychology, Political
Science, Human Movement Science, Labour Studies and Industrial Studies” (Department
of Education, 2003). By integrating several disciplines in one subject, LO aims to guide
learners to develop their full potential holistically. In this subject, learners will engage on
“personal, psychological, neurocognitive, motor, socio-economic, and constitutional lev-
els” to respond positively to the environment and assume responsibilities for their lives in
order “to make the most of life’s opportunities” (Department of Education, 2003). The
effects of the urban township environment on learners signify the urgency in properly
teaching LO in schools in order to empower learners with knowledge and skills of
addressing issues that affect them. For example, learners will know how their constitu-
tional rights relate to corporal punishment as well as their safety and security on their way
to and from school. Again, they will know their responsibilities and have relevant skills to
respond to an environment that is full of gangsters, alcohol outlets, crime, drugs, HIV, and
so on. However, for LO to have an impact, it has to be properly taught in schools. In addi-
tion, proper teaching of LO in schools depends on the teachers and the approaches they
use in the classroom.
As with all other subjects that in South African school curriculum outlined in the
RNCS document, Outcomes-Based Education (OBE) forms the foundation for LO.
This means LO teaching should follow OBE principles and approaches. For instance,
the notion of a learner-centered approach is central to the OBE approach. It empha-
sizes that teachers should make place for, listen to and extend learners’ thinking in the
classroom. Teachers are asked to focus on learners’ thinking and ways of knowing, to
respect the learners’ diversity and to build on what learners already know. Teachers
178 Buthelezi

need to find out about learners’ experiences and how learners are thinking to help them
build on and transform their ideas. This approach takes into cognizance the proven
learning theories, which advance that what people learn is constrained or afforded by
what they already know. Therefore, what learners think, say and do make sense to them
in relation to what they know.
The new curriculum (including LO) does not provide content detail. What is out-
lined in the RNCS document are outcomes that have to be achieved in each grade. This
is because teachers are recognized as professionals who can make curriculum deci-
sions in the best interest of learners and who do not have to rely on the dictates of a
centrally devised syllabus. Therefore, teachers ought to be curriculum developers who
would design a learning program according to the needs and levels of development of
the learners. This means that the same outcomes will be achieved through a wide range
of learning activities and contexts. Teachers must choose the content and locate the
activity in contexts of relevance for their particular learners in order to achieve the set
outcomes.
Currently, LO is not implemented properly in schools because teachers have neither
the knowledge nor the skills to implement it, despite having attended workshops
organized by the Department of Education. Several studies have revealed the inade-
quacy of teachers in implementing LO. These teachers have not been educated as to the
philosophical and pedagogical underpinnings of OBE. This gap needs to be filled by
developing quality teacher-training programs for LO teachers to assist them in making
sense of and adapting to new pedagogies.
However, the curriculum alone will not bring about transformation in urban town-
ship schools. Therefore, to effectively serve young people in urban townships, cultur-
ally sensitive and youth-friendly programs have to be developed. These should aim to
support learners in all facets of their lives. For example, several interventions such as
the following, should be developed:
● Comprehensive counseling programs, which address multiple problems affecting
learners. Within LO, social and emotional education should be well developed
and made relevant to different contexts, such as urban township contexts, in which
schools are situated.
● Educational and occupational learner support programs that will increase the
learners’ chances of realizing their dreams.
● Programs that address the needs of learners who are no longer able to remain or
communicate with their families, providing them with caring adults and organized
community activities.
● Peer support programs in areas of substance and alcohol abuse, gang involvement,
and sexual and physical abuse.
For such programs to be effective, communities, government and non-governmental
organizations should assist school management, in systematically transforming their
schools according to the existing legislative framework. Transformed schools will
function as part of and with the communities in which they are situated. Unfortunately,
funding for programs that target young people in urban townships for youth-driven
programs is still very low.
 Dimensions of Diversity 179

Conclusion
This research highlights urban township life that renders youth vulnerable to violence,
child and substance abuse, etc. Suggestions have been made and further research could
be undertaken, particularly in implementing transformation in schools, proper imple-
mentation of the subject, LO, including incorporation of social and emotional compe-
tence education within LO, and developing quality teacher training programs and
youth-driven, youth-friendly programs.

Notes
1. Matric constitutes the school-leaving exams that are taken during the final year of high school, and
which will determine students’ chances for entrance to tertiary institutions.
2. There are two types of papers set for matric examination in each subject. One is set on higher grade and
the other is set on standard grade. These papers differ according to the types of questions that are asked,
and the level of thinking skills that they assess. For instance, a higher-grade paper would require higher
levels of thinking and application of knowledge than the standard grade paper, which might require
more of the acquired knowledge than the application of it.
3. Apartheid is originally an Afrikaans word, which means separation or segregation. Especially in South
Africa, it has acquired the meaning of a system or policy of segregation or discrimination on the
grounds of race.
4. A shebeen is a person’s house, which has been turned into “a place where people can stop for a drink, a
date, a chat or beautiful music” (Mona, 2005).
5. “Cool” is a word used in township slang, which means the best person, usually young males who are
perceived to be having no problems because they can do whatever they want at any time.
6. The English language is still the Language of Learning and Teaching in most schools, while many
teachers and school learners are second language speakers of English.
7. This learner identified him/her self as transvestite in the dialogue journal that was completed.

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9

THE MIDDLE SCHOOL CLIMATE IN SENEGAL1:

THE CASE OF THE DIOURBEL MIDDLE SCHOOL

Abdou Karim Ndoye

Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar, Sénégal

Introduction
The province of Diourbel is one of the smallest in Senegal in terms of square mileage.
It is, however, very densely populated, with a regional density of 243 inhabitants
per km2 in 2004, and a total population of more than 115,000 (2004). The population
is unequally distributed throughout the province. For example, and apropos this chap-
ter, less than twenty percent of the provinces population lives in the town of Diourbel.
Given its location, however, and relative proximity to the cities of Thies and Dakar,
Diourbel has seen net population inflow from throughout Senegal.
The town of Diourbel, which serves as the capital of Diourbel province, is charac-
terized by its accessibility. It is a relatively populated town where one can find all gov-
ernmental administrative services, from the Governor’s office to more basic services
(water, electricity, and telephone services, etc.). Civil servants are numerous and peo-
ple are engaged in a range of economic activities beyond agriculture and cattle raising.
Greater-Diourbel, comprising settlements in the peri-urban zone of the town, is a
poor district in which the population is generally low income civil servants, petty
traders, farmers, and craftsmen. This section of the province suffers from the lack of
roads, water network, public sanitation, and other services found in other areas.

The Research Issue

The notion of school climate refers to the quality of work and communication perceived
within the school. It gives a general indication of the atmosphere that prevails in the
social relations of the values granted to individuals and the institutions as a living place.
In other words, the climate of a school refers to the values and attitudes, and feelings
that are obvious among the actors of the school (Fraser, Walberg, & Herbert, 1991;
Freiberg, 1999; Gadbois, 1974; Sangsue, Vorpe, & Nguyen, 2004; Taguiri, 1968). In a
middle school, for example, the climate is a subjective variable linked to the perception
183
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 183–204.
© 2007 Springer.
184 Ndoye

established by the teachers on their roles in relation with the students. It corresponds
in general terms to the culture of the school and can be analyzed on the basis of the set
of the perceptions of all the school actors.
In recent years, a growing number of works have focused on the study of school
climate. The literature shows that school performances is not simply a function of indi-
vidual characteristics of the students, and student success, but are in some meaningful
way influenced by the attitudes and behavior of the teachers. More specifically, some
works have demonstrated that these attitudes and behavior contribute to determining
school climate, and that this in turn facilitates the promotion of quality teaching
(Brault, Durand, & Janosz, 2003; Janosz & Leclerc, 1993; Louis, 1998; Parkes &
Stevens, 2000; Solmon, 1996; Thomas, 1976).
In a middle school we can estimate that the school climate will be of great importance
because it has an important impact on the quality of school life quality beyond issues
directly related to the learning of the students (Janosz, Georges, & Parent, 1998; Rutter,
1983; Steinberg, 1996; Stickard, & Mavberry, 1986; Thiebaud, 2003).
The question of education quality is of interest to decision-makers, planners,
education managers, trade unions, families, communities, development agencies, and
others, as well as educators who wish young people to master the key competences that
allow them to participate to the new global knowledge economy (ADEA, 2004).
Bearing in mind that quality education is the key to development, Senegalese political
actors have determined that they must set quality education standards in
general, with particular focus on middle schools (Bregman & Bryner, 2004; Ministére
de l’Education, PDEF, 2003; Ndoye, 2003; Sourang, 2004). Through this policy they
aim to implement the frameworks the country needs to realize an appropriate develop-
ment policy, as well as articulated means by which to break the poverty circle.
Taking into account the issue of quality in middle school education, the issue of the
work climate for middle school teachers today appears not only as an important aspect,
but as an imperative need. Given this, it seems strange that until recently while some
studies have focused on the influence of the professional climate in firms (Brunet, 1983;
Likert, 1967), few have studied school climate. In a more focused sense, even those stud-
ies done on school climate seem to put aside African middle schools. Finally, on those
rare occasions when research interest looks at school climate, teachers’ opinion are only
infrequently taken into account.
This chapter aims to begin filling this gap through the use of a psycho-sociological
framework in which the subjective perceptions of teachers are considered as firsthand,
meaningful data. The objective of this chapter is to describe and analyze the atmos-
phere that prevails at the middle school of Greater-Diourbel. More precisely, the chap-
ter looks at the impact that this climate may have had on the attendance and
performances of the students.

Conceptual Framework
Researchers in the field of psycho-sociology of education have established a set of simi-
lar results on the relation between school climate and school efficiency. Indeed, many
researchers agree that schools differ not only in some of their ecological variables but also
 The Middle School Climate in Senegal 185

in the atmosphere and the climate (Halpin & Croft, 1963; Kalis, 1980; Owens, 1998), and
that this difference bears on the results of the students (Brookover, Beady, Flood,
Scweittzer, & Wisenbaker, 1979; Heck and Marcoulides, 1996). In the same way,
Anderson (1992), Matluck (1987), Cruickshank (1990) and Bliss, Firestone, and Richards
(1991) for North America review the research conducted on the influence of the climate
on school results. Per the conclusions of these studies it seems that ecological variables
(physical and material aspects) have a weak influence on school performances (Brunet,
Brassard, & Corriveau, 1991; Janosz & Le Blanc, 1996; Klitgaard & Hall, 1974). It is
important, however, to be cautious with such conclusions since some studies show that
behaviour and academic success tend to be better in clean schools, thus favouring the view
that a positive climate is good for learning (Rutter, Mortimore, Ouston, & Smith, 1979).
At the level of milieu variables (individuals and groups) it appears that the charac-
teristics of the teachers (e.g., level of training; salary) and those of the schools (e.g.,
socio-economic markers; ethnic origin) have little influence on school performances.
On the contrary, it seems that teachers’ morale is in positive correlation with school
success (Ellett & Valberg 1979; Lumsden, 1998; Pelletier, Saeguin, Levesque, &
Legault, 2002). Indeed, many studies indicate that the more the teacher’s surroundings
offer social support the more people are motivated by what they do (Cropanzano &
Kacmar, 1995; Ryan & Deci, 2000; Sagor, 1996; Short & Rinehart, 1992).
About the social system variables (relations between individuals and groups) it seems
that good relations between school administrators and teachers (Ellett & Valberg, 1979;
Sweeny, 1992), and between students and teachers (Chittom & Sistrunk, 1990; Grisay,
1993; Phi Delta Kappan, 1980) favour school success. On the other hand, decision-making,
when shared with teachers (Fitzgerald, Young, & Grootenboer, 2003; Norman, 1988), and
in combination with good communication (Gonder & Hymes, 1994; Hanna, 1998;
Silverman, 1970) seem to positively influence students’ performances.
As for the school climate variable, acknowledging its role as a force on the various
factors linked with the students’ and teachers’ work and welfare has been supported by
many researchers. Bloom (1964), Bandura (1969) and Savoie (1993) each recognized
the environment as a powerful source of influence on learning. Students show greater
readiness for learning (Janosz et al., 1998) and better performances (Bulach, Malone, &
Castleman, 1994; Stronge & Jones, 1991) when they perceive the climate of their
school as good. Also Sweeny (1988) strongly says that if the school climate is positive,
the teachers stimulate learning and improve pupils’ performances.
Finally, Klicpera and Gasteiger-Klicpera (1994) demonstrated the existence of a
significant relation between a bad classroom climate, a lack of confidence between
teachers and pupils, and a high rate of aggression. In the same way, classes with few
problems of aggression are marked with good relations with teachers. These results do
not differ from those reported by Debarbieux, Dupuch, and Montoya, (1997); Janosz
et al. (1998); Steffgen (2003); and Bowen and Desbiens (2004), all of whose works say
that the climate of a school is narrowly in relation with the perception of the problems
of violence in the school. Among the rare studies on the school climate in developing
countries Samoff, Assie-Lumumba, and Cohen, (1996), and Garrett (1999) reached the
conclusion that some organizational measures (e.g., school equipment; infrastructure;
material resources; availability of course books; hours devoted to learning; teachers’
qualification; etc.) do exercise significant influence on the school climate.
186 Ndoye

Studies in the African context have shown that in middle school, academic variables
had an effect on the teachers’ morale as well as on the school success of the pupils.
Among variables analyzed were school authorities’ policy, school buildings, syllabi,
teaching styles, class oral interaction, staff’s qualification, equipments, course books,
didactic materials, computers and printing materials, personal contacts, school secu-
rity (Fuller, 1986; Lahaye, 1987; Watkins, 2000).
With an interest in the effect of the middle school climate on academic performance
we take into account the fact that, despite the heap of results suggested by the authors
quoted here, none was researched and uncovered through empirical work conducted in
Senegal.
Conducting such a study does raise some questions of methodology. For example,
which pieces of information ought be collected? From whom should the data collection
be taken? How will the collected data be analysed? How will the results be exposed?

Methodological Framework
The present psycho-sociological research is exploratory and consists of a qualitative study
with the teachers. The proposed approach used intensive interviews to better emphasize
the meanings which carry the perception of the teachers of Greater Diourbel.2 As the aim
was to deepen the knowledge of school life through a careful, structured, scrupulous study
of the motivations and perceptions and intentions of the subjects the methodology was
necessarily to use the new research paradigms in the social sciences, and identify and
preserve the individual meanings offered by those interviewed (Rogers, 1985).

Subjects
For the choice and the number of subjects of inquiry we relied on Bertaux who
described a sampling procedure that seemed particularly suitable to the characteristics
of our study. It is on the concept of saturation, defined as being “the phenomenon
through which, after a number of interviews, the researcher gets the impression that he
has nothing new more to learn as far as the object the inquiry is concerned ” (Bertaux,
1980, p. 205). Following this logic, the election of the teachers to be interviewed
proceeded without any problem in terms of the number of subjects, though some
difficulty did arise at the level of the redundancy of the gathered pieces of information.
In the case of this present research we collected information through deepened inter-
views with 13 teachers.

Measurement Tools
An interview grid covering all the themes of this research was elaborated to be used as
a flexible guide rather than a rigid protocol. The interview scheme was tested and
refined in the course of the first phase of contact. The approach to data collecting
 The Middle School Climate in Senegal 187

was planned in two steps: first, initial contact was made with the political authorities
of the province. This was followed with contact with the educational authorities of the
school. Only on receiving their approval did contact with the teachers take place. These
meetings were aimed at rousing the support of some of those people and their partici-
pation in the inquiry for others.
The Target Group Deepened Interviews (TGDI) were conducted by two assistants,
and took place at the school. The research assistants were well-trained in sociology,
and had rich experience in research interviews.
Systematically in the course of the deep interviews and remaining inquiry, tests of
concordance were administrated in order to check first if each interviewer was gather-
ing information in line with the research objectives. The interviews lasted 2 hours each
on the semi-directive mode. Subjects were asked to freely answer general questions on
each theme of the study. More specific questions were then asked to glean more pre-
cise impressions of the initial response. In this way, dimensions and themes were
allowed to develop over the course of the individual interviews. The interviews were
then taped and transcribed “verbatim” later.

Analysis
Data was initially analysed every evening in order to identify any holes in information
gathering or potential new directions. Lists were made of main ideas, words, themes,
phrases and quotations which translated the perceptions and feeling of the subjects
vis-à-vis their work conditions. This first-level analysis consisted of various deepened
readings to get out the common specificities and the different aspects of the collected
corpus. Thus, many partial analyses were written in the course of the first 2-week
period of field inquiry and in the 4 weeks before the writing of the first version of the
study. The fidelity of the data was maintained via regular review by two trained judges
who were to reach full agreement.
A more deepened content analysis was done when writing the final version. The
gathered data was submitted to a double reading: first via a grid highlighting the main
socio-demographic characteristics of each subject, and then full transcription of the
interviews were done with EPI-INFO software designed for processing and analysis
qualitative data. This allowed us to identify links between social conditions and the
personal life experience of the teachers for comparison.

Results
Teacher Characteristics
The teachers were interviewed on the elements that we identified as being most immediately
linked to their teaching and the administration of the middle school. These included:
– Some important features of the individuals (sex, marital status). See Table 1.
– The main conditions for the practice of their profession (state of the school build-
ings, types of equipment, tasks and material resources).
188 Ndoye

Table 1. Personal and professional profiles of the teachers of Greater Diourbel Middle School (GDMS)

Family and Sex Age Matrimonial Académic Professional Professional

first name status level diploma status

Married Single

M S

M. Sarr M 49 1 Bachelors MSTC MST

C. T. Kone M 51 1 A’ Level MSTC MST
M. Fall M 32 1 Under graduate Computer Part time teacher
diploma
M. Thiam M 27 1 Under graduate MSTC MST
F. Seck M 34 1 Under graduate MSTC MST
A. Badji M 34 1 B. A MSTC MST
B. Gning M 32 1 M. A STAPS Part time teacher
M. Sene M 27 1 A’ level MSTC MST
M. Seck M 44 1 A’ Level MSTC MST
R. Diouf F 37 1 A’ level MSTC MST
B. Ndione M 27 1 M. A MSTC MST
S. Gueye M 48 1 M. A ESTC Primary school teacher
A. D. Diaw F 49 1 A’ level ESTC Primary school teacher
Number of
teachers 8 1 4

Notes: MSTC: Middle School Teaching Certificate.

MST: Middle School Teacher.
ESTC: Elementary School Teaching Certificate.

The teaching body of the Middle School consists of eleven male and two female teach-
ers. Eight of the men are married with one wife, and three are single. One female
teacher is married, the other single. This faculty composition aligns with the national
demographic of teachers in Senegal (Ndoye, 1996). The discrepancy males/females is
a difficulty in a school where girls’ excellence is promoted when we consider that
the sociological studies on that question underlined the positive impact of the female
presence on the schoolgirls’ learning (Ndoye, 1999).

Age
The average age of the teachers is 38 years, with the oldest being 51 and the youngest
27. Eight teachers are under 40 years, with five between 44 and 51 years. More than
half of the teachers are under 35 years. This relative youth is linked on the one hand, to
the recent development of the middle schools, and on the other hand, to the fact that at
the completion of their secondary studies some students are recruited as teachers in
middle school after a 2 year training at the University Teacher Training School.

Academic Level
The general level of the teacher training and preparedness is not uniform. It extends
from the four teachers with GCE-A Level qualifications, to the two teachers who hold
Masters degrees. Most of the teachers were trained at the University Teacher Training
 The Middle School Climate in Senegal 189

School (ENS) for 2 years to be qualified with the middle school Teaching Certificate,
and most teacher recruitment happens at this training school. There are two teachers
without any training. They are substitute teachers recruited by the State because of the
lack of teachers.

The Physical State of the School

According to the school Principal the middle school is up-to-date and well located at the
crossroad of many villages. Its physical state is good for it is a new unit. This opinion is
shared by the female under-teacher who says that

the school is up-to-date but is poorly equipped. “There is just the minimal equip-
ment to allow its functioning, the comfort is really poor. We would like to have
offices at the level of our status of teacher trainers. Truly it would be a shame for
me to receive my female friends in such an office (and what an office!). Have a
glance at the Principal’s office, it is a true attic.” (Verbatim)

Some teachers think that the middle school looks like a rural school. Recalling his first
impression on his arrival at the middle school a teacher says:

On my arrival here for the first time, I asked the taxi driver if he was not mistaken
so much the middle school in front of which I was had the profile of an elemen-
tary school. It is the reason why people say that it is a bush middle school.
(Verbatim)

The art education teacher talks in the same way:

I was discouraged to work in the open air; the pupils do not like this school which
is deprived of all and they would prefer to attend other middle schools with a bet-
ter standing. (Verbatim)

In the unanimous opinion of the teachers what is embarrassing about the physical state
of the middle school is not the lack of comfort in classrooms, but the lack of a wall.
One teacher says:

The lack of fence round the middle school allows animals very often to go into
the classrooms and disturb the courses. Such conditions present major risks as
well for the teachers as for the students. (Verbatim)

Although the physical state of the middle school is unsatisfactory it must be noted that
its presence in the peri-urban zone is very much appreciated by the populations.
Indeed the Greater Diourbel Middle School had been built to meet the real needs of
education of the basic community. Most of the pupils of that community had difficulty
attending secondary schools because of the long distances to such schools, and also
because of the high cost of education in private-owned schools. It remains, however,
that the middle school has no fence or surrounding wall3 and is under-equipped.
190 Ndoye

The General State of School Premises

The general opinion of the teaching staff is that the premises of the middle school are in
an unhealthy and uncomfortable state. This unhealthy state is due to two main reasons.
First, the lack of general health and sanitation awareness among students. Second, the
lack of a surrounding wall, which lack puts the school in the situation where it is impos-
sible to control its academic space which is then used as a passageway by cars, taxis,
pedestrians, and even cattle.
A quick visit to the classrooms indicates the low level of awareness of sanitary behav-
iour and environmental hygiene among students. As a rule the classrooms are not
regularly cleaned, despite the presence of a cleaning group composed primarily of girl
students. These rooms are compared to rubbish heaps (scattered waste paper pieces, fruit
skins, tissues, and pieces of stuff … etc.). The schoolyard is also flooded with plastic
bags and rubbish of all kinds. The Principal explains this unhealthy situation of the yard
by the fact that before the opening of the school the site was reserved and used as a
public rubbish-place. In spite of the students’ mobilisation, the buried waste still poses
problems especially in the schoolyard where the plastic bags and rubbish are scattered.
As for the lack of a surrounding wall, the Principal says, in an unquiet whisper:

This Middle school is transformed into a live stock park at times for herds of
goats, sheep and cattle. In the morning, the cattle cross the schoolyard to the pas-
tures and in the evening they cross back. This lack of wall … sets a non-security
situation as well for the pupils as for the teachers.4 (Verbatim)

Critically the teaching body is unanimous on the nakedness of the Middle School of
Greater Diourbel. Some teachers do not like it and see in it disrespect for teachers.
As explains one of them:

They do not respect the State’s agents for we work [in] classrooms with untiled
floors and a lot of dust. No one minister or engineer would like to work in our
conditions. The State should have more consideration for teachers and pupils.
(Verbatim)

In addition, the lack of ceiling fans in a town where the temperatures between April and
July may reach 45C (approximately 113F) hinders efforts at teaching, especially in the
afternoon:

“The perspiration is too intense and it is sometimes impossible for the teachers
and pupils to give or follow courses,” says a teacher. (Verbatim)

Classrooms
The middle school started with two forms (1st and 2nd) at the school reopening of
1996–1997. It was in the course of the 1998–1999 school year that the Ministry of
Education (ME) built two other classrooms. These classrooms have untiled floors, and
 The Middle School Climate in Senegal 191

Table 2. Evolution of the students’ numbers 1996–2001

Numbers 1996–1997 1997–1998 1998–1999 1999–2000 2000–2001

Classe 1st Form

Total Number (B–G) 50 75 83 148 145
Number of girls 20 20 20 59 48
Girls’ rates % 40 26.7 24.1 38.9 33.1
Classe 2nd Form
Total Number 100 74 119 123 151
Number of girls 23 25 38 36 63
Girls’ rates % 23 33.8 31.9 29.3 41.7
Classe 3rd Form
Total Number – 81 92 119 110
Number of girls – 22 29 41 32
Girls’ rates % – 27.2 31.5 34.5 29.09
Classe 4th Form
Total Number – – 61 87 92
Number of girls – – 23 31 38
Girls’ rates % – – 37.7 35.6 41.3

Source: Archives ME, Dakar, 2000.

lack sufficient pupils’ desks, built-in-blackboards, teachers’ desks, and book shelves.
The floors, combined with the lack of a good cleaning program contribute to make the
classrooms unhealthy. Each classroom, on average, holds 28 desks, with enrolment of
between 92 and 145 at 2000–2001, even as the official ratio is 55 pupils for a teacher
(Table 2). Thus, students do not have enough places to sit in the classrooms.
In addition, the middle school suffers from a lack of classrooms. To make up for this
deficit teachers are compelled to borrow rooms in the elementary school, Ngor Sene,
15 minutes away from the middle school. The middle school has got eight classes, all
of which would occupy the four rooms in the same building. Instead, by making prof-
itable use of the vacancy in the nearby elementary school, which is empty of its own
students in the afternoon, the middle school has adopted a double-tide system, in
which the middle school holds courses at the elementary school on Monday and Friday
afternoons as well as Saturday mornings, so as to meet the regular hours of teaching
stated in the middle school curriculum and syllabi. However, these movements to and
from the elementary school and middle school are tiring for the pupils and teachers
and at times impact the duration of the courses.

Educational Materials
The Greater Diourbel Middle School is remarkable for the lack of course books and
teaching material. Taking into account the financial situation of the relevant provincial
governing bodies overseeing education, the middle school is sometimes confronted
with reductions in the funds for distribution of course books and other materials. Most
of the teachers say that they make use of all means at their disposal to help in their
courses. In maths classes, for example, one teacher says that each year he is compelled
192 Ndoye

to write a synthesis of the application exercises at the end of each chapter for his
students to master his courses. He also writes for them a collection of paper topics for
the GCE-O Level (B.F.E.M) school leaving exam to help them in their studies.
The other teachers are in the same situation, with each making best efforts to find
the books selected for the year’s syllabus, along with any pertinent teaching supports
(photocopies, mimeos, etc.) to aid students in acquiring the necessary knowledge. One
teacher says this by way of illustrating the situation:

It is impossible for me to correctly teach my art education activities because

we can’t either mix colours or stock the pupils’ works. (Verbatim)

This point of view is reinforced by his colleague, the German teacher:

For the German courses only three students have books they bought. The Middle
School has seven reading books only for the 3rd Form, which compels me to have
photocopies or to write out all application drills on the blackboard. (Verbatim)

Even the gym teacher is not spared by that shortage because he has to find his own
supports for physical education (buying weights to throw, or accept using worn-out
equipment).
As for the appropriateness of the available course books, the teachers agree that
those they have are in small quantities and are out-dated. One teacher says:

Available books are out-dated; the syllabus has changed but the course books have
not followed. (Verbatim)

To avoid this difficulty, the teachers use tricks. One of them says:

We are compelled to make a medley of books to teach the lessons on the syllabus.
(Verbatim)

In short, it must be said that the teachers suffer from the lack of books on methodology,
as well as concerns supplemental audio and video material. In language courses
the audio material remains indispensable for the improvement of pronunciation and
listening skills. It is the same in natural sciences or life and health sciences courses, in
which experiments constitute important parts of the course. In the end, it can be said
that the middle school is pedagogically poorly-equipped. The available equipment,
including library services, is very limited.

Study Syllabus and Teaching Methods

Most of the interviewed teachers have declared that the syllabus is too long and even
ambitious. Says one,

The syllabus is ambitious though rich.

 The Middle School Climate in Senegal 193

Another joins in:

The syllabus is not difficult but long if compared with the number of hours. The
content is good in the whole but the time devoted to teaching is short. Hardly do
we teach half of the syllabus. (Verbatim)

Some teachers insist that the syllabus does not often take into account local realities.
Here there is a real discrepancy between the official syllabi of the ministry and those
used on the ground. As explains one of the teachers:

The selected themes on the syllabi are very interesting but sometimes there is
misadaptation of the content to the study milieu. In fact a standard syllabus which
is schemed by the ministry of education does not allow to take into account the
realities specific to the milieu in which the school is and where the syllabuses are
in use. (Verbatim)

The words of the teachers reflect a set of strategies used to complete the courses and
adapt them to reality. The most common strategies consists of site visits, lectures, class
debates, language club facilitation, thematic research groups, school twinning, etc.
These practices are pertinent because they allow the students to acquire new knowl-
edge in many fields mostly related to their preoccupations. As one teacher puts it:

Such activities allow facilitating exchanges with other students and can rouse
vocations. (Verbatim)

In addition to methodological matters, the teachers state that they use other themes to
take into account local realities. Among these topics are the rural exodus, the “Moodu
Moodu” phenomenon, family ceremonies, civic education, sexually transmitted diseases5
(STDs)/AIDS, youth reproduction health, etc.
These various strategies allow the teachers to deal with the interests of their students
who live in a fast-changing society, especially regarding globalisation, with ever more
acute informal constraints on various topics.

Grading and School Performance

The teachers universally recognize the major difficulty in respect to the practice of seeking
student papers worked on over two-semesters. Instead, they resort to quick evaluations
with oral questions before starting their courses to be sure the lessons are regularly
comprehended. In addition, they schedule a semester class exam and often a semester
paper. Still, given the heavy enrolments, it remains difficult to efficiently check student
performances and to bring in the best timely pedagogical and appropriate changes.
Yet despite the non-continuous nature of student assessment and the conditions of
the middle school, the academic performances are good. As the Principal proudly says:

We won the Olympics of 1998, and for the GCE-O Level (BFEM) we always are
among the best middle schools. We are regularly quoted as a reference at the level
of the town of Diourbel, which we deserve. (Verbatim)
194 Ndoye

The analysis of the school quitting and class repeating rates we were given by the school’s
administrators shows that indeed the middle school has a fairly good retention record. In
2000, class repetition rates were between 15 and 26%, higher in the 3rd and 4th Forms,
those working on the GCE-O level exams. School quitting rates are between 0.8 and 8.1%.
Answering a question on the pupils’ performances, the Principal underlines that:

The girls do not do less for the good results of the school. They have good academic
results and make people requestion the sex stereotypes on their aptitudes to
understand sciences and maths and technics (SMT). In the Middle School itself
the pupils with the best performances are the girls. Even for the G.C.E-.O’ Level
our girls are among the best of the middle schools. (Verbatim)

The Principal’s opinion was confirmed by all the teachers, according to whom the
best students of the Middle School are girls, who are more motivated in their studies.
But this motivation is not equal. According to one teacher:

Village pupils are more motivated than town ones who often neglect their studies
for other activities such as TV/video watching, rap music, games, entertainment
in dancing rooms, tea round. (Verbatim)

The motivation of the rural students is seen in the fact that they still believe in the utility
of the school. Studying is their main entertainment. A teacher explains:

Some pupils are motivated even though there is no longer a reference model
because they still believe in school. In other words they believe that studying is
necessary for success. (Verbatim)

Indeed despite the difficult conditions they live within and the distance they walk daily
(an average of 7 km per day), the village pupils are the most punctual and regular in
their performances. A teacher witnesses:

You should see the abnegation with which these pupils work at school. Measured
with their life condition the commitment of these pupils can be understood only
through their motivation and resolution and all the hope they invest in their studies.
(Verbatim)

We can, on the one hand, think that the interest the pupils have in their studies, especially
the rural world girls, comes from the new strategies of education which have other
motivations. As Pilon and Yaro (2000) express it:

It is less for these disfavoured fringes to climb the social scale through education
than to reach social integration, which more and more necessitates the minimal
mastering of the basic elements of education. In this perspective school is no
longer perceived with the only view of getting a promised work, it has other basic
functions (to read and write French, to know how to make one’s way through the
 The Middle School Climate in Senegal 195

public services) which from now on are included in the education request expressed
by parents. In fact the acquisition of these basic functions can be a factor of indi-
vidual or group emancipation, an instrument of appropriation of different capitals
(symbolic, social, politic, economic) and various knowledge (practical, technical,
of communication). (Quoted by Gerard, 1989)

On the other hand, we can recall the changing rationales for education, that is, give
account of the fact that for some, the valorisation of the social capital gained from school
performance has new meanings and motivations because it accesses other socioeco-
nomic areas. Alternatively, it may prepare girls for marriage in a marketplace in
which the main clients are the well-to-do migrants (Moodu Moodu) seeking educated
wives. Essential then is the debate relative to the ends of education in their concrete
modalities of implementation.
In this view, we can wonder about impact of the “Moodu Moodu” phenomenon on
the degree of motivation of the pupils regarding their studies. Indeed, one of the aims
of education is to get a job and a salary. The potential advantages that can be drawn
from education may be motivating factors or discouraging factors at the time one reg-
isters for school. If children must, at the end of their schooling, join in the long queues
of those who look for a job, parents might be more inclined toward disillusionment, and
so encourage their children to explore other possibilities of a more immediate reward
type. The choice brings into question the postulate according to which socio-economic
success is a consequence of conventional schooling. Sometimes the real discrepancy
between the hopes of society and what school offers is what gets uncovered. Again, the
“Moodu Moodu” example is pertinent enough in this aspect. As says one teacher:

With the Moodu Moodu phenomenon the pupils study to become traders.
(Verbatim)

He goes with his analysis to explain:

Trade is an investment with immediate yielding and a Baol-Baol gives more

importance to yielding than to academic knowledge acquisition. So they do not
hesitate to choose between school and trade. (Verbatim)

Student Discipline
The teachers are unanimous regarding the pupils’discipline. All say that the middle school
students are quite disciplined. Some cases of indiscipline may occur. For example, to
refuse to obey or to take a class admission ticket after missing class. It is noticed that such
cases are often those of “resheltered” pupils from other schools who rely on their parents’
protection sometimes having great influence in the town of Diourbel. A teacher states:

But except the cases that may be handled, and that happen about the end of the
school year when the students are tired, the pupils are disciplined and even shy.
(Verbatim)
196 Ndoye

The Quality of the School Relations

It is important to observe that nearly all the teachers affirm that the relations between
the pupils are good on the one side, owing perhaps to the fact that most of them are
from the district, and on the other side because they live in a space of communication
and meeting which allows them to strengthen their relations (home, English club,
German club … ). Elsewhere the relations between students and teachers are good
generally because many of the teachers have their sons and daughters in the middle
school, or their nieces, nephews, etc. This special aspect of the school may explain the
quality of the relations between the teachers and their students. We can notice the good
relations between the Principal and his students. Many teachers think the Principal is a
very gentle and available man. One of them gives this opinion:

He is a school Head who is not authoritative. He is very soft. He has good father-
sons relations with his students, for he is before all a family father. (Verbatim)

Nevertheless, there are sometimes unhappy conflicts between students and teachers.
They may be so strong that the pupils refuse to attend their courses. That happened with
one pupil who since school began has not attended the maths class of a teacher. The
problem is still on and the student’s training in maths may be damaged considerably.
Living in such a conflictual situation the pupils use the class walls as a framework
for the expression of their soul. Indicates one teacher:

So most of the teachers and under teachers are taunted and jeered on the walls of
the classrooms. An example of this: “Mrs. X is a she-monkey” (Mrs. X is as ugly
as a monkey) or “Mr. Y has no guts.”

Even the Principal is not spared. He says:

I happen to read on the walls words about myself that are not polite at all. I simply ask
to erase them. Let us notice that this practice is not specific to our middle school. In
most of the secondary schools and middle schools and even at the university kids are
used to expressing themselves on the walls of the classrooms. (Verbatim)

These disagreements do not seem limited to the relations between students and teachers.
Through some four interviews we recognized a conflictual situation between the
Principal and some members of the teaching staff. On this point the Principal is blamed
for not calling a meeting of the Management Committee to report on the pupils’ annual
registrations and the amount of the school year budget. And a teacher says:

In spite of all the initiatives taken to have information on the registration of the
pupils and on the budget the Principal refuses to communicate with us. He even
dared to forbid a teachers’ meeting and sent us an explanation mail. We talked to
the Academic Inspector (I.A) and to the Departmental Inspector of the Ministry of
National Education (IDEN) to settle this problem but with no results. (Verbatim)
 The Middle School Climate in Senegal 197

The point of view of those teachers is interesting because it fairly well illustrates the
difference felt by the teachers between the constraints of a concerted effort to repre-
sent the school in a positive light and the personal way the Principal manages the
school.
We can wonder whether this lack of communication by the Principal is not the
source of the accusation against himself by one of the teachers. This charge is:

There is money misuse because for five years the management committee has
not met and we have no pedagogical and logistic material and no chalk nor any
support. (Verbatim)

Another teacher mentions a conflict that opposes him and the Principal about the print-
ing of course papers and other supports. He says:

This school is badly run; sometimes I have great difficulties to have printed material.

At the end of his interview with us, the Principal in responding to his conflicts with
some teachers didn’t deny them. Rather, he sought to emphasize the concerted effort
to present the school positively and to lower the conflict around differences of opinion
on school matters. For him, the conflictual situation with some of the teachers arose
from misunderstanding. So, in his mind, and in the general interest of the school, it
would be good to organize a session to call the management committee in order to
establish a good atmosphere. One underteacher agreed, saying:

In all human communities there are conflicts and disagreements that sometimes
put fire in the atmosphere, but people should overcome them. (Verbatim)

A second teacher concurred:

These divergences should be hidden for the interest of the school. We all have to
do things in the interest of the school and the pupils. (Verbatim)

About the relation between the administration and the pupils some misunderstanding
is noticed. A teacher said:

The underteacher is very authoritative and hard with the pupils. Maybe because
he is from the secondary school where the students are more troublesome. He
wants to impose himself on!! (Verbatim)

The underteacher-in-chief indicated that he sees his work as being to have students
respect school by-laws in the most acceptable way.
Regarding the relation between the teachers and school girls, the interviews reveal
that they are simply pedagogical. If in general student-teacher relations are good there
will be, nevertheless, a tense climate between some students and some teachers. It
seems that the middle school exemplifies the phenomenon described by Barry, the
198 Ndoye

Principal of the Middle School Mamadou Diaw, Thiès, Senegal, in his article “Crise
d’autorité et violence dans nos lycées.” He wrote:

If we scrutinize things we quickly see that the phenomenon in fact (not new in our
education system) is the revelation of two bad things which have been developing for
a long time slowly in our education system: the lack of authority and violence … .
These bad things of course can be explained by an objective situation due to the
multifold-crisis context that stirs our society and also to the serious and material and
human carelessness that often causes great difficulty in the running of our secondary
and middle schools. (Wal Fadjri, number 2781 of June 23–24, 2000, p. 10)

Security Climate
On the whole, the teachers affirm that the lack of a wall around the middle school
leads to some insecurity for teachers as well as students. In illustration, one female
underteacher tells us:

One day I was alone in the office and I was aggressed by a madman. I shouted out
breathlessly. I locked up myself in. It was the same on another day when a bull
attacked a group of students. One of them with the bull running after her escaped
thanks to her great experience with animals. She laid down flatly breathless and
motionless. Her friends kept on telling her not to move or breathe. A while later
the bull went away. (Verbatim)

Additional cases of insecurity were mentioned by teachers. Before the digging of the
foundations of the surrounding wall, carts, and cabs would sometimes go through the
school grounds at high speed, which endangered the lives of both students and teach-
ers. Other comments mentioned cases of theft of books and documents in the school
secretary’s office, stone throwing by the kids of the district and naked madmen
strolling in the vicinity of the Middle School.
And yet no cases of physical violence, sexual harassment, or sexual abuse have ever
been brought in the middle school. The interviewed teachers did refer to pupils who
smoke cigarettes and, very rarely, “yamba,” or marijuana. For these teachers, most of
the pupils smoke for mimetic reasons, doing so in the communication space or in their
tea-rounds. But inasmuch as the teachers fear it, and inasmuch as marijuana consump-
tion is more an urban phenomenon, it is obvious that as Diourbel itself grows in popu-
lation, the youth of Diourbel will not be able always to escape from it, particularly on
the occasion of dancing parties and “fourals,” music concerts, or tea-rounds.
Those meeting spaces of the youth also constitute places of sexual contacts between
the pupils and occasions of STD and AIDS contamination. Recent inquiries on the
AIDS prevalence at the level of the secondary and middle schools reveal rates that are
higher than the national average rate (2%). This is a worrisome situation if we know that
most sexual intercourse at that age is unprotected and can lead to undesired pregnancies,
illegal abortions, and/or other potentially serious consequences for the girls’ reproduc-
tive health. For all those reasons the teachers are happy to note that pregnancies are
very rare at the level of the middle school. For example, in the school year 2000/2001,
 The Middle School Climate in Senegal 199

there was only one pregnancy, that of a 3rd Form girl. That seems not to have surprised
the female under-teacher who affirms:

As soon as I saw that girl with her manners I asked the teachers to be very cautious
with her boyish behaviour. She was a resheltered pupil in our Middle School; she
was from elsewhere with manners unknown in this school … (Verbatim)

Another teacher confirms that opinion:

I once met that girl at a late time at night and when I asked her why she was in that
place at that time, she told me she was there to watch films. So I am not surprised
to see that pregnancy. (Verbatim)

Answering the question, what attitude should one have in case of pregnancy in the
school, the teachers answer carefully. If the teachers expressed unanimity in respect of
the by-laws in force requiring pregnant girls to be excluded from school, so, too, would
the partner in the pregnancy be excluded (if a pupil) and the sentence should be
extended to him if it is a teacher. A teacher underlines this point:

It’s really shocking to see a schoolgirl with pregnancy excluded while the guilty
boy is not punished. More than that pregnancy is a true loss for parents and a big
risk for the girl who is not in good conditions to carry her pregnancy to the end
and to have an undesired child. (Verbatim)

Conclusion
This inquiry allowed us to investigate the general climate of the Greater Diourbel
Middle School as perceived by the school’s teachers. Results show that the school
climate plays a determining role in the good running of the middle school. Thus, where
you feel secure, where you can rely on others, and where stress is placed on quality
teaching, a school’s teachers become very involved in their work, and students show
strong academic performances. Concretely, this research sheds light on the teachers’
conditions which are, if not poor, then certainly difficult, materially and pedagogically
speaking. The buildings are relatively new but they are not taken care of as well as they
could be. There is not a true staff room, and there is insufficient school equipment.
Most teachers think that the syllabi should be reduced and adapted to local realities,
especially concerning gender issues. They find it difficult to innovate at the level of the
teaching methods, and are confronted both by routine and the constraints of the teach-
ing/learning situation. About paper grading and correction, generally, the teachers rec-
ognize that it will be difficult to respect the norms of requiring two papers per
semester. Despite these adverse factors the performances of the students remain good
because the teachers pay a great deal of attention to those who are motivated in their
studies and disciplined in their behaviour.
Regarding security issues, the teachers acknowledge that, despite occasional cases
of deviance here and there, juvenile delinquency has not reached an alarming threshold.
200 Ndoye

The relative tranquillity of the milieu creates a feeling of security which favours edu-
cation processes and practices.
This current research sustains the conclusion of Klitgaard and Hall (1974), Brunet
et al. (1991) and Janosz and Le Blanc (1996) according to which ecological variables
have weak relation with the academic performances. It also brings to light the impor-
tance of the variables of the social system. Because the school context offers social
support, the teachers and also the students are motivated by what they do. Similar
results were gathered by Short and Rinehart (1992), Cropanzano and Kacmar (1995),
Sagor (1996), Ryan and Deci (2000). So like those of Grisay (1993) and Bowen and
Desbiens (2004), our present conclusions are that this middle school is characterized
by a good relation between students and teachers and has little difficulty with drugs,
sexuality, or violence.
In the light of those results it seems correct to generalize this study and to conduct it
with a representative sample of all the Senegalese middle schools. In addition to the
analysis of the climate of the middle schools at the national level, such research will
allow the identification of more organisational and individual features (relational cli-
mate, educational climate, security climate, justice climate, and belonging climate). In
bringing to light the role of school and organisational factors in the explanation of
school performance, it would provide precise data to school heads wanting to build a
school environment which will be materially and psychosocially favourable to learning.

Notes
1. With a total land area of 196.722 km2, Senegal is a semi-arid country occupying the westernmost position
in West Africa, on the Atlantic Ocean coast. Senegal’s population was estimated at the end of the year
2003 at slightly more than ten million, and like most other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, is charac-
terized by its rapid growth (estimated at 2.5% per annum between 1988 and 2003). The impact of this
rapid growth can be seen in the increasing population density. The data also reveal an imbalance in
the spatial distribution of that population. The Province of Dakar which occupies 0.3% of the national
territory holds 22% of the total population of Senegal (PNUD, 1998).
2. The choice to undertake research at the Greater Diourbel Middle School results from a practical
circumstance. We were already there doing a study at the request of a Dakar-based NGO. We then opted
to study, simultaneously, work conditions of the teachers. The school is located in Diourbel, a town
approximately 80 miles from Dakar, and is a strong presence for students from villages in its vicinity.
Its student population includes numerous students from lower socio-economic status families. Opened
in 1996 it had 481 students in 2002–2003.
3. Beside the administration building the Provincial Council funds the creation of a fencing wall and in
September 2001 they completed the building of another block of two classrooms.
4. This reflects the situation in June 2001. According to latest information the closing wall has since been built.
5. “Moodu Moodu”: It history goes back to the Islamic religion and its the specificity of its local practice.
This noun is structured by reduplicating the Senegalese proper name Mòòdu; which is the diminutive
of Muhammad or Mamadou. Its most common meaning refers to Senegalese emigrants living in rich
countries of the North.
The French and the Italians used, at first, used it to refer to Senegalese peddlers living in their
countries. Nowadays it tends to describe a socio-professional group, namely those you encounter in the
informal economic (Thiam, 2000); the sense is currently evolving to social behaviour, who, on the field
of economy is tough at trade, saving every cent, rather fundamentalist, of a rustic in their everyday life,
great capacity of adaptation to circumstances, and abstemious (Ndiaye, 1997).
 The Middle School Climate in Senegal 201

However, in Senegal it is: a people who did not go to school and who became rich, after emigrating
from Senegal (Sène, 2003). The term Mòòdu Mòòdu meaning is evolving to a group of individuals,
trying to achieve professional integration without any support from the State. They manage to by-pass
the institutional structures by using informal and intra-personal relationships.
The kernel location of the networking process is Touba, capital city of the Mourides: 49 km from
Diourbel, and central market places all over Senegalese cities; from where they shape their commercial
strategies to spread in such a span that they are to be met in African countries such Côte d’Ivoire,
Democratic Congo, South Africa, etc. or in the Us, in Asia (Turkey, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, etc.)
or in the Pacific (Australia, etc.).”

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10

URBAN EDUCATION DIFFERENTIALS

AND MARGINALIZATION: THE CASE OF
EDUCATING THE YOUTH IN NAIROBI’S
INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS

Kinuthia Macharia
American University, U.S.A.

Introduction
In this chapter, I will discuss an array of issues; the most pertinent being the disillu-
sionment of many of Kenya’s urban poor who, like the majority of rural-urban migrants,
moved to the city with the hope of finding jobs and improving their economic well-
being as well as achieving new optimized opportunities. I will also look at how this
hope for improved lives has been elusive for the parents and now for the children
through a process of unrealized education objectives, massive drop-outs or push-outs,
un-conducive learning environment due to area violence, dirt and filth, and lack of
family support. This will provide some understanding of the plight of the many poor in
urban areas and particularly in the informal settlements (slums) of Nairobi, Kenya.
Other questions to be dealt with here include how the informal settlements themselves
came about in a city that was originally planned for Europeans; how has the presence
of these informal settlements perpetuated socio-economic inequalities in Kenya’s
urban areas, and particularly in Nairobi, Kenya’s largest city; and what is being done
and what should be done to bring about some form of social justice in the goals of
“education for all” especially the youth from poor families – most of them in the large
informal settlements of Kibera, Mathare, Korogocho, Mukuru?
I will argue that a holistic approach to the problem of the youth in poor areas need
to be addressed going beyond the recently celebrated “free education for all” intro-
duced by President Kibaki and his National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) government
in 2003. Whereas this introduction of free primary education is a welcome partial solu-
tion to the issue of differentials and marginalization of city youth in the informal
settlement as pertains to their search for modern education, there are still many social-
historical problems that need to be addressed. I will discuss how, for example, one
non-governmental organization, the Undugu Society of Kenya, has been dealing with
this problem, well before the government gave it as much serious thought. There are
some lessons to learn from the example of the Undugu Society, particularly because
205
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 205–218.
© 2007 Springer.
206 Macharia

this organization specifically deals with the poor youth, street children and indeed
focuses on the major informal settlements of Nairobi.

Social Historical Development of Urban Education

Differentials (Inequality)
Historical materialism (Marx, 1894, 1972), which refers to understanding the history
of power and accumulation of property in a historical perspective, could assist us in
understanding the current situation in Kenya’s urban areas and specifically the city of
Nairobi. The social history of Nairobi is one that has bred inequality in various areas
of people’s lives, and the matters of education and schooling have not been spared. If
anything, these glaring inequalities that were formerly in evidence between racial
groups (Europeans, Asians, and Africans) in Nairobi and are currently in evidence
between social classes (the rich and poor observed in the distinct residential areas of
the city) continue to shape the prospects for many urbanites. The history of who has
had power and control both materially and ideologically dates back to the colonial
establishment of the city of Nairobi in the late nineteenth century by the British impe-
rialists, initially as a railway workshop in 1899.
Before the coming of these imperialists, who were interested primarily in maximizing
their wealth through collection and accumulation of raw materials (hence the need
for the railway), Nairobi was simply a forested savannah where the Maasai used to
graze their cattle. The word “Nairobi,” which the British colonialists adopted, was a
Maasai word for the “cool waters” where they would bring their cattle to drink, espe-
cially in the hot tropical afternoons. From the open grasslands, cottages emerged to
house those who worked in the railway workshops. Eventually, the first British admin-
istrators began to settle in Nairobi. The city’s climatic conditions (cool and temperate)
were environmentally acceptable to the British, hence the original workers’ cottages
grew to become a small village of White settlers, and eventually this would grow to
become a sizable urban center that would be home to African servants working for
European officers, farmers, and industrialists who gradually called Nairobi their
home. The city grew with European interests at heart, and with no true concern for the
African population that over time would become the majority. Indeed, the history of
unequal development of Nairobi, as well as other urban centers that emerged in Kenya,
explains the continuing differentials in the residential circumstances of the current
population, the emergence of informal settlements, the poor education standards of
certain groups, and the helplessness in which a majority of city dwellers, especially the
poor, continue to dwell.
The national and local public policy that has guided the growth of what is today the
city of Nairobi has been one that served the colonial interests up to 1963, when Kenya
achieved independence. This was an innately biased policy, one without the interests of
the majority Africans at heart. The policy that has existed since the onset of independ-
ence to the present has advanced those biases, with the focus this time not against the
African population per se, but against the majority poor urbanites. The impact of this
policy that serves the interests of the rich and the politically well-connected has been
 Urban Education Differentials and Marginalization 207

a neglect of the poor leading to ever more overcrowding in the poor neighborhoods
(referred to as the Eastlands during the colonial times and to date), a dearth of basic
resources, high unemployment, and more specifically to the purposes of this chapter,
poor overcrowded schools.
It is important to understand the core of the urban policy that guided the colonial
development of cities like Nairobi. I argue that while there were some modifications in
favor of the city’s African population after independence, that policy is to a large
extent, and certainly in the eyes of the many poor, almost as it was in the past. The “city”
and the “town” were not the place for the African. The “rural” was the home of the
African. This meant that no residential areas were originally designed for the Africans
because they were not expected to settle there. No schools were put up for African chil-
dren in the city of Nairobi, and the infrastructure one would expect in a “city” was only
to be found in the European residential areas of Lavington, Westlands, Muthaiga, and
Kileleshwa, the latter specifically built to house senior government officers. It was not
until the 1940s that the colonial government was faced with the reality of an increas-
ing number of Africans who were working in the city as servants, menial job holders,
low ranking security men, etc., that the “so – called Eastlands,” with such estates as
Bahati and Shauri Moyo, were built. A specific example: a number of these housing
estates, Muthurwa, Land Mawe, etc., were constructed to house those who worked for
the Kenya Railways.
Colonial urban policy largely assumed that only men would be coming to Nairobi,
as they were the only ones who might have a legitimate reason (work) to be in the city
while their families (wife and children) would continue to live in the rural areas.
Further, if the children of these working men were lucky enough to be able to go to
school, it would be out in their home, rural areas.
It should be clear by now that the African residential area, Eastlands, was conceived
to start off from a position of disadvantage, with non-existent or very limited general
amenities, poor schools, if any were built at all, and a general lack of resources. But a
strict policy will not always succeed in keeping people away, especially from places
where they think they might get opportunities to improve their lives. This was the case
in Nairobi during colonial times, and despite colonial restrictions on Africans coming
to the city, they still did albeit initially in relatively small numbers, though enough to
overcrowd the few legitimate houses, or rooms, as the houses were only ten feet by ten
feet and expected to house only one man.
This kind of one room residence would eventually become the “home” of families,
as the working men brought their wives and children to the city. The resulting overflow
would lead to the creation of some of Nairobi’s oldest and largest informal settlements,
including Mathare Valley and Kibera. This would be the beginning of the seemingly
never-ending process of overurbanization in Kenya. Similar processes are observable
in other African countries. This process refers to the situation where a nation is urban-
izing too fast to give adequate amenities and resources to the new urbanites. In Kenya
for example, urbanization rose from 8% in 1962, just prior to independence, to 15% in
1978, and 21% in 1995 (World Bank, 1998). This increase in population suggests a
large, concomitant, ongoing increase of urban labor unmatched to available jobs. The
new rural-urban migrants who settle in Kenya’s cities and towns cannot easily find
208 Macharia

employment. Housing is similarly problematic, and they face great difficulty in edu-
cating their children, as the available schools are either already overcrowded or are too
expensive for these new urban migrants who want to make the city/town their new
home. Unlike the European and American cities that arose during the period of mass
industrialization, African cities have not encountered industrialization at this level,
which helps to explain why the city, for most Africans, has come to signify gross
socioeconomic inequalities and real poverty for the majority.

Post-Independence Urbanization: Hopes and Aspirations

Kenya’s independence in 1963 brought hopes and aspirations for the African majority,
who sincerely believed that once the government was focused on Africans, poverty
would be dealt with, and the Africans would be able to live in abundant resources.
Needless to say this was not to be. The main reason for this is that the country was
already fully implicated in the global capitalistic economic system wherein world mar-
kets would impact the quality of the lives being led by most Kenyans. This was particu-
larly the case with the economy’s overreliance on introduced cash crops like coffee,
tea, sisal, pyrethrum, etc. as well as tourism, still a major source of income for Kenya’s
economy. The country’s reliance on these resources and markets leaves much outside the
control of Kenyans. The leaders of newly independent African countries largely perpet-
uated the same economic policies as the former colonial powers, and in the long run,
benefited the few Africans in positions of power, while the majority were left to learn
how to adapt with harsh poverty-stricken circumstances, then and now.
After independence, the urban policy that had earlier restricted the free movement
of Africans to the urban areas was relaxed in the name of freedom of movement for all.
This was a symbolic way for the new African government to show that independence
had brought about civic freedom. The rural areas, especially those in Central Province
to the north of Nairobi, which had been ravaged by the war for independence, the Mau
Mau war of 1952–1960 (Macharia, 2006) could no longer hold their growing popula-
tion. Soils had been overcultivated in the preceding decades of cash cropping. The
previously fertile soils had been shifted to become coffee and tea plantations for large
companies, wealthy Europeans, and eventually, wealthy Africans after independence.
The Kenyan government’s modification of the former colonial urban policy, to allow
unfettered rural-urban migration saw large numbers of Africans from all parts of the
country moving to Nairobi.
As I have argued elsewhere (Macharia, 1997) most rural–urban migrants follow
certain social networks. This was no different during the great urbanization period in
Kenya immediately after independence. The urban areas were seen as the place to go
in search of employment and all manner of economic opportunities, hence the unstop-
pable flow to the cities. Nairobi, being Kenya’s biggest city then and now, received the
lion’s share of urban migrants, all hopeful about improving their life chances. Many of
the new urban migrants were not well-educated and could not get jobs in the formal
economy. Most of these migrants also could not find housing in the few established
residential areas. As a result, many of these new migrants ended up in the already
 Urban Education Differentials and Marginalization 209

mushrooming informal settlements of Mathare and Kibera, eventually swelling their

populations immensely.
Previous restrictions on the movement of non-workers also ended, thus easing the
way for families, husbands with wives and children, to migrate to the city. This posed
new challenges to the newly independent local and national governments. It meant that
there was the need to improve infrastructure in the new areas where populations were
settling. For many migrants who did not find the kind of work they had hoped for, this
meant living rural-like, amenities-free lifestyles despite the fact that they were within
the city boundaries. This remains the reality for many in Nairobi, including the esti-
mated two million residents of Nairobi’s informal settlement, the two largest of which
are Mathare Valley and Kibera. As each of these has become incredibly densely packed,
other informal settlements have developed, such as Mukuru, Kwa Njenga, and Kayaba,
each of these on land in or adjacent to the city’s industrial area. Yet more settlements
exist in the peri-urban space. Kangemi, Kawangware, Korogocho, and Kasarani have all
expanded as the population of Nairobi has continued to grow from the migration into
the city as well as from births within the city (Mburugu & Adam, 2001).
One of the missed opportunities and most disappointing for many young parents
who moved to the city was the reality that their children were not getting the education
they had anticipated. The “blight-light hypothesis,” that is, the idea that in moving to
the city people are moving toward more hopeful circumstances, has not been realized
for large numbers of these new migrants! Many of those who have found themselves
living in the informal settlements have had to deal with the fact that there were no
schools there. Their children have been made to go to nearby areas, thus necessitating,
for example, crossing some of Nairobi’s dangerous roads. Schools have also been
found to be a major expense, with often scarce family income having to pay for school
uniform, tuition and other fees, money for lunch when available, as well as public
transport for some. One common alternative to this last point is that many students
have to take walk long distances to the get to their schools. For example, the children
in Mathare must make their way to neighboring Huruma or Eastleigh to get to City
Council-operated elementary schools.
In combination with the economics of these issues comes social pressures. Children
from the informal settlements who attend neighboring City Council elementary
schools in the formal residential areas are often looked down upon and even despised
for being, for example, untidy. Often, they are bullied by other children usually bullied
them for simply coming from the slum areas. This made learning difficult for the chil-
dren from informal settlements, as I have observed in one of the largest slums,
Kiandutu, located in the neighboring town of Thika (Macharia, 1980). The experience
of the Kiandutu children in schools located in the formal residential area can not be
seen as unique to them. Much the same has been noted for those from Nairobi’s infor-
mal settlements. This almost inevitably leads to primary and high school drop-outs or
push-outs of school children in their elementary classes.
In most developing nations like Kenya, education is seen as the gateway to a better
life. It is also a gateway to upward social mobility through getting a formal job and
building a professional career. The lack of formal education, in turn, is a more-or-less
a guarantee of living the remainder of one’s life in or near poverty, something that
210 Macharia

many parents with children living in the informal settlements take as fact. It therefore
becomes their goal to educate their children against all odds. These odds, however, take
their own toll, and too many of the children from these areas end up being unable to
complete school, and thus remain largely uneducated, drop-outs before they finish
even primary school. Only a relative handful may make it to and through high school,
despite the parent’s strong will and best efforts to educate their children. There are
hopes this may change with the introduction of free primary education in 2003 as more
children are brought into the system of possibility from an early age.
While the jury is still out on how much free primary education will improve chil-
dren’s ability to finish primary school and hopefully go on to and through high school,
I argue that the problems in the informal settlement go beyond mere lack of fees. The
poverty that reigns in these settlements overwhelms both parents and children to the
extent that school attendance, which requires stability in the family, good health and
proper nutrition, self confidence so as to withstand any challenges from teachers or
fellow pupils, etc., is affected. In contrast to this, those in the higher income residen-
tial areas get better education and the life chances of their children are improved. They
are indeed the ones who achieve the dream of high hopes and improved opportunities
for having migrated to the city.

Poverty as a Contributor to Urban Differential

in Education
I have already argued that urban policy in post-independent Kenya did not change
much in terms of improving life for all the city dwellers and the many new migrants
who moved into the cities with the free unrestricted movement after 1963. The policies
that favored the Europeans and the Asians now favored the small numbers of the new
African political elite, the rich businessmen and those others who may have gotten
opportunities to achieve higher education leading them to high paid positions in the
white collar sector. The bulk of the country’s population, the uneducated, the jobless
and the poor, have come to characterize Nairobi as a typical “Third World” city.
A report on Poverty Assessment in Kenya (World Bank, 1995) estimated the poor;
those living under the poverty line, were 9 million in the rural areas and approximately
1.25 million living in the urban areas, most of them in Nairobi. According to that
report, poverty has been the result of a lack of sustained per capita income growth. The
inability to sustain income means access to good health care and educational opportu-
nities does not come to all, a fact that is bound to exacerbate the situation for those at
or below poverty.
Indeed, the urban poor with whom I am more concerned in this chapter are largely
unemployed or work in the informal sector. I should qualify this point based on prior
work on Nairobi’s informal sector (Macharia, 1997) by pointing out that it depends on
which informal sector activity one is engaged in. There are a few, such as drum sellers
and metal artisans, for whom informal work can be lucrative, and who can earn
incomes comparable to those in the formal sector. But the vast majority struggle on a
daily basis to find the economic means to continue living and supporting families.
 Urban Education Differentials and Marginalization 211

In addition to this economic differential, there exists gender discrimination. A recent

UN report (UN, 2005) has shown that informal settlements, home to large numbers of
people struggling to maintain life in dire poverty, very often provides only low quality
educational opportunities to young girls. Indeed, by the time high school is reached,
girls constitute a much lower percentage of attendees than boys when comparing
within the informal settlement population. Girls are as likely to be enrolled in primary
schools as boys, but drop out or are pushed out sooner than are these boys. The girls
end up becoming care givers for their siblings or accompany their mothers into infor-
mal sector work. It has been noted that this seems to be especially common among
food sellers who need their daughters to help them carry cooked food to the places at
which they are sold – that is, primarily outside of the factories in Nairobi’s Industrial
Area. The girls may also help in preparing the food, as well as washing the dishes while
their mothers are serving the customers.
Unemployment is seen as a major contributing factor in poverty in urban areas. One
World Bank report, produced in 1995, showed that unemployment in Kenya was 11%
in 1977, growing to 16% by 1986, and increasing to 22% by 1992. Current estimates
as to unemployment among able bodied Kenyans now run as high as 40%. While these
figures represent the whole country, the great majority, at least 30% are in urban areas,
with Nairobi taking the bulk share. Poor agricultural yields, poor land yields and poor
production related infrastructure all contribute to causes of poverty in Kenya, and each
in turn drives pieces of the growth in urban population.
All of the above listed conditions impact urban schooling. To this list should be
added poor governance, mismanagement of public revenue, and widespread corrup-
tion at all levels of government, high, middle, and low, local, regional, and national.
Inequality in government expenditure on social programs also differentially impacts
schooling .The government and parents spend heavily on education. Two-thirds of
spending on primary school education in 1992, came from government, with the poor
received a greater share of public subsidies than did the non-poor. The remaining
one-third of costs were expected to be covered by parents, which amounted to too high
a burden for poor parents. As a result, primary schools in poor areas continue to be
among the worst-off, while those in middle class and upper middle class areas remain
in fine condition as parents with children at these schools have little problem raising
their share of the costs.
This is the reality of schools in the poor neighborhoods, and not just at the primary
level. Most government funded high schools tend to be inaccessible to the majority
poor, which may explain why many poor pupils drop out in primary school, since even
that level is burdensome, and the vast majority or urban poor cannot afford the more
expensive education offered in Kenya’s high schools. This is one reality the new pri-
mary education policy will have to address in the next few years, for what good will a
primary education be if one cannot pursue it in high school and beyond?
Urban poverty has led to a unique phenomenon in Nairobi and many other towns in
Kenya, namely the presence of street children, most of whom are products of the infor-
mal settlements as discussed above. They pose a problem especially in how to deal
with their schooling needs. In the next section, I examine how one NGO has tried to
address this issue even as the government continues to examine ways to address the
212 Macharia

education differentials and inequalities in these poverty stricken areas. As the case of
Undugu Society of Kenya will indicate, the situation calls for innovative ways to deal
with these poorest of urban dwellers, some of whom are orphans, have no homes, and
live lives that are far from the societal normal.

Non-Formal Education: The Case of Undugu Society of

Kenya (USK)
The street children phenomenon is a manifestation of extreme poverty bringing about
glaring inequalities that needs special programs and action from the key actors. With an
ever-increasing population in the city of Nairobi, it is the poor and unemployed espe-
cially who ended up barely eking out their lives in the informal settlements. Many of the
offspring of these poor have ended up spending great parts of their day on the streets,
and for some, these streets are their actual domicile – the place they sleep and call
home. How does one educate such children? Will they fit in the regular school? Will
they obey authority and can they be shaped into productive members of the broader
society? While pondering such questions in the early 1970s, Arnold Grol, a Catholic
priest working in Nairobi, formed a non-governmental organization that he called
Undugu Society of Kenya. Undugu is a Swahili word that translates as “Brotherhood.”
In founding and naming the organization, Father Grol almost certainly was thinking ini-
tially that the issue of the day was about boys, but eventually the Undugu Society would
come to work with and care for girls living on Nairobi’s streets as well.
Seeing the informal settlements most of the street youth are coming from, the
Undugu Society determined that an informal education system might be what would
be needed to address the plight of these young people. Their thinking seems to be that
conventional education programs and curriculum may not best benefit not only the
street children, but those attending conventional schools, for whom, for example, the
attention level shown by street children might be less than that shown by children who
regularly attend conventional schools. It can be shown to be a condition of street life
such that many street children face daily or hourly survival tests, and may not have the
resources necessary to wait for the kind of future returns embedded in the notions of
education and schooling. For the street children, it is the present and immediate that
are of concern. If they know they can wash cars at a certain time, collect garbage, shine
shoes, etc. at certain times, these activities will take precedence since they must
generate the money that permits their survival. It will not matter that doing such might
conflict with a mathematics class, for example. Most of Nairobi’s street children are on
their own, hence the emphasis on survival now rather than later. Others may have fam-
ilies which themselves are reliant on the earnings of the street child. This adds pressure
to the street child who is forced to mature early so as to become the bread winner for
the family.
The Undugu Society of Kenya focused on street children initially in the streets of
downtown Nairobi. The USK would eventually determine that most of those children
were from the informal settlements. Since the informal settlements could not support
them, the children ended up going to the downtown streets in order to survive. The
 Urban Education Differentials and Marginalization 213

USK was formed in 1973, with its primary mission being to “cater for street children,”
(Ouma, 2004), especially their schooling needs. To do this, the USK opened non-formal
schools which would give educational as well as vocational courses to children between
8 and 20 years of age, with the majority of the children tending to be between 13 and
16 years of age (Ouma, 2004). The USK has had over 5,000 learners in their schools
since inception, of whom nearly 2,300 (44%) have been girls, and nearly 2,900 (56%)
have been boys. Most of these children had previously attended, but dropped or were
pushed out of, school.
Realizing that most of the street children were from the slum areas and informal
settlements, USK decided to place their schools in these areas. USK operates four
schools in Nairobi, in the following areas: Ngomongo (opened in 1978); Pumwani
(opened in 1979); Mathare (opened in 1979); and, Kibera (opened in 1981). In the
1980s, USK also founded two schools outside Nairobi, one in Kisumu, on the shores of
Lake Victoria, and the other in Machakos. Both schools specialize in technical training
with the hope of creating an employable learner.
One distinction between the USK schools and the regular city schools in Kenya is
that USK non-formal schools do not require the students to wear a uniform. Father
Grol had argued that the uniform, with its clear identity of one as a pupil, would be in
contradiction to the lifestyle of a street child. He argued the uniform was not an impor-
tant part of the learning process and “that two times two with uniform is equal to four
just as two times two without uniform is equal to four!” (Ouma, 2004). This serves as
an example of how USK had a way of acknowledging the situations and interests of the
street children in their schools. Other ways included providing lunches, and offering
free tuition, that is, no school fees. The number of children enrolled in the four USK
schools in Nairobi remains small relative to the number of street children in the city
(in 1997, it was estimated that Nairobi had 60,000 street children). The work is never-
theless impressive. USK has been motivated by their belief that lack of education is a
violation of basic human right. Other NGOs doing work similar to that of the USK
include: Tunza Dada; Kwetu Home; etc. (Ngau, 1996). USK remains the pioneering
effort, however, and have remained focused on their mission for over 30 years.
This is not to say there are no problems in these schools. Drop out rates are still high,
and the curriculum needs to be better synchronized with the regular schools, especially
for those in USK schools who may want to go beyond primary schools. The magnitude
of school drop-outs and school push-outs in Kenyan schools was notable, especially
after 1986, which was when the Kenyan government, through pressure from donor
countries, accepted the structural adjustment programs (SAP) of the World Bank and
International Monetary Fund. One aspect of SAP for Kenya was the introduction of
cost-sharing in schools. This had the direct impact of making education more expen-
sive, indeed, unaffordably so, especially for the poor. This is the timeframe during
which the USK really played a big role in reducing the differential in urban education
between poor parents and rich parents.
Just like the children of the well-to-do, street children would also like to go to school
and learn in spite of the many problems they encounter that make regular schooling hard
for them. Efforts by such NGOs as the USK are to be commended and one would hope
the government would adopt similar strategies to cater for the urban poor children’s
214 Macharia

quest for education, and to level the playing field for these future leaders and labor
providers. These children are eager to learn as the case of the Undugu Society of
Kenya has shown. In a study carried out by UNICEF/IDC (1989) the great majority of
the street children interviewed stressed the importance of the educational opportuni-
ties and appreciated the fact that they were now able to go to school. In his study of the
street children and USK, Ouma (2004) found that 85.5% of the students in the Undugu
schools reported a desire to receive education. This clearly shows that the majority of
the street children have aspirations similar to those of children from so-called “normal
homes.” If given the right opportunities, they will strive to achieve just as would any
other learner.
In order for the USK to achieve its goals, the Father Grol realized the need to partner
with local communities. It is important to re-emphasize the fact that all the four major
Undugu schools are located in the worst slum area conditions in Nairobi. Yet USK
could and did form partnerships, not just in these areas, but with the Nairobi City
Council as well. This last partnership was important inasmuch as it provided for land
and buildings in which to physically locate the schools. An additional partnership with
the government focused on the Teacher’s Service Commission, the government agency
that employs teachers in the country. Out of the 30 teachers that USK schools employ,
ten of them were employed directly to USK by the Teachers Service Commission
(TSC), which meant they recruited and also paid them their salaries, thus reducing
expense for USK. USK also has a partnership with foreign organizations such as
DFID, the British Department for International Development, as well as some com-
munity based organizations based in Germany and Holland, all of which contribute
money that is used to run USK schools.
To make the students feel special and accepted in a warm learning environment that
is different from the hostile street and slum environments to which the students are
accustomed, the students are provided with food, an elemental need. Each student is
provided with exercise books, a geometry set, a ruler and a bag. These may sound like
basic materials, but they are not so easily available to these students given their eco-
nomic circumstances, which is why USK supplies them. As mentioned above, the USK
schools are situated within the slums so that the children can be easily reached before
they become entrapped in street life. Attending a school in a neighborhood with which
you are familiar, no matter how rough it is, will be much more accommodating and
less intimidating than attending a school in a new environment. This addresses the
issue briefly described earlier, which shows that children from Nairobi’s slum areas
and informal settlements are often looked down upon when they attend schools in
more established city residential estates. This is, perhaps, akin to the problems that
school busing exposed in many US cities. In Boston, for example, Blacks bused from
inner cities to suburban schools had a hard time adjusting and learning. Irish neighbor-
hoods were particularly very hostile to Black students bused there (Logan, Oakley, &
Stowell, 2003). USK feels its decisions to locate in slum areas remains sound. However,
there is an acknowledgement that the approach has some drawbacks, one being that it
limits children’s exposure to the outside world, and it could be a disadvantage when
one is trying to look for a job or to make it beyond the slum.
 Urban Education Differentials and Marginalization 215

Beyond this, and like any sound organization, USK could improve their schools in
other ways, while continuing to close the urban education differential for street children.
For example, USK does not follow up with students once they leave the USK schools.
Given their special investment in these students, it could well be worthwhile to insti-
tute a follow-up program to ensure their students do well after they leave the USK
schools. USK also does not help in looking for employment for their students, and
while one might reasonably argue that this is not a service offered even in some well-
to-do schools, USK’s mission should include following through on the fuller education
mission, and having a strong career services advisory staff as part of its schools.
Without such follow-up, the USK students risk relapsing to what they were prior to
school, and some of the good work of Undugu might be lost. More research, especially
on pedagogy and street children, along with a clearer, systematized curriculum for non-
formal education would be an additional contribution to improving urban education dif-
ferentials. Special training for teachers ensuring they are well-versed in the backgrounds
of street children would also go a long way in improving such non-formal education.
Despite the free primary education introduced in Kenya by the new government in
2003, Ouma (2004) found that students were still flooding the USK schools.

A Unique School in the Informal Settlement of Kibera:

The Case of Olympic Primary School
Before bringing this chapter to a close, I will make some comments on a different kind
of school found in the informal settlement areas of Kibera, Nairobi’s most populous
slum. Olympic Primary School has been surprising many observers of Kenya educa-
tion because despite the fact that it is in a slum area, surrounded by poverty, and
despite that one might intuitively think it thus has a high drop out rate and poor per-
formance. In fact, Olympic Primary School has been consistently among the nation’s
best performing primary schools for the last 10 years. The school refuses to fit the
stereotypes of a school in a slum area. There are a number of reasons that could explain
the high performance which indeed challenge the assumption that the poor are not as
interested in education as the rich. The dedication of the school’s parents and the coop-
eration of the teaching staff, along with the students, especially those who came after
the good performance had been rooted there, indicate how each group experiences the
challenge of maintaining longstanding high performance and hard work from all
involved. The school’s strong performance has resulted in much positive publicity, as
well as generating attention from many international donor and visitors of high repute.
For example, in February 2005 the British Secretary of Finance visited the school.
The lesson to take from the case of Olympic Primary School in Kibera is that it
stands out as an example of how some of the differentials and inequalities in urban
schools can be addressed. Olympic is one of five government schools in the heavily
populated slum (informal settlement) of Kibera. With its population estimated to
be close to one million, Kibera is often cited as the being the largest slum dwelling in
Sub-Saharan Africa. The five government schools are only able to admit 8,500 students,
216 Macharia

leaving many others without schools. Privately run schools have emerged and cater for
many other pupils who would otherwise be out of school (Tooley, 2005). Kibera’s pri-
vate schools tend to be substandard but some parents prefer them especially if they are
near the section of the slum, where the live. It is often not safe for children to walk long
distances in search of government-run schools in dangerous slum environment.
Olympic Primary School has become a top public school in Nairobi and its reputation
of high performance in national examinations has gone beyond the city boundaries.
The school boasts of a computer, a copy machine and a perimeter wall around its back-
yard which separates it from the slum beyond. Computers may be a basic work tool in
many schools around the world, but not so in many African schools. Olympic Primary
School’s ability to purchase and maintain a computer is indicative of its serious efforts.
Prior to 2003, and government changes free primary education, parents of students at
Olympic Primary School would pay a one-time entrance fee of Ksh. 10,000 (about
$126) and an additional 300 shillings ($4) per term for ongoing costs as buying chalk
and providing fresh drinking water. Many Kenyan parents, especially those in the
Kibera slum, could not afford even these amounts, as most survive on less than one
dollar a day. School for many was thus a luxury they could not afford.
In the midst of this, Olympic Primary School has been called an oasis of hope, located
where some of Fanon’s wretched of the earth dwell, yet showing itself of regularly grad-
uating hopeful students, many of whom have gone onwards to acquire secondary and
even university education, and gaining professional work afterwards (Aduda, 2002). The
school boasts a very committed staff, with a strong Headmistress, and the parents of chil-
dren attending this school have shown themselves to be committed to pursuing their
upward social mobility. In 2005, the school had 2,200 pupils enrolled, or almost double
what they had enrolled before the free education policy came into effect in 2003. It
appears the dedication of the students, the staff, the teachers and the donations from such
groups like DFID have boosted the morale of Olympic to continue to pursue high per-
formance. The school has also become a vehicle through which unequal differentials in
education especially in informal settlements can be leveled out, and spurred attempts to
capture the “magic of Olympic” for use in other school throughout the city.

Conclusion
Urban inequality in Kenya as experienced in the city of Nairobi comes in many forms.
The common theme is that of mass urban poverty. This chapter discusses the social-
historical process through which biased policies have continued to disadvantage certain
sections of the city, particularly the informal settlements. The focus on differentials in
education and its manifestation in the connections street children have to schooling
shows how the “city of hope” that Nairobi represented to Kenya’s rural citizens, has
become the city of disappointment. There are lessons to be learned from the way
the Undugu Society of Kenya has attempted to address this issue. Their admirable non-
formal approach shows that the poor and those living in the informal settlements, if
catered for well with adequate resources, can level the educational differentials between
themselves and the more well-to-do children of Nairobi’s higher status communities.
 Urban Education Differentials and Marginalization 217

I also have briefly discussed the case of Olympic Primary School, a crown jewel of
a slum-based school that continues to excel in educating its students. It appears that the
models from both the Undugu Society schools and Olympic Primary School are work-
ing. Each focuses on the need for schools to have a strong bonds of partnership
between parents, teachers, school staff, and local and national government, which fund
the majority of school activity.
Inasmuch as education remains a singular hope for generations of the poor to make
it out of poverty and into sustainable levels of future income, efforts such as the two
profiled in this chapter need greater attention from both scholars and policy makers.
The future of Africa relies on good training of its youth. The kind of urban differentials
addressed here must be addressed and rectified before more wastage of young lives in
urban informal settlements becomes the irreversible order of the day. The Kenyan gov-
ernment’s commitment to basic education for all (1993) and the current free education
policy ( 2003), should also aim at addressing, in programmatic ways, the urban differ-
entials that would continue leaving many poor children behind.

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Tooley, J. (June 26, 2005). “Give Africa a private schooling” in Times Online. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/
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Section 2

ASIA PACIFIC
11

URBAN EDUCATION IN ASIA PACIFIC:

SECTION EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION

Allan Luke* and Masturah Ismail†

*
Queensland University of Technology, Australia;
†
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

The field of urban education has its origins in the nexus of urbanization, industrialization
and compulsory state education in North America and Europe over a century ago. Yet
its key theme – educational equality and universal provision – is relevant in other
places, spaces, political economies and cultures where the “urban” has quite different
histories, shapes and locations. The city is a work in progress in the Asia Pacific.
The modern city tended to be located along the supply lines of empire (Innis, 1951). In
the Asia Pacific, the region’s major centers were established in relation to coastlines or
rivers, with the lines of kinship, capital, migration and cultural exchange, language and
information flowing along communication/transportation links.
Issues of centre/periphery, urban/hinterland, mainstream/minority, indigeneity/diaspora
have been framed by the forces of colonialism and empire, by ongoing population move-
ment and cultural contact, and resultant linguistic, religious and cultural heterogeneity, and,
of course, by distinctive constraints of geography, space and place. Cities in Southeast
Asia, for example, historically arose as colonial administrative centres, rather than
manufacturing and resource sites as in the West (Ooi, 2004). In China and India, what
counts as the new economic hinterland may be regional centres larger than major North
American cities. In the South Pacific context that Puamau and Teasdale (Chapter 14)
document, larger island villages of tens of thousands have become sites for classical
urban education issues. There schools face new youth identities, generational chal-
lenges to tradition, the supplanting of traditional and subsistence economies by systems
dependent on tourism and overseas aid, and new conditions of risk for families’ and
individuals’ health and welfare. Across the region, as Yang’s (Chapter 12) analysis of
post-1949 Chinese education illustrates, the disparities in educational funding and pro-
vision between urban and rural hinterland are a persistent problem.
In the contexts of cultural and economic globalization, Australia and New Zealand,
the island states of the South Pacific and the countries of East and West Asia have
become focal locations for change – constituting a newer and older “new world,”
with some remarkable achievements to date and major, unprecedented educational
221
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 221–230.
© 2007 Springer.
222 Luke and Ismail

challenges. In the fastest growing economies of the world, the cities of East and West
Asia are population magnets, attracting cosmopolitan professionals, migrant and guest
workers, and ‘illegal’ workers in the invisible economies of black markets and trade
(e.g., Cheah & Robbins, 1998; Ehrenreich & Hochschild, 2002). Even with economic
growth and educational expansion, this situation has led to what Mak (Chapter 18)
describes as “differential impacts upon different groups” and, to use Blackmore’s
(Chapter 13) metaphor, “new lines of f light” for life trajectories, national identities,
economic and sociopolitical futures. To frame and engage with the educational issues
here require something far more than an acritical importation of categories, appro-
aches and framings from Western educational systems and research. It underscores the
need to view “urban” as something beyond just the physical space (site) of education,
but as social constructions of space where educational practices and possibilities are
generated by locally conceived “urban” features such as dimension, density, social het-
erogeneity, and information diffusion. Drawing from across the region, these ten chap-
ters offer very different and distinctive takes on the “urban,” its new shapes and
contours, and urban education.
The very constructs of “Asia,” “Australasia,” and the “Asia Pacific” are imaginary
collectivities – assembled and reassembled over the last century by colonizers East and
West (Wilson & Dirlik, 1995), and now in the pull of the shift of economic gravity
towards China and Japan, India and the Middle East. A key precursor to World War II
was the search by the Japanese empire for resources to fuel its industrial, territorial,
and militaristic ambitions. After World War II, with the cleaving up of the region by
former colonial powers and their allies – the Asia Pacific was set out as a new sphere
of economic and political influence, with contention for resources and space, fishing
rights, strategic military bases, and, of course, workers. In some cases, it simply marked
a shift in colonial rule, with French, American, Australian and New Zealand territories,
colonies and protectorates remaining. The postwar settlement included the establish-
ment of client states and defacto economic zones for major Western economies and
regional powers, including Australia and New Zealand. These relationships are in tran-
sition with the economic growth of China, India and, of course, the longstanding influ-
ence of Japan.
Educational development throughout the region was informed by historical processes
of decolonization (cf. Lin & Martin, 2005). This led to various postcolonial curriculum
and sociolinguistic settlements, with countries as diverse as Malaysia, Indonesia, Fiji,
and India reconnoitering which elements of colonial educational practices and institu-
tional structures they would retain. In each of these countries as well, this settlement
has involved the establishment of secular educational systems aiming to accommodate
the complex demands of multi-ethnic, multilingual, and resilient religious communi-
ties. This has involved ongoing tensions over linguistic rights, religion in secular and
non-secular states, and, in the case of Fiji, Malaysia, and New Zealand, affirmative
action and compensatory programs for indigenous populations (e.g., Puamau, 2004).
Events since 9/11, including successive Bali bombings, have heightened the tensions
over the significance of Islam in Asia (Sa’eda & Masturah, 2007). With Muslim major-
ity populations in states of West Asia and East Asia, and significant minorities in the
western regions of China, Islamic education is a continuing focus of development and
 Urban Education in Asia Pacific 223

debate. In this volume, Sa’eda (Chapter 17) offers a current analysis of the ideological
functions, educational and religious possibilities of Madrasah and Islamic education
in Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan and Turkey. She shows how colonial-sponsored
urbanization laid the ground for the marginalization of madrasah to the periphery of
the states’ educational systems, a situation that persists to this day. Yet, at the same
time, urban centers breathed “new life” to Muslim education by providing it the geo-
graphical and ideological space for the ongoing reform and articulation of religious
education. The issue remains about the capacity of “traditional” institutions like the
madrasah and religious education more generally to anchor communities and individ-
uals in the face of urbanization and globalization.
The rise of religious education further highlights the key role of education in nation
building. The establishment of basic infrastructure continues apace, even and espe-
cially in the face of cultural and economic globalization. After the Vietnam war, the
growth of the “Asian Tiger” economies of South East Asia was driven by American and
European, Japanese and Korean multinational corporations who have looked to coun-
tries in the region both as production, financial and shipping hubs, as training sites,
and as new markets. With the advent of the Chinese and Indian economic power in the
region, the realignment of economies and alliances is proceeding. For example, the
“internationalization” of higher education and elite secondary schools focuses increas-
ingly on servicing and capitalizing on the Chinese market (Mok, Chapter 16).
Following a century of cultural and political affiliation with the UK and North
America, Australia and New Zealand have become active participants in North/South
flows of tourism and migration, services and capital, resources and manufactured
goods. In the last decade, an energy and resource-hungry Chinese economy has sur-
passed Japan and the Western states as these countries’ principal trading partner. This
marks a shift in what Blackmore (Chapter 13) describes as the Australian preoccupa-
tion with “space, place, scale, and flows,” marking out new capital flows, social move-
ment and change.
At the same time, the Australian city – located on its coastlines – is the object of
creative reformation. Like Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Vancouver – Australian
cities are vying for larger shares of creative economies, with burgeoning educational
focus on the production of expertise in creative arts, digital economies, and their affil-
iated cultural industries (Cunningham, 2006). These developments are not without
contradiction and tension. As Blackmore (Chapter 13) demonstrates, Australia’s major
focus on educational equity in the 1980s and 1990s has been supplanted by a narrow
economism. This collusion of globalization, marketization, corporatization, and “politi-
cal opportunism” has led to what she terms a “backsliding” on historical commitments
to indigenous communities, women and migrants.
To capitalize on the new global flows, not only Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai,
but also Auckland, Vancouver, Sydney, and Brisbane are defining themselves as cul-
tural, educational and financial hubs – hoping to attract the “best and brightest” not
just from Asia, but as well from the Americas, Middle East, and Europe (Olds, 2002).
This has led to regional “brain drains” of intellectual talent, corporate sponsorship and
venture capital in biomedical sciences, business, engineering, information technology
and the new creative industries. It has also accelerated the shift in higher education
224 Luke and Ismail

governance and practice. The rapid and ongoing moves towards corporatized, interna-
tional, entrepreneurial universities across China, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Australia,
and New Zealand marks out a transition from what Mok (Chapter 16) terms “state-
centered” to “society centered” focus. Yet it also opens possibilities, he argues, for a
reassertion of the state’s efforts to “assert and enhance policy control.”
The sites discussed here include newly urbanizing environments. For example, the
cities of the South Pacific described by Puamau and Teasdale (Chapter 14) are in
the process of resettling and absorbing rural and peasant, substance economies. At the
same time, Asia is the site of the new global terminus of capital: Hong Kong, Shanghai,
Mumbai, and Singapore exist as terminal points for the shipping of containerized
goods, information and human cargo of all types. In the case of Hong Kong and
Singapore, growth in private consumption has proceeded throughout the 1990s at the
rate of 5–10% per annum (Brooks, 2006, p. 6). Yet as Stiglitz (2003) has pointed out,
even those sites that weathered successfully the 1997 Asian economic crash have seen
the growth in social class disparities of wealth. This again has placed issues of social
access and economic justice on the table. Yet the responses of many countries – including
Australia, New Zealand, and China have been to appropriate the Neoliberal policies
emerging from the US, UK, and EU. These moves are continuing despite the impressive
educational progress in areas of social equity over two decades of Australian educa-
tional reform documented by Blackmore (Chapter 13) and the improved participation
of urban women in Asian education described by Mak (Chapter 18). Consider, for
example, the policy-driven expansion of elite and private school provision across Asia
and Australia, the proliferation of private schools in China, and the rapid expansion of
the private tutoring and study sector across East Asia. Bray (2003) has documented the
negative educational and socioeconomic effects of private tutoring. Many of the con-
tributors here focus on the risk of increasing the gap between those still seeking basic
education and new cosmopolitan professional elites across the region.
In the face of these processes of cultural and economic globalization, there are four
themes running across these chapters:
1. Educational responses to ethnic, cultural and religious, gender diversity;
2. New and persistent conditions of poverty and disenfranchisement;
3. Neoliberal policy and the role of the state in the production of new human
capital; and
4. New technologies and youth cultures.
To frame these issues, we offer four narrative illustrations.

Narrative 1: In a forum with Singapore university students, Prime Minister Lee Hsieng
Loong (2004), was asked about the future viability and prosperity of a city-state. The stu-
dent pointed out that the city–states of antiquity, from Venice to Athens had been unable
to sustain themselves as commercial, cultural and political centres beyond a century. Lee’s
answer was that there were no guarantees, and that the viability of the city–state was con-
tinually on the line in the face of new and difficult economic and geopolitical conditions.
Singapore is a postcolonial city/state with ongoing and unresolved issues about
identity, affiliation, and a participatory civic sphere (Kong, 1999). It is also cited as the
 Urban Education in Asia Pacific 225

prototypical postmodern city, with a successful economy based on the capturing, medi-
ating and directing of global flows of people, goods, information and capital. Its response
to the conditions and contexts of postwar decolonialization, regional instability, and cul-
tural and economic globalization has been distinctive: a strong “top down” state and a
determination to define itself as a world city without resources and hinterland, as a con-
duit for the flows of cultural and economic globalization. In the context of major state and
corporate investments in transportation infrastructure, civil engineering, bioscience, digi-
tal and creative industries, Singapore sees its future in terms of educationally produced
human capital. This has led to funding in educational research, schools and higher educa-
tion above that of most OECD countries (Luke, Freebody, Gopinathan, & Lau, 2005).
The educational achievements of Singapore and East Asia more generally are
remarkable: Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore have overtaken
the OECD average of years of completed education, with high levels of educational
investment leading to retention, tertiary participation and adult literacy levels exceed-
ing that of many industrial and postindustrial regions in the West. These East Asian
countries have consistently produced top tier results in Maths and Science on major
international studies, such as TIMMS and PISA. Educational practices and outcomes
are under careful empirical study (Luke & Hogan, 2006). There is further extensive
work on the particular blends of pedagogic practice in East Asian classrooms, typified
as “chalk and talk” and didactic pedagogy, and their ostensive cultural patterns and
educational effects (e.g., Alexander, 2001; Mok, 2006; Watkins & Biggs, 2002). And
finally, there is an extensive international debate on “how Chinese learn maths” in East
Asian countries and China itself (Fan, 2004).
A key issue facing these “successful” educational systems is the training and
emergence of new citizen/worker identities, traced here by Hogan, Kang, and Chan
(Chapter 19). Certainly, the new technologies and multimedia corporations have cre-
ated a fertile environment for what Dooley, Kapitzke, and Luke (Chapter 20) refer to
as the “world kids” of Asia and the West, whose epistemologies and communities tra-
verse borders and cultures. Digitalization of everyday life is a driving force throughout
Asia, with extremely high uptake levels of mobile phone, digital gaming and online
communications by urban youth in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and Korea
(Lam, 2006). Dooley and colleagues go on to argue that the expansion of multinational
youth culture, spurred by ubiquitous access to digital technologies, poses both enabling
conditions and challenges for schooling – as yet unresolved as teachers and curricula
struggle to keep up with new competences, knowledges and identities.
East Asian educational systems have focused on creating new elites and a service
working class to engage with new flows of global capital and bodies, with the transna-
tional media, tourism, financial and corporate order that is reshaping Asia. This has
involved a new “edubusiness” (Luke, 2005) of international student flows, with Asia’s
best students moving en masse for higher education in the US, UK, Canada, Australia,
and New Zealand – returning as “global citizens” to build networks, cultural and eco-
nomic capital in the cities of the Asia Pacific. At the same time, the new cosmopolitans
include the large scale movement of emigrant guest workers (including construction
labor, domestic workers, and agricultural laborers) who are actually building and sup-
porting the growth of economies in both East and West (Cheah & Robbins, 1998).
226 Luke and Ismail

Funds remitted from Filipinos and Samoans working overseas are a major source of
capital for the domestic economies of these countries (Connell & Conway, 2000).

Narrative 2: In a Singapore social studies classroom, year 9 students were going over a
worksheet in a traditional teacher-centered discussion. They raised their hands and
called out answers to multiple choice questions. One worksheet question asked: “What
word describes Singaporeans?” Students raised their hands but couldn’t resist calling out
answers: “wealthy,” “successful,” “peaceful.” The correct answer was “cosmopolitan.”
Across the region, educational systems strive to build these new classes of wired, edu-
cated transnational citizen/workers. Yet the nexus between poverty and educational dis-
advantage persists – for the urban poor, for women, for linguistic, cultural and religious
minorities, for indigenous communities. Across the Asia Pacific, debates are underway
about the building and sustenance of urban cultures in the face of population movement,
economic disparity and impoverishment. Rampal (Chapter 15) documents the chal-
lenges of providing basic educational provision for children in the poorest areas of Delhi.
She captures the stark and dehumanizing inequalities they and their parents have to con-
tend with at home and in school, as well as in a public system that literally bulldozes
them, either out of their makeshift homes or into their makeshift schools, in the name of
urban “development.” The struggle for educational equality and quality for deprived
urban children continues in the legal-constitutional arena, where non-governmental
organizations can be complicit with government in support of market-driven policies
resulting in minimalist provision. Yang (Chapter 12) reports on the issues around the
migration westward of rural Chinese to the Pearl River Delta and the educational chal-
lenges of new urban concentrations. He points to the major discrepancies in educational
funding across China, despite its longstanding stated focus on social equality.
The educational issues facing the cities of the Asia Pacific turn on two moves: the
attraction of capital flows to cities; and the amelioration of the unequal distribution of
knowledge, power, language and material resources to growing populations. This puts
governments in complex and contradictory positions. In discussions with education
officials in Cambodia, they spoke of “moving up the value chain” from textile sweat-
shops to attracting Japanese, German and Korean manufacturing from Thailand and
Taiwan (Luke, 2005).
The response has been the spread of Neoliberal educational policies, whose mixed
effects are well documented in the US and UK (e.g., Lee, 2006; Nichols, Glass, &
Berliner, 2005).

Narrative 3: A visit to Thai Rajabhat Institutes took us to the “golden quadrangle,”

where Laos, China, Burma and Thailand meet at the Mekong River. Senior Thai edu-
cators explained the significant problems facing the system: A migrant population of
guest workers and refugee children, indigenous tribal peoples whose communities
were at risk from warfare, disease and drugs; and a new generation of Thai kids who
preferred videogames to textbooks, and shopping malls to temples (Luke & Luke,
2000). Standing on the riverbank, we discussed the contents of an Australian degree
program we were preparing for teacher educators and principals. They responded with
a list of contents: school based management and accountability, outcomes based
 Urban Education in Asia Pacific 227

curriculum and testing systems. The implementation of these were policies affiliated
with on post-1997 International Monetary Fund (IMF) structural adjustment policies.
These policies have been sponsored and supported by transnational forms of gover-
nance and aid, including the World Bank and IMF, Asia Development Bank, European
Union, and national aid agencies of the US, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.
However intentionally, they are enhanced by postgraduate training and research in the
US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, where many Asia Pacific educators
receive “state of the (neo-liberal) art” training in school administration, testing and
evaluation, curriculum and instruction. The parameters of these reforms would be
familiar to those in the west, advocating educational governance on performance rank-
ing, standardized testing, and the marketization of schools, development of private
educational sectors, standardization of curriculum and school-based management. As
Blackmore (Chapter 13) points out, in Australia these policies have marked a retreat
from state-sponsored equity reforms. Further, as Mak’s (Chapter 18) analysis of the
mixed improvements in the educational participation of women and girls suggests, the
effects of such policies on gender equity will need to be carefully tracked.
This presents a double challenge. On the one hand, many countries are building mod-
ern universal, secular state education. In Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and the South Pacific,
for instance, the expansion of compulsory education into secondary schools is still a cen-
tral policy goal. On the other, these same systems are moving towards corporate and mar-
ket solutions from the West that have mixed track records and collateral effects (on higher
education, see Marginson & Rhoades, 2004). In China, this had meant that while there is
an attempt to modernize and expand the state educational systems, there has been major
growth of a private school sector servicing urban elites and the new middle class.
For the schools and universities of the Asia Pacific, residual and emergent educa-
tional cultures sit side by side, often in points of historical tension. Traditional religious
and philosophic values sit alongside the didactic pedagogies of colonial tradition; tradi-
tional authority and pedagogic relations prevail in fully wired classrooms; traditional
examinations, many of which predated European colonization, are mixed with western-
style standardized achievement tests; and the provision of basic, village education sits
within the same systems that aim to produce highly specialized expertise in the new bio-
sciences, finance and business, and digital technologies. In sum, these systems must
deal with questions of modernization and persistent matters of educational access and
equity, the provision of old and new forms of cultural and social capital, against a
dynamic backdrop of hypercapitalist economies, technologies and cultures.
We began by highlighting the challenges for Singapore, arguably the most post-
modern of Asian cities and states. There educational futures sit within a nexus of ques-
tions about new material flows, cultural, religious and linguistic diversity, and the
stability and sustainability of governance and civil society. We stopped along the way
noting the classical sociological issues of educational equity facing China, India,
Australia, and the island states of the South Pacific. Our final narrative offers an
extreme shift of scale and space.

Narrative 4: In the mid-1990s, we discussed planning with educators in Kiribati, one

of the smaller and more geographically isolated of South Pacific countries. Consisting
228 Luke and Ismail

of 36 remote islands, its very existence is threatened by global warming and rising sea
levels, and urban crowding and poverty in the main island of Tarawa. There educators
face a curious dilemma: How does Kiribati continue to modernize its educational sys-
tem, using aid money to build basic primary and secondary school infrastructure, train
and credential teachers, and establish curriculum? The educational focus of its aid
donors has been on enhanced school-based management, outcomes-based curriculum,
and assessment. At the same time, it must deal with a burgeoning religious education
sector, where the fiscal and infrastructure support of multinational religious organiza-
tions exceeds that available from the state. A principal concern of the Kiribati commu-
nity is the maintenance of traditional forms of life and language in the face of “world
kids,” linguistic shift to English, and population shift to urban centers (cf. Burnett, 2005).
Captured in microcosm, these are the problems facing urban education systems of the
Asia Pacific. With the shift of economic power to Asia, to cities and to multinational
corporations, it would be tempting to look for a distinctive transnational educational
solution. Yet the state remains our best recourse for combating the “new planetary
vulgate” of corporate and market-driven policy and for addressing persistent inequality
and exploitation (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 2001). Throughout the Asia Pacific, robust
and better-funded state education systems remain the coin of the realm, with ample
opportunities and prospects for poverty amelioration, improved health and quality of
life, more equitable economic participation, political enfranchisement and expanded
civic participation, and, ultimately, the bringing together of ethnically, religiously, and
ideologically diverse populations.
The story of urban education in these countries is unfinished. But no matter how
self-same the problems may appear, there are no “off the shelf ” solutions or
approaches forthcoming from the postindustrial school systems of the North and West.
As these chapters show, the simple transportation of the Neoliberal educational agenda
is proving at best a limiting, if not exacerbating response to the perceived limits and
failures of existing systems. The authors’ preferred move is a range of locally tailored
solutions driven by local, regional and national governments – each responding to the
available resources and recourses within political economies, pedagogic institutions
and traditions, cultures and systems in dynamic and rapid evolution and revolution.
This will require rigorous empirical research, critical analysis, and a much stronger
sense of what culturally, linguistically and pedagogically works in the interests of their
diverse communities. The grounds are set for what Sa’eda (Chapter 17) terms a new
“symbiosis of traditionalism and modernity” with postmodernity: A host of distinc-
tively Asia Pacific educational inventions, blends and systems.

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12

URBAN–RURAL DISPARITIES IN EDUCATIONAL

EQUALITY: CHINA’S PRESSING CHALLENGE
IN A CONTEXT OF ECONOMIC GROWTH AND
POLITICAL CHANGE

Rui Yang
Monash University, Australia

Introduction
Equality has become a major goal of education around the world. The government of
the People’s Republic of China (PRC)1 also professes its commitment to equality, and
has taken a variety of steps to provide at least basic education to its citizens. At the
same time, China has its own interpretation of the notion of equality. This, together
with its limited ability to fund measures to work towards the goal, has had great impact
especially in rural areas. Globalization is affecting China’s policy priorities in educa-
tion, and has transformed the discursive terrain within which educational policies are
developed and enacted. Parallel to the international situation, the effects of globaliza-
tion on educational and social equality on different groups and communities vary
greatly within China, creating enormous disparities among people.
Indeed, accompanying China’s robust economic growth is that China has become
one of the countries with the largest urban–rural gap in the world.2 The income gap
between rural and urban residents has kept growing. The average income per capita of
urban residents increased from 2.8 times that of rural populations in 1995 to 3.1 in 2002
(Xinhua News Agency, 2005). Moreover, the income of the urban citizens concerned
does not count the welfare they have access to, including medical care, unemployment
insurance and minimum living relief. Considering these factors, urban residents’
income should be easily 4–6 times that of their rural counterparts.
This, however, does not tell the actual disparity between urban and rural citizens.
Rural residents have to pay their educational costs, while the central government covers
most of such costs for their urban cousins. A closer examination shows more funda-
mental problems with China’s long-practiced biased policies against rural people, lead-
ing to a widening education gap between urban and rural areas. Rural Chinese children
are thus handicapped in their pursuit of educational opportunities.
In order to portray an overall picture of the urban–rural inequalities in Chinese edu-
cation, this chapter begins by tracing the historical roots of the concerned policies.
231
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 231–248.
© 2007 Springer.
232 Yang

Policy Legacies Since 1949

Policies of educational justice are a kind of social action that needs to be observed
within certain social, historical environment (Dessler, 1989). China’s current educa-
tional disparities resulted from its long-term policy options. Therefore, it is necessary
to review the historical developments of education equity policy since the PRC was
founded in 1949.
According to the Common Principles (gongtong gangling) issued on the eve of the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) assuming national power on September 29, 1949, the
new democratic education policy should be for the masses (dazongde). This principle
represented the fundamental values of education equity. The negation of the so-called
“old education” stressed that education should be open to the broad masses of workers
and peasants, helping them learn to read and write.
However, as a country with poor financial conditions and a huge population, educa-
tional development was not only confined to the political system and ideologies, but
also hindered by its socio-economic development level and limited resources. Under
the guidance of the new political theories, with aims of fast industrialization, the new
China was confronted with a number of dilemmas and had to make hard policy
choices.

Different Educational Rights for Different Social Groups

Education for the broad masses was the basis for policy-making in the newly estab-
lished PRC in the early 1950s. Large-scale campaigns to eliminate illiteracy, the wide
spread of the “quick method of achieving literacy,” and the popularization of exemplary
successes of illiteracy elimination had unprecedented impacts. The length of schooling
was changed from 6 to 5 years in order to universalize primary education, but changed
back in just 1 year due to implementation difficulties. During the initial years of the
PRC, many adults who did not have access to basic education before received a certain
level of education in a variety of schools, including spare-time and evening schools,
accelerated courses for workers and peasants, political schools and training classes for
cadres. Since 1950, some new secondary schools were established with shortened
length of schooling, that is, 3 years. These schools admitted cadres and workers with at
least 3 years of working experience and prepared them for university studies. This became
the access to higher education for workers, peasants, and cadres.
However, as an institutional arrangement, such practice started to create issues of jus-
tice in educational opportunities in two aspects: firstly, some special privileges for a few
highly selected social groups appeared. A typical example was the popularization of
schools for children of high government officials only. These schools even caught Mao
Ze-dong’s attention. He commented on July 14, 1952 that “children of cadres should be
treated all the same without further differentiation among them; also, these schools for
the aristocracy only should be abolished, they should merge with all those for children
of the masses” (China National Institute for Educational Research, 1983, pp. 78, 144,
author’s translation). Consequently, the Central Committee of the CCP approved a
report by the Ministry of Education in October 1955 and decided to close all these
 Urban–Rural Disparities in Educational Equality 233

schools, making them open to children of both cadres and the masses living nearby.
Nevertheless, the privilege of the special social groups remained in other forms.
Secondly, it is important to point out that within the process of expanding people’s
educational rights, the definition of the people gradually changed, with clear distinc-
tion between laboring and non-laboring people, as well as the exploiting classes and
“reactionary elements.” According to the then prevalent class-struggle theory, there
was a need to foster proletariat intellectual force and exercise cultural dictatorship over
the capitalist class. Within a context of “The Class Struggle is the Most Important
Thing” ( jieji douzheng wei gang), family origin became a crucial benchmark to meas-
ure one’s political progressiveness. This evolved into a highly institutionalized policy,
“class line” ( jieji luxian). Treatment would be different in enrolment, graduate job
assignment and employment, selection for training overseas, and promotion, based on
the class status of their families. Limits were set to stop those from the exploiting and
non-laboring class family backgrounds from receiving higher education and upward
social mobility.
Therefore, although the written policy rhetoric was that everyone was equal before
examination marks, “class line” must be implemented throughout the entire admission
process. For example, the guidelines of university admission in 1965 clearly stated that
“for those who are qualified in all the three political, academic and health aspects,
selection should be first classified into different groups and then enrolment be based
on their preferences and marks. Within each group, the first priority should be given to
politically outstanding candidates. Among this year’s senior secondary school gradu-
ates with good political minds, the combination of recommendation and examination
marks will no longer suit student leaders and the children of workers, peasants and
martyrs. If these students score closely to others, preferences should go to them”
(China National Institute for Educational Research, 1983, p. 380). There were two
kinds of criteria, political (“Red”) and academic (“Expert”)3 in the assessment of both
the qualification for and the capacity of higher learning. Their relationship then
became a highly contested political and theoretical issue in the educational circle.
While such policies have been officially terminated, their legacy – different educa-
tional rights for different people – has survived, even further rooted in the Chinese
society despite the fact that winners and losers have changed dramatically, with those
in power remaining at the top, working classes back to disadvantaged positions, and
rural people at the bottom.

Mass Education vs. Elite Education

In addition to the expansion of working people’s educational rights, another urgent
task of the new PRC was, through formally institutionalized establishments, to train
professionals badly needed by economic development and national defense. The
dilemma faced by education which was supposed to be open to workers and peasants
was, and for a long time, vacillation between equity and efficiency. In the then official
language, this was the relationship between “popularization” ( puji) and “the raising of
standards” (tigao). This, in fact, was a matter of mass or elite education. The choice
was to decide which was more important for the nation: the improvement of citizens’
234 Yang

general quality, or providing selected people with full education in order to train some
with outstanding abilities. In daily practice, this meant a choice between an elite or
mass education oriented to the some selected groups and the majority respectively.
This also had implications for educational policy making in deciding the priority
between basic and higher education.
During the developments in the 1950s and 1960s which centered on implementing
the 5-year plans of national economic building and the Soviet-model industrialization,
China’s actual policy opted for elite education. National investment concentrated in
higher education, whose recipients enjoyed tuition fee waivers, living stipends and free
medical care. Accordingly, the distribution of higher education institutions and disci-
plinary structure were heavily imbalanced with particular emphases on major capital
(industrial) cities and science and technology subjects, linking directly to heavy indus-
try and national defense. A number of institutions were selected by the government to
invest focally. They were designated as key-point institutions, under the jurisdiction of
the Ministry of Education or other ministries. There was strict selection at every level
within the system, in order to secure the best quality of students.
Looking back on such a policy choice, its pros and cons become evident. The most
obvious advantage was to provide strong intellectual and personnel support for indus-
trialization and national defense building. Its major problem was the extremely imbal-
anced distribution of educational resources, leading to longstanding ignorance of basic
education, damage to the majority people’s educational rights and a huge education gap
between urban and rural areas. With its focus on higher education, China prioritized
efficiency (although whether or not Chinese higher education was efficient remains
questionable). The instrumental value of education became dominant. Within a planned
system, education resources were distributed based entirely on the national develop-
ment goals, with little consideration of local needs, causing regional disparities.
A telling example was the shortage of national key-point higher education institutions
in the central and western regions. The monopoly of educational resources by and the
limited financial capacity of the central government determined the unfortunate combi-
nation of stress on higher education and weak rural education. The legacies of this pol-
icy option are serious damage to equality in education and limitations on contemporary
nation building imposed by the low level and poor quality of the education that most
Chinese citizens have received. The option has by no means proven effective.

Various Paths to Educational Development

During the initial days of the PRC, the broad masses of workers and peasants were
granted educational rights directly by political revolution. The way to eliminate illiter-
acy and to universalize education was also in a form of revolution-strong political
campaigns plus large-scale mass movements. There was an idealistic expectation that
popularization of education would rapidly change the educational outlook of Chinese
workers and peasants.4
These emphases on basic education for the majority immediately contradicted the
goal to train specialists to develop heavy industry. As the comprehensive learning from
the Soviet Union went further, the Soviet model of planned economy and a highly
 Urban–Rural Disparities in Educational Equality 235

centralized higher education system were established. China’s higher education entered
into a new stage of institutionalization. The quest for quality and higher standards led to
cancellation of speeded-up secondary schools for workers and peasants. In July 1955,
the then Ministries of Education and Higher Education documented that the quick
methods of learning had not worked in practice (Gao, 1996, p. 22). Meanwhile, the
practice of selecting cadres from workplaces to be sent directly to universities was also
terminated. The stresses on higher standards stopped children of workers and peasants
from going to universities and even schools. Kairov’s pedagogical theories and the
Soviet school system dominated primary to higher education. A strict, highly compli-
cated teaching administration system resulted from the indiscriminate imitation of the
Soviet experience and “proletarian dogmatism” (China National Institute for Educa-
tional Research, 1983, p. 221).
Mao Ze-dong strongly opposed such formal, highly institutionalized Soviet-style
education, and never tried to hide his criticism. He initiated “educational revolutions”
in the 1960s based on his educational ideals and values. Maoist educational revolutions
had multiple dimensions, one of which was to stick to equity. In contrast to the preva-
lent policy with foci on senior secondary and higher education, Mao’s main attention
was to basic education for the majority Chinese, especially in rural areas. He stressed the
educational rights of working people’s children, and tried to achieve these goals by doing
away with examinations and shortening the length of schooling. The first approach was
epitomized in the 1958 educational revolution, which relaxed the limits for university
entry and set a precedent for recommended enrolments. The second approach was to
devolve administrative power to lower levels of government and to utilize multiple sources
and methods to develop education.
Mao’s thoughts and efforts to reform education continued well into the Cultural
Revolution (1966–1976). Many phenomena that were popular during the period in fact
emerged much earlier. For instance, when the Ministry of Education organized technical
secondary school admission and job assignment in 1963, selection was required to be
based on a combination of examination scores and recommendations from “people’s com-
munes.” Meanwhile, various regions implemented a new policy in secondary schools of
agriculture, forestry, medicine, and teacher training to send graduates back to where they
came from. In 1964, an experimental class of on-service workers was set up at Beijing
Institute of Iron and Steel. The entry criteria required students to be politically progres-
sive, with an equivalent of qualification for senior secondary graduation, in good
health, under the age of 27, and with at least 3 years of working experience. Admission
was based on both examination results and recommendations. Students were required to
go back to their previous work units upon graduation, a more developed form of the
widely practiced university admission policy during the Cultural Revolution to enroll
students directly from workers, peasants and soldiers on the basis of political recom-
mendations only.
In retrospect, despite Mao’s great concern for educational justice, especially the
rights of average workers and peasants, his revolutionary way to break and even sur-
mount the accumulation of cultural capital in order for the disadvantaged to achieve
dramatic changes was far from successful. Mao rejected the relatively reasonable exam-
ination approach entirely but did not propose anything that was more effective. During
236 Yang

the Cultural Revolution, the recommendation approach evolved into political deals, and
justice was completely suppressed and wiped out. Its actual effect was great damage to
the majority people’s educational rights. Moreover, Mao’s personal obsession with fam-
ily origin led to wide-ranging deprivation of non-working class people’s educational
rights, and thus created injustice of other sorts. The detriment of Mao’s approach to
educational revolution by attacking established social institutions has been well docu-
mented. One lesson we learn from such history is the possibility of using the institution-
alized power of the state to promote justice in education. One way is through compulsory
education. For the Chinese people, after striving for an education that is open to the
masses, the belated Law of Compulsory Education5 in 1986 was more a fortune for its
final birth than a pity for its lateness.
From a historical point of view, the dilemmas faced in the 1950s and 1960s linger
on. Chinese education is still confronted with difficult choices between education for
the elite or masses, with focus on basic or higher education. One particular issue that
has never been settled is the balance between education in urban and rural areas.

Urban–Rural Disparities in Primary and

Secondary Education
Urban–rural disparity in education is manifested in almost all aspects of basic and sec-
ondary education. It is especially pronounced in educational opportunities and resources.

Disparities in Educational Opportunities

Inequalities in educational opportunities are epitomized in the gap between enrolment
and admission rates at various stages of schooling. The gap widens as the level of
education is higher, taking a shape of an inverted pyramid. By 1986 when the Law of
Compulsory Education was passed, primary and junior secondary education had already
been universalized in urban areas. However, in rural areas, the enrolment rate of school-
age children was below 95%. On average, only 65% of primary school graduates con-
tinued to receive secondary education, and 13 provinces had a percentage lower than
this. Among them, Guizhou, Guangxi, and Tibet were below 50%. In 1999, the rural
secondary education enrolment rate increased to 91%, with 15 provinces below 90%,
and Guizhou, Guangxi, and Tibet were respectively at 72.4, 75.7, and 38.1%.
Nationwide, 1.3 million primary school graduates entered society. In the late 1980s,
more than 4 million left primary school, and by 1999, the number was still high at 1.12
million. From 1980 to 2000, 3.8 million primary school students failed to complete
their primary education.
By 2000, senior secondary education had already been universalized in most urban
areas, while the nine years of compulsory education still had not been universalized in
10% of rural areas by 2004. Among them, some had not even universalized primary
education. China now maintains an enrolment rate of 99.1% of its school-aged children,
but due to the size of the population, the remaining 0.9% means that at least 1 million
school-aged children are not enrolled. National statistics show that 121.6 million
 Urban–Rural Disparities in Educational Equality 237

children were enrolled at primary schools in 2002, which was 98.52% of the national
age cohort. This means 1.75 million school-aged children were not enrolled.
Compared to the disparities in primary education, those in junior secondary educa-
tion are even more evident. By 1995, the 9 years of compulsory education had been
universalized in China’s large and medium-sized cities, but only 78.4% rural areas had
achieved this. Since then, there has been a 10% gap in the popularization of compul-
sory education between urban and rural areas.
According to Zhang Yu-lin (2004), about 150 million rural children lost their opportu-
nities to receive junior secondary education from 1986 to 2000. Among them, 32 million
were deprived of primary education, 50 million stopped schooling after primary education,
and 30 million dropped out during their junior secondary education. A survey of six rep-
resentative counties in late 2002 showed that the dropout rate of rural children in
junior secondary education was serious. All the six counties crossed the bottom-line
of 3% dropout rate in junior secondary education set by the Ministry of Education,
four of them were higher than 20%, two were even higher than 30%, and one was
more than 50%.
In 2001–2002, only 75–76.6% of the 15–17 age cohorts actually completed nine years
of compulsory education. Seven provinces were below 60%. Although primary school
enrolment rate reached 99%, only 89% graduated. In junior schools, the enrolment and
graduation rates were 90 and 76% respectively. Every year, there were 5 million school-
aged children who did not complete their junior secondary education. From 1987 to
2002, 30.6 million students discontinued their junior secondary education. The over-
whelming majority of them were in the countryside. In some regions in the far northwest,
the percentage was as high as 50%.
Educational disparities in senior secondary education are even more obvious. The
urban–rural disparity widens further in senior secondary education. By now, senior
secondary education has been universalized in China’s developed urban areas, while
many rural areas are still struggling with implementing the 9 years’ compulsory edu-
cation. The admission rate to senior secondary schools increased from 40% in 1985 to
55.4% in 1999 in urban areas, but decreased from 22.3 to 18.6% during the same
period in rural areas. Among China’s 31 provinces, 15 had an urban–rural gap of more
than 300%, with five higher than 400%. Shandong and Henan, two provinces with
large population sizes, were 440 and 450% respectively.
Inequalities in senior secondary education are closely related to the increase in
education costs, the scarcity of educational opportunities caused by the shortage of
senior schools in rural areas, and the poor quality of primary and junior secondary
education. However, the longstanding urban-biased enrolment policy should not be
ignored. This was related to the key-point school system that copied the practice in
higher education.
For example, there was only one key-point senior high school, Jiayu Number One
Middle School, at Jiayu County in Hubei province by the 1990s. The minimum entry
score set by the local education authorities for rural applicants was 50–80 marks higher
than that for those living within the county town. The result of such arrangements was that
70% of those enrolled at the school were from the county town, whereas the population of
the town was only 20% of the county.
238 Yang

Similarly, the score for entry into technical secondary schools/polytechnics at Taiyuan,
the capital of Shanxi province, was always set higher for rural applicants – 532 and 376
for rural and urban students respectively in 1998. Such policies have long been practiced,
on the basis that they aim at “relaxing employment pressure in cities” and “reducing
factors causing instability.”

Disparities in Educational Resources

Disparities in educational resources demonstrate well the urban–rural gap. They are
clearly shown in the announced educational expenditures reported by the Ministry of
Education, and are particularly reflected in primary and junior secondary education, as
illustrated by Table 1 below.
When only a handful of people benefit from unequal distribution of educational
resources, the majority are necessarily subject to the damage they cause. In primary
and secondary education, an example of such damage is the fact that local govern-
ments have been prevented from meeting salary obligations to teachers, depriving
many children of their education rights.
This resulted from recent reforms of fiscal decentralization, leading to the devolu-
tion of responsibilities over both revenue collection and public expenditures to lower
levels of government – the province, county, township, and village. Such a decentral-
ized system hampers efforts to meet goals of distributional equity. Given overall
budget scarcity, it is not surprising that this led to increasing inequity in the provision
of public goods and services across regions through much of the reform period. In
many poor areas, in particular, the lack of local government revenues or subsidies from
upper levels of government has led to a fiscal crisis. Local governments are therefore
not able to finance high quality public services such as education (Park, Rozelle,
Wong, & Ren, 1996).
Beginning in 1988, the Chinese government promoted the diversification of educa-
tional financing, with the state budget as the main source, supplemented by a variety
of avenues for channeling financial resources towards education. Formalized into

Table 1. Educational expenditures per student, 1997–2003

Year Primary education (Chinese yuan) Junior secondary education (Chinese yuan)

National Rural Disparity National Rural Disparity

1997 333.8 275.06 58.75 591.38 468.06 123.32

1998 370.79 305.62 65.17 610.65 478.25 132.40
1999 414.78 345.77 69.01 639.63 508.58 131.05
2000 497.58 418.97 78.61 79.81 533.54 146.27
2001 645.28 550.96 94.32 817.02 656.18 160.84
2002 813.13 708.39 104.74 960.51 795.84 164.67
2003 931.54 810.07 121.47 1052.00 871.79 180.21

Source: China Education and Research Network (2005).

 Urban–Rural Disparities in Educational Equality 239

Article 53 of Education Law in 1995, this reform in part was a response to the grow-
ing scarcity of fiscal resources, which made diversification attractive as a way to stabi-
lize educational financing. These changes have had a pronounced effect on the equity
of educational expenditures. The highest provisional primary educational expenditure
per student in Shanghai is now ten times greater than the lowest, and this ratio has
roughly doubled in the past decade. Studies have found very large differences in educa-
tional expenditures within provinces, and even within counties (Tsang, 2002). There is
an urgent need to recognize the policy importance of reversing these trends, allocate
targeted funds to reduce growing inequities, and pay teachers’ wages.
Rural teachers began to be in arrears with their salary since the late 1980s, soon after
the Law of Compulsory Education was issued, when education was decentralized. By
April 2000, the default reached 13.56 billion yuan covering 27 of its then 30 provinces
including Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, and Tibet. According to the Deputy Chairman
of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress, 12.7 billion yuan teacher payment
was to be materialized by July 2002. This was the part that was supposed to be guaran-
teed by the central government. Another part which occupied 30–50% of teacher pay-
ment classified as local government allowances became legitimately defaulted because
its distribution was set to be dependent on the local budget situation.
In addition to the failure to materialize the guarantee and allowances respectively
promised by national and local governments, two other groups that warrant the atten-
tion of researchers are minban (those hired to teach in rural schools but do not receive
regular salary from government) and daike (substitute or temporary) teachers
(Andreas, 2004; Sargent & Hannum, 2005). The central government was once required
to “solve minban teachers’ problems completely” by the end of the last century. Yet,
China now still has a few hundred thousand of them, and their salary can hardly keep
their families alive. The total number of daike teachers is even larger, and their treat-
ment has been worse. For example, at Xuzhou, a reasonably developed city in Jiangshu
province, the monthly salary for daike teachers was 150 yuan in 2004, an amount with
absolutely no consideration for basic survival, which could not vindicate the least the
dignity of any rural school teacher.

Urban–Rural Disparities in Higher Education

As an even more scarce resource and watershed for social mobility, competition for
higher education in China is far tougher. Those who are politically, economically and
culturally advantaged are endowed with much more power to win such a competition.
The urban-rural inequalities in higher education are thus more pronounced.

Opportunities for Receiving Higher Education

The unequal opportunities in higher education are firstly an accumulative result of
those in primary and secondary schools. The disparate urban–rural compulsory edu-
cation system positions rural children very unfavorably from their first day of school
in the race for academic success. In the context of education funds shortage, rural
240 Yang

residents cannot rely on their own resources to shoulder the burden of compulsory
education, and their children are often eliminated in junior secondary or even primary
schools. This leads to the fact that 80% of rural school-aged children cannot have the
opportunities to compete for university entrance examination. Thus, few rural students
win the opportunity to receive higher education. Moreover, opportunity for higher edu-
cation remains highly controlled by the central education authorities and their distribu-
tion has been extremely imbalanced. These, together with the corrupt redistribution by
the advantaged social groups, determine and further widen the gap in higher education
opportunities between urban–rural populations.
For decades, as a result of the planned economy and the policy-makers’ immediate
interests, the planned enrolment figures of higher education institutions are distributed
according to regions, with privileges to Beijing and Shanghai nationally, while within
provinces, privileges go to the capital cities. Tsinghua University, the most prestigious
Chinese university in Beijing, serves as a good example here. Within the past 20 years,
the number of local Beijing students it has admitted was four times more than the sum
of those from Jiangshu, Anhui, Hubei and Sichuan.
In 2001, 18% of students enrolled at Tsinghua were from Beijing, while Beijing’s
population was only 0.9% of the national. The enrolment rates in various regions
differed dramatically. A score that could safeguard a place at Tsinghua or Peking uni-
versities for local Beijing students would not be high enough for students from outside
Beijing to enter other national key-point universities, while a score for local Beijing
residents to enter other national key-point universities was usually far below the
required for students in other regions to enter average universities including local ones.
In 1999, a local Beijing student could be admitted to universities if she/he scored an
average of 43.6% in all subjects. University enrolment rate in Beijing was 72.6% in
that year, even reaching 78.9% in sciences, in marked contrast to 30% in most other
provinces.
Within provinces, the contrast has been equally sharp. Taking Shandong as an exam-
ple, the entry score to non-key-point universities in 2000 was substantially lower for
students from Jinan, the capital of the province. Compared to the highest entry score,
the difference was 63 marks. Consequently, children from disadvantaged agricultural
areas were left far behind.
If we see higher learning institutions enrolment as a preliminary distribution which
clearly favors children in the national and provincial capitals, the redistribution in the
admission process further privileges those who are in power and can exert their influ-
ence on the process. The fact is, applicants reaching the entry score always outnumber
the actual enrolment. This creates much “flexibility” for those with a variety of special
backgrounds, ranging from parents working in higher education [university staff are
usually protected by the so-called “professional welfare” (hangye fuli) and enjoy the
priority to select institutions and majors first], to clearly specified “flexible quota”
( jidong zhibiao), “recommended students” (baosongsheng), and those admitted on
the basis of their specialties (tezhaosheng). None of these special considerations have
much to do with rural children.
As a matter of fact, the special considerations pave the way for corrupt behaviors
that have been witnessed for decades, but particularly intensified within recent years,
 Urban–Rural Disparities in Educational Equality 241

as shown by some widely reported instances including the fraudulent practices of rec-
ommended students in Hunan, the shady enrolment deal at Shanghai Jiaotong
University, and the wide-scale malpractices of students admitted with specialty in
sports in Xi’an. These examples are truly dire, as corruption in Chinese higher educa-
tion is also rife. Corruption contributes much to furthering the urban–rural divide.
Inequalities in higher education have been repeatedly confirmed by surveys espe-
cially since the 1990s. A large-scale study undertaken jointly by the World Bank and the
Chinese Ministry of Education in April 1998 surveyed 70,000 students enrolled respec-
tively in 1994 and 1997 at 37 universities at various levels (Zhang & Liu, 2005). It
helped us build an overall picture: on average, the difference of educational opportuni-
ties between urban and rural areas was 5.8 times nationwide, with 8.8 and 3.4 times
respectively in national key-point and provincial universities. This was bigger than the
income disparity of 2.8 times. It also showed the disparity became more striking from
1994 to 1997.
As early as June 1982, some scholars found that 22.7% of students enrolled at
Nanjing and Nanjing Normal Universities were from rural family background, while
the proportion of rural population in the province was 80.3% at that time. That is to say
an urban child’s chance to receive higher education was 14 times bigger than her/his
rural peers. In the 1990s, some scholars conducted surveys of students from different
family backgrounds at a variety of universities including Harbin Institute of Shipping
Engineering in the far northeast, Wuhan and Zhengzhou Universities right in central
China and Xiamen University in the costal southeast. They found that the proportion
of rural students in these institutions was slightly higher than 25%. Another survey
conducted in Chongqing when it was still the capital of the southeast Sichuan province
found the proportion was 39.2%. The 13.8% difference was mainly due to the lower
status of the institutions in Chongqing. Only two of the eight universities were in the
national key-point category. These findings demonstrate that the gap in higher educa-
tion opportunities between urban and rural students is much more dramatic in the
relatively more prestigious universities, and tends to reduce a bit in provincial higher
education institutions (Zhang & Liu, 2005).
Zhang and Liu (2005) reveal the inverted pyramid shape of the disparities among
different social strata in Chinese higher education. They collected data at the two most
prestigious Peking and Tsinghua Universities. Table 2 below shows the sources of the
undergraduate students at the two universities in the 1990s. The percentages of stu-
dents from rural backgrounds were lower than those at the institutions in Chongqing,
and those at Wuhan and Xiamen Universities too. This further confirms the trend: the
more prestigious the institution, the lower the percentage of rural students.
To illustrate, in the most prestigious Peking and Tsinghua Universities which pull
together the best national higher education resources and produce “the elite of the
elite,” the urban–rural disparity is even more striking. The two institutions together
recruited 5,080 undergraduate students. Among these, 17.8% (902) were from rural
areas, while the proportion of urban population was 70%.
Zhang and Liu (2005) also point out that children from family backgrounds of fac-
tory workers, civil servants and professionals were respectively 5, 25, and 37 times
more likely to receive higher education at eight institutions in Beijing in 1980 than their
242 Yang

Table 2. Student sources at Peking and Tsinghua Universities

Year Peking University Tsinghua University

Total Rural Percentages Total Rural Percentage

enrolments students enrolment student

1990 – – – 1994 433 21.7

1991 – – 18.8 2031 385 19.0
1992 1810 403 22.3 2080 381 18.3
1993 910 168 18.5 2210 352 15.9
1994 – – 20.1 2203 407 18.5
1995 2089 436 20.9 2241 451 20.1
1996 2164 425 19.6 2298 431 18.8
1997 2211 420 19.0 2320 452 19.5
1998 2240 415 18.5 2462 510 20.7
1999 2425 396 16.3 2663 506 19.0

Source: Zhang and Liu (2005).

peers from the countryside. By the same approach and related to the aforementioned
studies of institutions at Harbin, Wuhan, and Zhengzhou, they conclude that compared
to workers, civil servants and professionals, the ratios for a peasant to be able to send
her/his children to go to Harbin Institute of Shipping Engineering in 1990 were
1:3:26.8:22:5 respectively, to enter Wuhan University in 1995 were 1:3.7:32.7:21.1,
Xiamen and Zhengzhou Universities were 1:2.9:30.3:14.4, and the eight institutions in
Chongqing were 1:2.3:13.9:6.4.4 respectively. Based on the data from the 37 institu-
tions, they found that on average the opportunity ratios for peasants to send their chil-
dren to ordinary Chinese universities in comparison to workers, civil servants,
businesspeople and professionals were 1:2.5:17.8:12.8:9.4. The ratios turn into
1:4:31.7:22.6:17.4 for the first tier national key-point higher education institutions.
Generally, rural children are 5.6 times less likely to be able to receive higher education
than their urban counterparts.
A further scrutiny shows that even if rural students are admitted to universities,
they are more likely to study the least popular subjects. A study of Wuhan University
first-year undergraduate students in 1995 found students from the countryside con-
centrated in majors that received little attention while students from family back-
grounds of civil servants and professionals occupied 59.4% of majors in computer
science and 80% in international trade and banking. This finding was confirmed by
the survey of the eight institutions in Choingqing, which found 24.8% of those
enrolled in the most popular subjects were rural students whose presence in the more
traditional subjects was 54.8%. Their findings have been confirmed by a number of
more recent studies.

Enrolled Students from Poor Rural Families

The issue of university students from impoverished rural areas began to catch people’s
attention since 1997 when Chinese universities began to charge students tuition and
 Urban–Rural Disparities in Educational Equality 243

accommodation fees. University fee policy does not favor those living in rural areas
with little money. Rising tuition fees have substantially increased the difficulties of
poor rural families in sending their children to universities. Even for the already
enrolled, it is extremely difficult to finish their university education. According to the
statistics collected by Jiangxi provincial education commission, 10.5% of the total stu-
dent population within 32 higher education institutions in the province was from poor
families, of which 5% of these totally lost their capacity to support their children.
Similarly, statistics from Helongjiang province show that 11.8% of the students on
27 campuses in the province were from poor families in the countryside, and 4.9% of
the student population was from families in absolute poverty. Such students occupied
10% of the total national university student population.
By the late 1990s, when student fees were considered relatively low, a student needed
at least 10,000–10,500 yuan annually for a 10-month academic year. Such an amount
was already astronomical to many rural families. According to a survey in Shandong
province, only 8.01% of students’ families could cope with the whole amount on their
own, 22.43% could only manage half of the amount, 43.68% could afford less than one
third, and 10.2% of students felt absolutely helpless with the amount. Without sufficient
financial support, these students’ academic careers are under threat. According to a sur-
vey in Hubei Province in 1995, 40% of students had to limit their expense below
150 yuan monthly, and 10% less than 100 yuan, while a university student would nor-
mally spend nearly 200 yuan monthly at that time (Yang, 2003).
The straitened circumstances exert strong impact on students’ spiritual and social
life. Some are often under mental pressure. The Chinese governments at various lev-
els and higher education institutions have worked together to have some policies on
stage. Yet, within a globalized context of competitive culture, corporate managerial-
ism, efficiency and accountability in higher education worldwide, “efficiency” has
been given the highest priority in China (Yang, 2004). Such a policy orientation
seems to be justified in a context where central governments devolve authority to
lower levels in the hierarchy, a response to calls for flexibility that was absent in the
old system, but is also a mechanism for “passing the buck.” The central authority
finds itself acutely short of resources and decides to hand responsibility to other tiers
and new actors, especially individual institutions and local governments. University
students from poor rural families will thus continue to be a knotty issue into the
coming years.

Concluding Remarks: Calling for Institutional Reforms

Educational gap is only part of the overall picture of urban–rural disparity in China.
Many of these disparities resulted from China’s institutional arrangements. The long-
standing dual structure of economy and social system featuring a great divide between
cities and the countryside is the social and institutional reason for urban–rural educational
disparities. The city-countryside duality was an institutional arrangement in the planned
system. It might have worked to some extent under specific times and places. It set
clearly defined boundaries between cities and countryside and their residents. For more
244 Yang

than half a century, China’s policies have followed the mantra “agriculture feeds indus-
try and countryside supports cities.” Heavy industry has been high on the government
agenda. Cities and their residents have thus benefited from such a policy choice, at the
expense of the countryside and rural population. The very strict permanent residence
registration policy practiced in the planned economy effectively prevented rural resi-
dents from moving into cities. The gap between urban and rural populations was insti-
tutionally legitimized and further enhanced as time went on.
The urban–rural duality has had huge impact on education. First, the imbalanced
and differentiated economic structure prioritizing urban economy over the countryside
has led to different economic development levels and differences of affluence between
urban and rural people, which in turn determined the disparities in educational oppor-
tunities and resources.
As noted above, the 9 years of compulsory education have not been universalized in
some of China’s remote rural areas. Research has repeatedly demonstrated that financial
shortage is the major reason for rural children to drop out. Moreover, due to the dualistic
structure, current education system is oriented to cities. Educational resources from gov-
ernments favor urban education. While the best resources are always in capital cities, the
best resources from rural areas have gravitated towards cities too. Furthermore, the dual-
istic society has helped to shape different educational values among urban and rural peo-
ple, which further enhance the existing disparities. Urban parents have much higher
expectations and more concern with their children’s education success.
There are multiple reasons within the education system as well. While the 9 years of
compulsory education is a historical event in Chinese history of educational develop-
ment, a close scrutiny reveals a clear tendency to prioritize urban education. In fact,
many local education policy documents state explicitly “cities first, countryside second.”
In other words, these policy arrangements acknowledge that urban compulsory educa-
tion is more important than that in the countryside, although compulsory education by
nature represents an ideal of equal rights and responsibilities. They also recognize that
urban children have the priority to obtain their rights to receive compulsory education
before their peers in rural regions.
Other factors with the education system also deserve special attention. Key-point
schools, for example, are China-specific. Seen especially from its effect, it is a typical
urban-biased policy. Geographically, at least 90% such schools are located in cities.
This contrasts sharply to the fact that major work of China’s basic education should be
in rural areas. Key-point school system ranging from basic to higher education strength-
ens the imbalanced distribution of educational resources, creates a handful of winners
and many losers, and facilitates the existing urban–rural set up.
Another factor is that China has been practicing a discriminating university student
admissions policy, which gives preferences to students from major cities. This was
originally designed to ensure that the best students in underdeveloped areas could have
a chance to attend key institutions and enjoy the same quality of education. However, in
practice it widened the urban–rural gap in higher educational opportunities (Yuan,
2003). Meanwhile, there has not been much difference in tuition fees charged by national
key-point and average provincial universities. Rural residents thus have been doubly
discriminated: pay higher fees to receive education of lower quality.
 Urban–Rural Disparities in Educational Equality 245

It goes without saying that in the past 56 years, China has made great progress in
educational development, expanded its educational system rapidly, and reached out to
more people of all ages than in any previous period in history. It has attempted to
mobilize the entire population to achieve universal literacy over a relatively short
period and has devised new ways to expand and deliver all levels of schooling to its cit-
izenry. This has been achieved in a context of financial stringency, huge population
base, strong central state and frequent political twists and turns. The primary goal of
compulsory education has, however, yet to be accomplished in rural and remote areas.
China’s recent spectacular economic growth provides sound basis for further edu-
cational development. However, most rural residents in China have not shared the
prosperity enjoyed by the urban population in coastal regions. The educational gap
among urban and rural segments reflects both the widespread disparity in the level
of economic development and the longstanding historical and socio-cultural differ-
ences between cities and countryside. The inequality of education in China is even
more serious for certain rural populations such as women, the handicapped and mem-
bers of ethnic minority groups. The combination of these could further aggravate edu-
cational problems. For example, a very high percentage of rural disabled children who
need special education programs have never been able to go to elementary school.
Most regular schools are not equipped or prepared, pedagogically or emotionally, to
teach them.
The existing institutional arrangement for budget formulation enables the budgeting
process to involve few participants. The separation of demands of citizens from the
spending priorities of county government has resulted to some extent in the lack of
social equity in the provision of public services, and the most serious problem is that
the needs of the poorest and the most needy citizens are overlooked. Because of this
separation, citizens have to be self-reliant in solving the problems outside the purview
of government budgeting. The spending priorities of county governments have to be
changed and the political configuration behind such priorities has to be challenged.
As economic reform has exacerbated the unequal distribution of educational invest-
ment and further increased inequality in educational opportunity and attainment, social
policy becomes more important. There is an urgent need for changes to established
institutions. Researchers are duty-bound to alert policy makers to the existence of wide-
spread educational discrimination against rural people and the pervasive residence-
based inequality. This becomes an even more arduous and pressing task in the context
of globalization, a discourse always used by the Chinese leadership to legitimize its
emphasis on economic growth over the development of new social relations, including
more equal distribution of goods and services and educational opportunities.
Internationally, literature on the politics of globalization has brought to light how
the discursive terrain within which educational policy is developed and enacted has
been reconfigured, and how this reconfiguration has undermined the goal of equality
and social inclusion in education. The hegemonic neo-liberal conception of globalization
has become dominant in China, where social efficiency goals of education rule over tra-
ditional social and cultural concerns regarding the development of the individual and
needs of the community. Current policy shift towards privatization has compromised the
goals of access and equality and has widened inequalities.
246 Yang

All hope, however, is not lost. Globalization need not necessarily be interpreted entirely
in neo-liberal terms. Responses to globalization require imaginative actions locally and
globally. In order to tame the excesses of the market and work with globalization, China’s
education policymakers need to be both creative in the way they think and committed to
the potential that education has for building democratic communities. Effective actions
are badly needed to narrow the urban-rural disparity in education. This requires some fun-
damental institutional changes in many aspects of education policy in particular, and more
generally in some core parts of China’s social and economic policies.

Notes
1. I use “People’s Republic of China” and “China” interchangeably throughout this chapter for ease of
expression. The situations of educational equalities in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan are not included
in this chapter. I recognize that, in constitutional terms, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan are all parts of
China.
2. According to the Xinhua News Agency survey, in 2002, the top 1% of people with the highest income
owned 6.1% of the total income of the society, 0.5% points higher than 1995. The top 5% of people with
the highest income have nearly 20% of the total income of the society, 1.1% points higher than 1995.
The top 10% of people with highest income have 32% of the total income of the society, 1.2% points
higher than 1995. While striking disparities also exist within urban residents, nationwide, the imbal-
anced wealth distribution is particularly reflected by an ever-increasing urban–rural disparity.
3. “Red” and “Expert” were the terms coined in the Mao era to refer respectively to strong political conscience
and professional and academic excellence.
4. In 1955, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China issued its decision to elimi-
nate illiteracy nationwide among young people within seven years. In 1956, the National Labor Union
passed its decision to achieve this among workers within three years. Also in 1956, the CCP Central
Committee required in its outline for agricultural development during 1956–1967 that “illiteracy should
be eliminated within five to seven years based on local conditions,” and “primary compulsory education
should be universalized within seven to twelve years.” In 1958, the CCP Central Committee required
that illiteracy be eliminated nationwide and primary education universalized within 3 to 5 years, and
within about 15 years, young people and adults who were willing and qualified were able to receive
higher education.
5. In China, compulsory education consists of 6 years primary and 3 years junior secondary education.

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13

EQUITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE IN AUSTRALIAN

EDUCATION SYSTEMS: RETROSPECT
AND PROSPECT

Jill Blackmore
Deakin University, Australia

Space, place, scale and flows are central in the formation of Australian national identity;
marked by iconic landmarks and landscape. Australia’s positioning in relation to global
West/East and North/South binaries is constantly re-defined with shifting alliances.
Australia, despite its outback image, has been a highly urbanized nation state since set-
tlement. In 2005, over 50% of its 20 million population are concentrated in five cities
clinging to the coastline. Mythologies circulate around egalitarian traditions of mate-
ship originating in convict anti-authoritarianism and war, but also the success of mul-
ticulturalism marked by the lack of overt racial conflict as in the USA and UK. But
national identity has been forged on masculinist and racialized traditions including
women as the complimentary to the masculine norm, and excluding the “racialized
other” – both the indigenous population and Asian immigrants. White Australia in
1945–1975 underwent a period of relative prosperity under the paternalistic welfare
state, with a reducing gap in income between men and women, and between rich and
poor, creating a “surplus of hope” (Hage, 2003). But in 2005, there is widening gap in
incomes between rich and poor, between men and women, non-indigenous and indige-
nous. Under the post welfare state produced by neo liberal reforms, there is a “scarcity
of hope.” Feelings of intensified risk produce a form of “paranoid nationalism” (Hage,
2003) and a flight to “individualism.”

A Surplus of Hope
People flows in have been more through migration due to imperialism, wars and
famine than travel out due to work. Australian national identity has been shaped by
waves of immigration after the initial invasion by English colonizers and successive
flows of English, Irish, Scots and other Europeans. This homogeneous whiteness was
intensified by waves of post-war refugees from Central Europe (Jews, Catholic Italians
and orthodox Greeks) disrupted only after 1972 with the influx of Laotian, Vietnamese,
249
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 249–264.
© 2007 Springer.
250 Blackmore

Cambodian, Chinese, Malaysian, Indonesian, Christian and Muslim Lebanese, Africans,

and more recently, Muslim refugees from Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq. Immigrant pop-
ulations constitute 98% of the population, overwhelming the indigenous traditional
owners. Each successive wave of newcomers after settlement met with discrimination
from established immigrant groups based on cultural, linguistic, religious and “racial-
ized” differences. By 1985, nearly a quarter of Australians were born overseas and only
70% of Anglo Celtic origin compared to 90% in 1947, with most immigrants settling
into inner city Melbourne or Sydney. In 2005, 41% of the population now have at least
one parent born overseas. Whereas issues of race have dominated the USA and UK for
a long time, “with its history of migration, the White Australian Policy and more recent
policy of multiculturalism, ethnicity has (only now) received much more attention in
Australia” (Tsolidis, 2001, p. 4).
Place and space dominate Australian mindsets. Viewed by eighteenth century impe-
rialist planners as an outpost of Western culture and trade, located in, but marginal to,
the Asia Pacific, Australians know “themselves” relative to “the other.” Australia has
been both colonized (economically, politically and culturally by the UK and then USA
post-1945) and colonizer (e.g., of New Guinea), complicit in maintaining the British
Empire. This produces multiple, often conflicting, legacies and loyalties shaping
Australian identity, further confused by the increasing pressures of the latest phase of
“globalization.” Old loyalties dissipate due to both collapse of time/space and new
ones emerge due to changing relativities of place. While England and the USA are
geographically distant, past bonds are now confused by new regional loyalties with
NAFTA and the EU. Meanwhile, Australia’s presence in Asia-Pacific alliances is ten-
uous, and politically and culturally ambiguous. Yet Australia is now more economi-
cally dependent on Asia and South East Asia than the USA or UK, an interdependency
recently strengthened, paradoxically, by international terrorism, which also has, ironically,
reinforced old racialized alliances and prejudices (Rizvi, 1996).
Australian relations in/towards the Asia-Pacific region are clouded by both colonial
legacies of empire and post-colonial legacies of nationhood. Prior to 1900, white settlers
had, through treaties, force of arms and settlement, possessed much of the land of the
500 or more indigenous tribes. Federation in 1900 removed Aboriginal constitutional
rights through the doctrine of terra nullius, that is, Australia was “empty” at the time
of occupation. The rightful ownership of the indigenous was returned with the 1992
Mabo High Court decision, only to be challenged and modified. Australian Federation
in 1900 was also motivated by the need to move outside England’s protection, and to
unify the colonies into a democratic nation due its distance from the “mother country”
and proximity to “the other,” the “Yellow Peril,” to the North. This racialized fear was
internalized through the White Australia Policy in 1902, entrenched with Japanese
imperialist desires in World War II, then readily converted into fear of the “red peril”
with rise of communism in Asia and South East Asia during the 1950s.
Finally, the residual welfare state after Federation of the colonies in 1900 built on
the state colonial government bureaucracies to protect white male jobs and local indus-
tries through centralized industrial and administrative regulation. A sense of security,
solidarity and unity was gained through state protection reinforced by the integral role
of the trade union movement to formal politics (and the Labor party) with Federation.
 Equity and Social Justice in Australian Education Systems 251

This social liberal consensus was driven through adherence to particular norms around
family, nationhood and community. Australia’s social experimentation, just like New
Zealand’s, meant women led the world in gaining the vote in the 1890s. But women
(as children) were defined by the modern state as dependent on the male wage earner,
perpetuating the colonial white patriarchy. The doctrine of equality was never
“intended to equate the Englishmen to the Chinaman” (Prime Minister, quoted in Cope &
Kalantzis, 2000, p. 36). While New Zealand institutionalized biculturalism through
the Treaty of Waitangi, Australia assumed a “natural process of extinction” would
occur via assimilation of its Aboriginal peoples, already largely decimated through
white settler expansion and border wars (Reynolds, 1999).
These narratives were embedded in schooling. Centralized, free, secular and compul-
sory public state-run schools for students to 14 years formed the infrastructure of the
Australian welfare state. In the 1870s, colonial education systems were developed by
the petit bourgeoisie to educate the new male citizens of the propertyless classes. After
1900, education was linked for the first time to the national economy. The secular pub-
lic systems (over 70% of students), obligated to take all students, provided one teacher
for rural, technical, domestic and agricultural as well as academic high schools, repro-
ducing a differentiated class and gender-based educated workforce. A white male
working class blue collar elite was reproduced through technical education, while
church-run elite high fee private schools, the legacy of the colonial period with about
8% of students, reproduced middle class business leaders, many of whom constituted
the 3% of students who attended university until the 1960s. Over 20% of students
attended Catholic low fee systemic schools. Sectarian politics between Catholics and
Protestants divided school systems, society and politics well into the 1960s. New
immigrants attended mainstream public schools, with no specific language or transi-
tion programs until the 1970s. Aboriginal students received basic literacy and numer-
acy on mission schools on the reserves where they were “protected” by the state. This
“protection” extended to the state “removing” mixed blood children to be educated in
white homes and public schools, most destined to work in towns and on farms as cheap
labor, a “stolen generation” who lost contact with parents and kin.
But educational certification was not always necessary for employment in a prosperous
economy of primary industries with a small manufacturing sector. Unskilled male
workers could comfortably support “the nuclear family” of wife and children until
the crash of 1974, and women teachers were a source of cheaper part time and full time
workforce to foster expansion, given there was no equal pay until 1970. Schooling
therefore promoted individual social mobility, but reproduced inequalities based on
class, gender, race and ethnic difference, a sorting function at odds with equity. Equity
prior to 1970 was understood as access to differentiated forms of schooling to geo-
graphically dispersed student populations. Women, children and indigenous were con-
structed as dependents on the male wage earner. Women’s political rights were based
on an implicit sexual contract, their role, interests and needs being as mothers and
wives. White Australia therefore enjoyed “relative equality” until the 1970s, due to
natural wealth and social mobility, but also “the product of a particular set of public
policies developed over time,” including strong and centralized state education systems,
industrial relation systems and unions (Thomson, 2001, p. 27). Australia’s cultural
252 Blackmore

isolationism and separatism dissipated during the 1930s. Immigration for economic
growth was promoted during the 1950s and 1960s based on the assimilationist assump-
tion that, with time, shared experiences through trade and travel would make cultural
differences disappear within a unified culture. “Assimilation” assumed that immigrant
groups and indigenous could “live with us” so that in time they would “become like us”
(Cope & Kalantzis, 2000, p. 37).

Lines of Flight: Educational Progressivism

During the 1970s–1980s
Lines of flight are indicative of “movements of transmutation and change” in societies
created out of historical conditions but creating new possibilities (Patton, 1995, p. 154).
Lines of flight that disrupted the social order of the 1950s were the rise of a profession-
alized educated middle class, “new” social movements (peace, women’s and environ-
mental) in the 1960s and 1970s, the multicultural movement of the 1980s, and the
post-Mabo reconciliation movement (Patton, 1995). These “becoming” events, together
with increased cultural diversity and labor market instability arising from increased
rapidity of global flows of money, goods, people, ideas and images of globalization,
produced conditions for radical change after 1974 (Cope & Kalantzis, 1997; Pusey,
2003; Yeatman, 1990, 1998). The social movements of the 1970s disrupted dominant
political and epistemological assumptions, challenging not only the elites (largely white
middle class males), but also ways of knowing and explaining in universities and
schools. This was a period of political and policy activism in the fields of education,
health and welfare as different interest groups made their specific claims upon the state
(Yeatman, 1998).
Education was, during the 1970s, also a site of student activism, feminist challenges
epistemologically and politically, as well as an emergent multicultural movement.
Educational inequality based on class and redistribution became a focus in Australia in
1972, whereas issues of class and race were interlocked in the UK and USA, for exam-
ple, with the Great Reforms. While schools were a state domain, the federal Labor
government 1972–1975 sought to develop more equitable systems, given the decline
in Catholic parish schools with high staff-student ratios and poor quality buildings.
The Schools Commission established in 1973 recommended the historic decision for
the state to fund church schools based on a formula that meant most funding went to
the poorest schools, and little funding to the elite. This decision was based on a gov-
ernment’s responsibility to provide a minimum standard of education for all.
Educational progressivists during the 1970s also opposed the selectivity and streaming
of students by schools, and pushed for comprehensivization of secondary schools to
promote greater choice and equity, operationalized through zoning policies allocating
students to local public schools. The Schools Commission also created the
Disadvantaged Schools Program that focused on the school, not the neighborhood as
in the UK or the family as in the USA, an ambitious and relatively successful approach
that focused on comprehensive curriculum, positive school-community relations, parent
participation, participative decision making, and sensitive student-teacher relations.
 Equity and Social Justice in Australian Education Systems 253

Education was seen to be a force for social change and participation was an educative
process. Most federally-funded innovative educational programs of the late 1970s and
early 1980s emphasized localized policy formation, for example, the Participation and
Equity Program 1983–1989 (Connell, Johnston, & White, 1991).
This Labor federal government was progressive and reforming, working within a
social democratic frame. With pressure from Women’s Electoral Lobby, representa-
tives of “interest” groups were incorporated into/by the state, installed in specialist
units and onto advisory policy bodies. Feminist bureaucrats (femocrats) were posi-
tioned within the state, to work both for the state and in the interests of gender equity
broadly. The femocrats were accommodated, despite their loyalty to feminist princi-
ples, and not without internal resistance from a masculinist culture, by bureaucracies
themselves under reform to improve their service orientation. Education femocrats
sought to improve the position of women in teaching, as signaled by their increased
representation in leadership positions and equal pay, and the education of girls to be
more equitable (Kaplan, 1996).
The femocrats developed anti-discriminatory and affirmative action legislation
(Sawer, 1999). In 1974, a women’s budget was developed to monitor the outcomes of
budget decisions in cabinet, a process now utilized in many developing nations and by
UNESCO. Gender equity reform was institutionalized through consultative processes
for policy production. This model permeated down into state bureaucracies and
schools. The New South Wales Anti-Discrimination Act (1977) required all state gov-
ernments to prepare an EO management plan to be sent to the Director of EEO in
Public Employment, including universities and Technical and Further Education
Colleges in 1983. These included a statistical analysis of the workforce, a review
of personnel practices and a set of strategies to eliminate discriminatory practices.
Targets were set without positive discrimination. Gender equity units in education
bureaucracies and education policies increasingly included anti-racism and multicul-
turalism, working with social justice units on Multicultural and Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islanders Education. At the same time, this process of incorporation also “domes-
ticated” opposition.
Policymakers and femocrats were also informed by grassroots activists through
formal consultations, lobby groups, local and state union, and feminist academic net-
works. The unions, bastions of masculinity, also under pressure from education femi-
nists within, formed women’s branches and established women’s officers. Australian
feminist academics therefore theorized the state as a site of contestation and not
entirely masculinist and oppressive, whereas English and American feminists had a
more oppositional view. Policy was a product of contestation that in turn produced new
discourses that could be adopted, adapted or rejected by practitioners. Gender equity
reform exemplified a dialogical process of articulation and re-articulation within/
between the bureaucracy, feminist and academic networks and schools. Each iteration
of national policies for girls and action plans for women teachers, for example,
reflected the theoretical shifts and practical politics of gender equity reform. Thus in
1975, the National Policy for the Education of Girls, framed by liberal feminism and
informed by theories of socialization and sex roles, focused on individual girls, treated
girls from NESB and Aboriginal backgrounds as “special needs” groups suffering
254 Blackmore

multiple disadvantages because of “traditional cultures” in a cultural deficit model

(Yates, 1995, p. 44–45). The strategies focused on changing women and girls to enter
non-traditional areas of work, to gain self-esteem and confidence, and to acquire lead-
ership skills (Kenway, Willis, Blackmore, & Rennie, 1998).
By 1983 there was a shift, informed by cultural feminism, from notions of girls and
women being passive victims of their socialization to celebrating their femininity as a
positive force for change. The policy focus moved towards women- and girl-friendly
cultures and inclusive curriculum. The dual strategies were to remove sexist and racist
assumptions in curriculum and leadership, and acknowledge the life experiences and
contributions of males and females. Women and girls were seen to bring different
knowledge and talents to leadership and learning, for example, interpersonal and
communication skills, and caring and collaborative approaches (Blackmore, 1999a).
But this celebration of difference treated recognition superficially through the inclu-
sion of stories about women scientists, female role models in business and engineer-
ing, while accommodating or appropriating women’s styles of leadership as being
caring and sharing, The association of different knowledge/power relations went
unchallenged. This add but do not stir strategy did not require the mainstream to reflect
on its dominance, but did provide powerful discourses for individual women and girls.
The 1987 National Policy on the Education of Girls, passed after long community
consultation, was significant in its recognition of difference amongst boys and girls.
Informed by feminist poststructuralist notions of gender and subjectivity, its focus was
on gender identity in terms of the production of female and masculine identities in
relation to each other, on migration and systemic racism rather than NESB back-
grounds. ATSI girls’ education was separately located within broader discussions of
land rights and self determination (Yates, 1995). Mature aged women were also the
major beneficiaries of the abolition of university fees in 1972, whereas working class
students favored the newly created Technical and Further Education (TAFE) sector.
But it was ultimately middle class white women and girls who benefited most from
these discourses, as they competed with white middle class males in traditional
masculine areas of leadership and science (Tsolidis, 1993).
With the Whitlam government in 1972, the notion of multiculturalism was first
mobilized. Again, lobby groups (Australian Ethnic Affairs Council) worked to pressure
government for representation in the policy process on the basis of social cohesion, cul-
tural diversity and equal opportunity. Multiculturalism became official government pol-
icy in 1978, but cultural diversity was to be recognized only to the extent that it did not
alter existing social, political and economic arrangements, although it was accepted that
multiculturalism meant that commitment to the public good did not “impose a same-
ness” on the outlook of everybody. Government reports during the 1980s emphasized
the need to celebrate ethnic diversity and identify the special needs of ethnic minori-
ties in education, thus recognizing difference rather than focusing on assimilation,
exemplified in Ministerial portfolios and a separate television station. Multicultural
discourses expressed a tolerance of others, celebration, of respect, equal access and
social justice.
Multicultural education was framed not only with discourses about recognizing
diversity, but also creating social cohesion through inculcating a multicultural attitude,
 Equity and Social Justice in Australian Education Systems 255

for example, interethnic tolerance. McCarthy (1998) identifies three discourses of

multiculturalism in education – those emphasizing cultural understanding and sensiti-
vity, those institutionalizing curriculum recognition of cultural competence so students
can live comfortably in a culturally pluralistic society, and those which are emancipa-
tory, radically altering the life chances of minority students. Australian policy focused
on cultural understanding foremost, less so cultural competence, but without any
emancipatory intent. Teachers and principals were expected to be aware of ethnic
minorities, develop policies, take into account different religious requirements, review
curriculum of ethnocentricity, and provide courses in ethnic cultures and community
languages to promote a “multicultural attitude” (Rizvi, 1996, p. 3). English as a sec-
ond language developed as a major area in community education, and neighborhood
houses, learning centres and TAFE provided an educative and participatory approach
to literacy for NESB women. But multicultural education, in recognizing Australia’s
cultural heterogeneity, did position migrants as active subjects. Immigration became
the focus of educational research, and ethnicity was included in relation to other
“categories” of disadvantage (Rizvi, 1996). But in school practices, multiculturalism
assumed a preservationist view, highlighting traditional cultures, customs, and associ-
ations with particular religions. And as Tsolidis (2001) argues, in education, this posi-
tioned NESB girls as being disadvantaged by their ethnicity (equated to traditional and
patriarchal).
“Mosaic multiculturalism” assumed that each cultural group should contribute
equally and fully in Australian society and that cultural difference would not disappear
but “fit” together, while rejecting the possibility of homogenous cultural unity. But
mosaic multiculturalism also assumes culture is homogeneous, fixed and static, with
clear boundaries that are as much about inclusion/exclusion as they are about recogni-
tion. Furthermore, the assumption was that each culture has a moral right to be recog-
nized and that the state (or education systems) should not be judgmental, that is,
cultural relativism. The unproblematic utilization of the notion of ethnicity in this
value-free and apolitical sense (that ignored ethnicities cultural distinctiveness and his-
torical origins, and indeed why there was a need to maintain ethnic identity) also
allowed class and gender to be ignored (Rizvi, 1996; Tsolidis, 2001). Migrants saw
themselves, and were perceived, as distinctive, but within class relations of inequality
where most acted as a reserve army of labor generating post-war economic growth.
And the most ardent advocates of cultural relativism, and indeed multiculturalism,
were often those who benefited most because of their already advantageous class and
gender position, that is, an emergent male ethnic middle class. Australian critical
theorists have argued that with the absorption of race within the frame of multicultur-
alism, the concepts of race through which Australians understand themselves as a
nation have been rendered invisible. The languages of multiculturalism and race have
become confused.
This movement for social justice in education developed a logic that enabled it to
expand to encompass more and more equity groups (ATSI, cultural and language
diversity, disability, educational risk, geographic isolation, gifts and talents, learning
impairment and low socio-economic background). State bureaucracies reflected this.
Queensland had an Equity Directorate and Language and Cultures Unit working with
256 Blackmore

a Social Justice Strategy plus state-wide support centers and personnel. Victoria insti-
tutionalized Equal Opportunity positions through industrial agreements in all schools.
Action Plans for women teachers existed in most states, with targets set, monitoring
and reporting requirements. Approaches to social justice meant

that we think through economic issues from the standpoint of the poor and not the
rich. We think through gender arrangements from the standpoint of women. We
think through race relations and land questions from the standpoint of indigenous
peoples. We think though questions of sexuality from the standpoint of gay people.
(Connell, 1993, p. 43)

This was a needs based approach, underpinned by the view that everyone had the right
to an equal education.
While equity policies provided legitimacy to act in schools, critical feminist and
post colonial theorists critiqued the notion of gender, race and ethnicity as “fixed”
categories, arguing that ethnic and gender formation were interconnected and contra-
dictory, cultures worked on the basis of inclusion/exclusion, and there were significant
power and material inequalities (Yates, 1995). Certainly, many white middle class girls
benefited, but dominant white masculinities in schools remained the norm (Blackmore,
1999a). Yet, most equity strategies focused on recognition superficially without chang-
ing social and economic power relations, that is, greater representation of women in
leadership and “fashion and food festivals.” These policies of inclusion were readily
contained within social liberalism. Recognition of group interests took over in Australia
as in other Western democracies from redistribution (Fraser, 1997).

Shifting Trajectories: Equity and/or Efficiency

and Effectiveness
Labor was back in power federally from 1983 to 1995. Public sector reform in
Australia during the 1980s was informed by two major ideological pushes: to develop
more responsive, transparent and accountable bureaucracies with employment reform
based on affirmative action and EEO, recruitment based on merit not seniority, lateral
recruitment of senior executive service on contract, corporate planning and program
based budgeting, plus audit reviews and performance monitoring. The second impetus
came from the emerging force of economic rationalism in the federal bureaucracy
informed by public choice theory that argued that individuals sought to self maximize
and that bureaucrats and professionals sought merely to protect their own interests, not
govern for national interests, that is, producer capture. Therefore bureaucrat policy and
regulation were separated from program delivery, now undertaken through contractual
arrangements with public and private agencies on a competitive basis for increased
efficiencies. This was fertile ground for neo-liberal reforms. Federal Labor, after the
global financial crash of 1987, was also under significant pressure by international
monetary markets and economic orthodoxies to restructure its industrial relations and
workplace arrangements. Structural adjustment meant small government, reduced
 Equity and Social Justice in Australian Education Systems 257

public expenditure on health, education and welfare, deregulation of financial and

labor markets, and devolution in governance. Labor’s corporate managerial approach
was now premised upon an alliance between government, big business and big unions,
sidelining educational unionists and other lobby groups. State Labor governments
adopted similar strategies.
Under pressure, Labor sought to balance efficiency and effectiveness with equity by
linking social justice policies in education with goals of international competitiveness
and economic development. Higher education reform after 1987 exemplified new
public administrative trends. Access was increased through massification of Higher
Education (HE) by creating a unified system amalgamating colleges of advanced
education and technical institutes with universities. Efficiency was achieved through
the higher education contribution scheme (HECs), a deferred tax on students. But as
economic rationalism came to dominate, equity discourses were marginalized. Education
policies were increasingly informed by neo-liberal versions of human capital theory pro-
moting user pays, the premise being that higher education produced individual as well
as national benefits.
As with NPA in the UK and New Zealand, there was a shift from government
(controlling the daily administration) to governance (steering from a distance).
Education was politicized with increased ministerialisation of policy making (at federal
and state levels) with externally recruited policy advisors and contracted senior execu-
tive managers replacing public servants. Loyalty shifted away from citizen and up to
political “master.” This new contractualism shifted relations between citizen and state to
one of client and provider. Meanwhile, the new managerialism meant responsibility
(and risk) for decisions were devolved to local semi-autonomous units that competed
with each other for resources, governments steered from a distance through a cycle of
policy, financial contracts, and accountability feedback mechanisms focusing only on
outcomes. This centralized decentralization was the model for state government, edu-
cation systems (with a move to self-managing schools funded on enrolments), and
educational organizations (where local budget centers competed for a decreasing
global budget). The new managerialism was exemplified in the notion of a generic
multi-skilled manager who managed regardless of expertise, as knowledge and com-
mitment implied self interest. The focus was on the performative, that is, what could
be measured, such as performance management and indicators.
In this context, equity was mainstreamed within human resource (HR) management
and devolved as a responsibility to individual managers who lacked the commitment,
knowledge or resources. While this weakened its strength, EEO practices had become
embedded within management and HR discourses. But as efficiency dominated, equity
was increasingly perceived to be a luxury and a cost. Thus EEO policy was often treated
symbolically, existing in policy but and not bedded down in practices of selection,
promotion or curriculum, neither advocated nor resourced, and often undermined.

Equal opportunity … came to be reframed in terms of what it can do for

management improvement, not in terms of what it can do to develop the condi-
tions of social justice and democratic citizenship in Australian society. (Yeatman,
1998, p. 15)
258 Blackmore

Capitalizing on Choice and Diversity During the 1990s:

Reconciliation, Republicanism, Resistance and the Right
Whereas the 1970s and 1980s would appear to be the logical culmination of particular
progressive tendencies of social liberalism within Australian society, the 1990s stand out
as a moment of disjuncture or rupture with the past, due to the fundamental restructur-
ing of the relations between the individual, “interest” groups, social movements and the
state with the rise of neo liberalism (Blackmore & Sachs, 2006). The 1990s was a period
of radical restructuring of political systems worldwide with the fall of communism,
increased rapidity of globalizing flows of capital, people, images, ideas and goods,
changing work orders and familial structures. Under Keating’s Labor leadership until
1996, Australia was looking to new alliances and orientations towards South East Asia
and Asia economically, culturally and politically. Such a re-orientation supported notions
of productive diversity, a discourse mobilized widely by progressive employers “to work
effectively with an immigrant workforce and putting a positive economic spin on multi-
culturalism … as a pragmatic response” and “a distinctively optimistic and ingenious
Australian idea, born of an irreducible diverse society of immigrants and indigenous
people and an economy that must be export oriented” (Cope & Kalantzis, 1997, pp. iv,
ix). This notion was rearticulated in education and government as a discourse of manag-
ing diversity. At the same time, the Mabo (1992) and Wik (1994) legal decisions that
recognized indigenous land rights were indicative of wider moves towards reconcilia-
tion, matched by a renewed interest in republicanism. The Enlightenment’s universal cit-
izen and abstract subject was under review as women, indigenous and ethnic minorities
made new claims upon the state, and the state itself was under review.
It was also an era of radical restructuring, linking education more tightly to national
economies in most Western nation states due to an increasing reliance on international
competitiveness and innovation. Schools were similarly linked more tightly to the econ-
omy with increased influence of business and blue collar unions through three key
national reports in the early 1990s, pushing for the vocationalization of education
through competency based education that aligned well with outcomes based education.
Educational work in universities, schools and TAFEs was intensified, commodified, and
corporatized, achieved through the twin neo-liberal strategies of new managerialism
and marketization, the policy orthodoxies of global policy communities during the
1990s (e.g., OECD, World Bank, and IMF) (Henry, Lingard, Rizvi, & Taylor, 2001).
In education and the public sector generally, reduced expenditure accompanying devo-
lution meant downsizing, outsourcing and casualization of educational labor. The move
to enterprise bargaining – Labor’s labor/industry compromise after 1989 – had already
effected a decline in union membership (women’s membership decreased from 50% in
the 1960s to 31% in 1997). Women’s weaker bargaining capacity led to trade offs of pay
for family flexibility, although teacher unions have the majority of teachers as members,
and compared to other public sector unions, were more woman-friendly. Thus the mate-
rial conditions and the nature of educational work were being re-structured.
After 1996, John Howard extended Labor’s reforms, but within neo-conservative
social policy and radical market policy frames. Policies promoted the privatization of
public education by mobilizing discourses of choice, without mention of equity.
 Equity and Social Justice in Australian Education Systems 259

Equity programs (e.g., DSP) and the Office of Multicultural Affairs were abolished,
the Affirmative Action Agency was reviewed and downgraded and reporting was “vol-
untary.” Childcare support was reduced. ATSIC was created to manage indigenous serv-
ices. Government expenditure on public education (universities and schools), already
decreasing since 1989, now rapidly declined (from 4.3 to 3.8% of GDP). Universities in
particular, but increasingly TAFE, sought fee-paying international students to replace
reducing government funds. During the 1990s, most school education systems (under
state government control) increased parental choice by abolishing zoning, and increased
competition between schools by funding regimes based on enrolments with targeted
equity funds while federal funding policies support a flow of those who could afford
to private schools. Parents, it was argued, would choose the most effective schools, and
failing schools would close. Ironically, in Victoria where the move to self-managing
schools was most radical, and where parental involvement had historically been polit-
ically strongest and parent and teacher representation on policy committees greatest,
the neo liberal government excluded parent and teacher union organization’s represen-
tation from school councils. Parents were re-positioned not as citizens with a con-
stituency of parents, but as individual active choosers/consumers without responsibility
to others, while teachers were positioned as providers.
Markets are now the means by which to distribute educational provision. Any
inequitable effects are blamed on individual schools and/or students. This rights ori-
ented approach pays little regard to needs and ignores how individual choices impact on
the collective, or how the few have more choices than the majority. It also denies
responsibility of both government and individual citizens to “the other” or indeed “the
public.” Meanwhile, government now controls “self managing” universities, TAFEs and
schools, teachers and academics educators more than ever before. National qualifica-
tions frameworks promote seamlessness between sectors and professional standards
seek comparability between institutions on the one hand, yet produce competition and
conformity towards the norm of market images of success and managerial outcomes
rather than increased differentiation to address client diversity or creativity.
This occurred in the context of a discursive backlash against feminism, multicul-
turalism and reconciliation, generated by conservative discourses that condemned
“black armband history” for producing guilt, feminism for putting masculinity at risk,
multiculturalism as divisive and a failure, and the recognition of difference as against
the national interest (McLeod, 1998). These assimilationist discourses appealed to
marginalized electors, many blue collar worker males, disaffected by increased eco-
nomic insecurity, and radical changes in the nature of work and gender relation in the
family. Indeed, in education and health, discourses of masculinity in crisis have been
mobilized by government, small but vocal groups of men, and some male academics.
In Victoria after 1993, gender inclusive curriculum and other strategies focusing on girls
were seen to be unfair to boys, and “strategies for the education of boys” were recom-
mended to restore goodwill. The subtext was that teaching and schools had become too
feminized. But addressing equity (for girls and boys) was left to voluntary choice by
individual self managing schools and not centrally prescribed. The government’s
national discourse of “recuperative masculinity” has focused narrowly on boys’ under-
achievement in literacy in an essentialist way. It has ignored feminist advances in gender
260 Blackmore

equity that now consider which boys and which girls (due to the intersections of class,
indigeneity, location, and language) are disadvantaged (Lingard, 2003).
Howard’s populist politics after 2000 fed off two discourses of protection: protection
against refugees (defined by government as “illegals” and “queue jumpers”) and ter-
rorists (equated to Muslims) after 9/11 and subsequent bombings. The “success” of
multiculturalism is now contested by the conservative press. Suggestions are that the
extension of post-war immigration policies to non-Anglo immigrants after 1970 did
not consider the impact of diverse cultural and religious backgrounds. Post-welfarism
criticizes dependency cultures and promotes self-help and voluntarism, not state assis-
tance. This is now central to debates amongst indigenous leaders as to whether mutual
obligation embedded in welfare (e.g., where welfare funds are removed if children are
not sent to school) is revived paternalism or restoring community. The Howard gov-
ernment has pushed through legislation to replace the industrial relations system of the
past 100 years with minimalist awards that favor employers. The connection between
wages and social justice has been severed. The gap between rich and poor, male
and female wages, indigenous and non-indigenous, dual- and single- income families,
urban and rural has increased. High level concentrations of poverty, poor health, unem-
ployment and low educational achievement are geographically concentrated in a few
postcodes (Teese & Polesel, 2003).
In education, conservative media challenges to educational progressivism (e.g.,
critical literacy) are underway. Federally-funded elite and selective, as well as fundamen-
talist, religious educational institutions are not held accountable for equity in terms of
who and what they teach, or how. Yet, public schools with a greater social mix (linguistic,
ability, racial) operate under strict accountabilities to improve the outcomes of equity
groups. They are disadvantaged in the market where parents seek to choose schools (and
social networks) where students are “more like us.” The role of schools, TAFE colleges
and universities with regard to the equity outcomes is being restructured. A number of
shifts during the 1990s have changed the nature of the conceptualization of equity:

(1) Policies are now based on individual rights, not group interests (recognition) or
need (redistribution). Any claims upon the state are now judged against “the
national interest” and must benefit everyone. This ignores the conditions that
can impact on opportunities.
(2) The discourse of equal opportunity that implied a form of group entitlement has
been supplanted by an individualizing discourse of managing diversity that
equates all forms of difference (e.g., learning preferences the same as race, class
and gender). Diversity is a problem to be managed. The individualization of dis-
advantage means individuals bear the brunt of both the risk and responsibility,
yet has to show agency to change, thus localizing victimization and individual-
izing the solution. The individualizing nature of rights discourses are readily
mobilized to the advantage of the privileged (e.g., equal rights mean that every-
one has the same treatment).
(3) Governments have devolved equity down to the local where various equity
demands compete for reduced resources without systemic support, and where
equity is not mandated, that is, devolution of responsibility.
 Equity and Social Justice in Australian Education Systems 261

Making Hope Practical

This retrospective analysis helps us consider the prospects for the future of equity
reform in different times. During the 1970s and 1980s, there was a particular momen-
tary convergence between a reforming state and emergent social movements that gave
rise to intelligent opportunism in terms of promoting social justice.
Structural reform did not in itself change practices. Centralized decentralization,
with the dispersion and individualization of responsibility, risk and results on the one
hand, and expectations to be a self-managing performative entrepreneurial educator on
the other, has contributed to an intensification of labor, another form of managerial
control. But policy shifted values and priorities within education systems away from
comprehensiveness, equity, collegiality, cooperation, and towards competition, indivi-
dualism, and compliance. Competition, contractualism and performance management
altered relations between workers, workers and managers, students and teachers, between
institutions and between individuals and the state, generally increasing government
control over teachers and academics.
Organizational processes, symbols and cultures are also racialized and gendered,
porous to wider societal discourses. Providing role models and celebrating difference
are often only symbolic, and focus on a traditional false view of culture or gender that
reinforces categories and stereotypes. To only recognize difference, and encourage
the self-esteem of ethnic children or girls do not alter those structures, cultures and
processes that are biased towards white middle class males. Racism, like sexism, are not
rational ideologies, but “constructed around certain structures of feeling and with a
socio-emotional dimension” that do not alter with knowledge of inequality or an experi-
ential encounter with “other” cultures (Rizvi, 1993, p. 209). Changing race and gender
relations/attitudes is not just about informing people about patterns of discrimination,
encouraging them to empathize with those who are discriminated against, or even expe-
riencing discrimination. Equity reform is about identity work for teachers and stu-
dents. Individuals have considerable investment in their gendered and “racialized”
identities, some more than others because of unequal power relations, where privileges
accompany class, whiteliness and masculinity (Moreton-Robinson, 2000). Racism is
equally the problem of all groups. While dominant racist ideologies are white, whites
can be victims of racist violence, and racist discourses are also mobilized between
non-Anglo immigrant groups, and linked to sexism, that is, “gendered racisms” (Castles,
1996, p. 23). Anti-racism (like anti-sexism) is a “vital developing and changing combi-
nation of activism and opposition that must continually involve diverse groups and be
sensitive to its own limitations in visions and action” (Gillborn, 2004, p. 43).
Studies of both anti-racism and gender equity reform indicate that gender equity and
anti-racism reforms are most successful when there is a dialogue between bottom-up
activism and top-down policy that legitimates and provides a language of reform, as
well as resources and infrastructure (Taylor, 2001). An institutional approach in both
policy and practice is critical. Often, reform begins small, with a few advocates, or by
working in partnership with supportive communities (Gillborn, 2004; Kenway et al.,
1998). But schools themselves must seek to encourage meaningful participation by all
students in this process. Moreover, equity reform is uneven, not chronologically
262 Blackmore

progressive; it works at multiple levels, and often in contradictory ways in different

contexts (e.g., responsive or corporate bureaucracy). Past successes do not disappear
with the next reforms. State government education policies continue to use Action
Plans as a strategic tool. Equity has to some extent been discursively accommodated,
and equity practices partially integrated, but often without the same commitment or
political will. Successes are equally quickly eradicated through restructuring, value
shifts informed by policy, and changed conditions of work. Thus marketization and
managerialism meant old bureaucratic masculinities were supplanted by managerial
and entrepreneurial transnational masculinities.
So what are the prospects for equity work with the shift in the socio-cultural and
economic context, the rise of economic globalization and neoliberalism? One is to uti-
lize the tools of performativity. The state now mediates globalized education markets
(students and teachers) and education has become integrated with the development of
an innovation economy. Within market-oriented education systems, the discourses of
equal opportunity, equity and diversity are being mobilized differently. Currently, with
internationalization and labor shortages, equity has niche market appeal – for interna-
tional students, and for attracting and retaining quality academics and teachers. But
now equity is increasingly reliant on market conditions and employer goodwill, not
mandated through policy. In response to the lack of political will on behalf of govern-
ment, grassroots oppositional social movements, community organizations and coali-
tions have emerged to support reconciliation, refugees and public education. Women’s
and other non-government organizations continue to lobby government, usually
unsuccessfully. They also strategically name and shame the federal government for the
inequitable outcomes of neo-liberal policies, and poor record on human rights, by
appealing to international bodies (e.g., International Labor Organization, UNESCO
Women’s Committee). These global policy communities struggle with the tension
between postmodernist cultural pluralism and modernist universal human rights
through developing more equity-driven performance indicators to monitor any nation
state’s level of stability, economic growth and social development (and therefore a
good investment opportunity) (Blackmore, 1999b). Australian indigenous educational,
health and employment outcomes stand out starkly on such global measures. But the
tension between modernist and postmodernist consideration about equity, that is, to
reconcile individual agency and cultural relativism with universal human rights, are
not readily resolved.
As indicated in this narrative, the politics of recognition dominated the 1980s and
1990s, readily captured by neo-liberal discourses of choice that facilitated individual
mobility and a sense of group collectivity in the face of social fragmentation. Fraser
(1997) argues that social justice has to address recognition and redistribution together.
Focusing on recognition of cultural, racial or gender difference alone ignores equally
significant issues of class and unequal distribution of resources. This means govern-
ments have to address both recognition (e.g., representation and voice or interests) and
also redistribution (i.e., address needs). But past equity categories (gender, race, class,
ethnicity, disability) when treated as discrete, do not necessarily work effectively as
policy categories. Racial, ethnic and class differences overlap, but do not necessarily
coincide. And gender confuses all this. Girls and women overachieve educationally,
 Equity and Social Justice in Australian Education Systems 263

but are under-rewarded in workplaces because of their responsibility as primary carers

of the young, aged and sick, their location in traditional women’s work, and their con-
centration lower down or on the margins of organizations. Then there are cultural and
religious traditions with their various hybrid forms positioning women, a multiplicity
of gendered racisms. Policy has to ask the question: which girls and which boys, which
women and which men, are currently disadvantaged?
“Educationally … difference is both an opportunity and a problem” (Burbules,
1997, p. 97). An opportunity to understand ourselves better through dialogue, view
alternative visions, and learning to live in a democratic civic culture. But difference is
a problem because “some differences are not neutral, but imbued with power differen-
tials that divide us.” Educators always struggle in their daily practices between same-
ness (make us all alike, impose a national curriculum and standardized tests) and
difference (different learning styles and needs). Educational discourses have been
dominated by “the common.” The challenge presented by feminist, critical race, mul-
ticultural and post colonial theorists is how to recognize difference than is not merely
defined in relation to that norm, that is, compliance to conform with a dominant set of
standards. Sameness and difference are not necessarily antithetical. Tsolidis (2001,
pp. 114–116) argues that as educators, we are working with first, diasporic identities
that are also gendered, identities that are the product of interlocking histories and
cultures that need to trouble each other and second, diasporic communities arising
from an interrelationship between the economic and the cultural, sites of cultural (and
economic) production. Education provides the site for counter-hegemonic work that
troubles the binaries.

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(pp. 70–83). Latrobe University Press.
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Yeatman, A. (1998). Activism in the policy process. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.
14

THE URBAN AND THE PERIPHERAL: NEW

CHALLENGES FOR EDUCATION IN THE PACIFIC

Priscilla Qolisaya Puamau and G. Robert Teasdale

University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji

Introduction
The historical development of towns and cities and what constitutes the urban in
Pacific countries is different from the way this is defined and understood in the devel-
oped nations of the West. Historical evidence (e.g., Jones, 1966; Mumford, 1961) sug-
gests that cities in medieval Europe evolved around the commercial, cultural, artistic
and sacred aspects of people’s lives. The movement and settlement of people into
towns and cities revolved around trade and commerce, high culture and the church.
The values, beliefs and creative expression of the people were evident in the cities of
Europe where high culture exhibited in the work of artisans, in museums and other
institutions such as church cathedrals dominated the urban spaces. While there was a
rapid increase in urbanization due to the industrial revolution in the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries in Europe and North America, this has slowed down since the
1950s. Because urbanization of countries in Europe took place relatively slowly com-
pared to the developing nations, western governments have had time to plan and
provide for the needs of increasing populations in the cities.
Urban centers in Pacific countries, on the other hand, have arisen in response to
European colonial enterprise. They are a consequence of foreign influences and came
into existence as commercial, administrative, and missionary centers of the colonizing
powers (Spoehr, 1960). Unlike the growth of urban centers in Europe, towns and cities
in the Pacific have not grown in response to the art, religion or high culture of the
indigenous peoples. Western artifacts like museums and art galleries, where they exist,
are not particularly popular with the local indigenous population, although a major
attraction for tourists.
Historically, as colonial settlements grew into small towns that fulfilled the functions
and goals of colonial influence, these new urban centers began to do two things. First,
they overtook adjacent villages, thus expanding the urban area. And second, many peo-
ple were attracted to the towns where the seats of government and commerce were
265
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 265–284.
© 2007 Springer.
266 Puamau and Teasdale

centered. As urban centers grew, whether town or city, particularly after independence,
which is a relatively recent phenomenon in the Pacific, many undesirable consequences
arose. Rapid increases in urban populations meant there were more people in need of
land, shelter, utilities such as water and electricity, waste disposal, health care, and
schooling.
This chapter is an exploratory one. It begins with a geographical and historical
description of the Pacific region. It then attempts to reconceptualize the urban in the
Pacific context. Each country’s population and land area is pertinent, there being
highly significant variations in both. The chapter also outlines the reasons peripheral/
rural dwellers move into the urban centers since the rural-urban drift has been severe.
It then touches on the outward diaspora of Pacific peoples to rim country cities,
and examines the serious cultural, social and economic challenges to education that
“townization” or urbanization brings to Pacific nations.
The threat to indigenous traditional village systems and concomitant identity issues
and the national language challenge arising out of a culturally, linguistically, and reli-
giously heterogeneous urban population are also specifically addressed. As well, we
discuss the potential impact of a regional project called Pacific Regional Initiatives for
the Delivery of basic Education (PRIDE) that is attempting to address some of these
issues through its focus on national educational planning and policy.

Geographical and Historical Context

What is the Pacific?
The Pacific region has been both romanticized and problematized in colonial and post-
colonial discourses. In relation to education, the old colonial ways of developing and
managing school systems and their curricula have had a pervasive impact in the
Pacific, and are deeply resistant to change. Colonial assumptions about the nature of
the Pacific and the education of its people continue to need careful, critical and
constructive questioning.
For example, those who occupy continents on the rim usually view the Pacific
Ocean as a vast expanse of water dotted with tiny, isolated islands, their inhabitants
disadvantaged by smallness and remoteness. Pacific Islanders are now rejecting this
colonial assumption, arguing that they do not occupy “islands in a far sea,” but “a sea
of islands” (Hau’ofa, 1993, p. 7). Their ancestors clearly did not view the sea as a bar-
rier, but as their livelihood. They were seafarers who were equally at home on sea as
on land. They lived and played and worked upon it. They developed great skills for
navigating its waters, traversing it in their sailing canoes, and forming a “large
exchange community in which wealth and people with their skills and arts circulated
endlessly” (Hau’ofa, 1993, p. 9). In this way, the sea bound them together rather than
separating them.
This idea of “a sea of islands” captures a holistic sense of people sharing a common
environment and living together for their mutual benefit. Many people in the Pacific
are attempting to reactivate this ethos, seeking ways to help and support each other,
 The Urban and the Peripheral 267

rather than constantly turning to the nations on their rim for aid and advice. It is a slow
and uneven process, however, much hindered by regional politics, by the insistent
pressures of globalization, and by the continuing impact of colonialism. The latter has
divided the Pacific linguistically, creating a gulf between groups of English-speaking
and French-speaking islands. It also has divided the Pacific politically, with France
and the USA still ruling their colonial empires in the Pacific in ways that isolate their
people from many regional forums and networks.
As a consequence of the above divisions, this chapter focuses only on those coun-
tries that are politically independent and therefore able to participate in the dominant
political and economic policy grouping in the Pacific, the Pacific Islands Forum
Secretariat (PIFS): Cook Islands; Federated States of Micronesia (FSM); Fiji; Kiribati;
Nauru; Niue; Palau; Papua New Guinea (PNG); Republic of the Marshall Islands
(RMI); Samoa; Solomon Islands; Tonga; Tuvalu and Vanuatu. To this list should be
added Tokelau, which is in the process of achieving self-government in free associa-
tion with New Zealand, a status similar to that enjoyed by Cook Islands and Niue.

The Pacific Region

The Pacific region can be conveniently grouped into three arbitrary categories based
on social, linguistic, cultural and physical characteristics. The Melanesian countries,
comprising most of the larger islands to the west have ample physical resources. They
include Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu, and the Solomon Islands. The Polynesian
countries comprise Samoa, Tonga, Cook Islands, Niue, Tuvalu, and Tokelau. The
Micronesian countries occupy small, resource-poor atolls and include the Federated
States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, and Palau.
These 15 Pacific countries occupy a small land area but are sprawled over a vast
area of ocean. In total, they cover a little over half a million square kilometers of land,
but 19.9 million square kilometers of ocean (i.e., in terms of exclusive economic
zones). To illustrate the diversity in land size and smallness of population, Tokelau, the
smallest nation, has a land area of 12 square kilometers and a population of 1,500;
Nauru occupies 21 square kilometers with a population of 12,000; Marshall Islands
has 181 square kilometers of land and a population of 54,000. Tonga occupies a land-
mass equivalent to Singapore, but has a population of 101,000. In contrast, PNG occu-
pies a large landmass of 462,000 square kilometers and has over 5 million people. The
countries range from atolls where fresh water and vegetation are scarce and natural
resources severely limited, to the better-endowed volcanic islands of the bigger
Melanesian countries.
In terms of population size, the Pacific is one of the least populated areas in the
world, covering a vast area of the world’s water. There are a little over two million peo-
ple living in 14 of the countries. Add PNG’s 5.6 million and the total population of the
Pacific region is close to 8 million. By and large, the majority of people in each coun-
try are indigenous.1 The Pacific is the most linguistically complex region in the world,
speaking one-fifth of the world’s languages. More than 1,000 distinct languages are
spoken by less than 8 million people with multilingualism and bilingualism the norm.
The dominant religion in the Pacific is Christianity.
268 Puamau and Teasdale

Agriculture, fisheries and/or tourism are the mainstays of most Pacific economies. In
a cut-throat, globalizing and capitalist world where economic concerns are paramount,
the Pacific islands are extremely vulnerable as a consequence of their smallness. They
are also vulnerable to the vagaries of nature where cyclones and hurricanes continue to
cause untold damage to their social and economic well-being. For instance, the Cook
Islands suffered five destructive cyclones that attacked within three weeks of one another
in early 2005.
Small island states face many challenges including development and over-
concentration, open economies and overdependence, high public expenditure, distance
costs, dominance of public employment, problems of finance, aid dependency, and
patronage and nepotism (Bacchus & Brock, 1987, pp. 2–4). Small island states are at
the mercy of “developed” nations in terms of economic aid, exploitation by multina-
tional corporations and the vagaries of the global economic system.
These countries, because of their colonial legacy, also face the deeper challenge of
decolonizing colonial mindsets inherited from centuries of colonial subjugation, oppres-
sion and power play. Stepping out of the colonial box into postcolonial2 conditions must
start where it counts most – in the mind. A psychological/mental deconstruction must
take place – an interrogation of the colonial past and postcolonial present in order to
renegotiate the way to a more effective syncretism of local and global worlds. Pacific
Islanders need to find a constructive and practical way to “deconstruct the concept, the
authority and assumed primacy of the West” (Young, 1990). They must analyze the insid-
ious effects of their colonial past not with the purpose of criticizing or blaming the colo-
nizers, but with the goal of transforming their mindsets in order to reclaim or restore the
best of what was lost, subverted or ignored in the colonial era and its aftermath.

The Colonial Legacy

With the exception of Tonga, the Pacific region has been colonized by various “west-
ern” countries over the last two to three centuries. Some countries were colonized by
more than one external power, particularly the Micronesian states. For example,
Marshall Islands became a German protectorate in 1886 until Japan took over during
the two world wars. From 1947, it was administered by the United States under the
trusteeship of the United Nations. While it became independent in 1986, it has a cur-
rent compact with the United States which keeps it dependent on the US for financial
assistance.
Political independence is a relatively recent phenomenon with Samoa, the first
Pacific country to achieve independence in 1962. Most countries, particularly British
colonies, gained independence in the 1970s. The Micronesian countries were the last
to gain independence, Palau only in 1994.
The primary instruments of control of colonized subjects were (and still are) written
history (texts), education and language. Colonial practices – including the historical,
imaginative, material, institutional and discursive – have significantly transformed
Pacific ways of knowing, being and doing. The ideological, political, economic and
social structures currently in place today are manifestations and hybrid versions of the
colonial project. Colonial ways of knowing and doing, together with “western” values,
 The Urban and the Peripheral 269

attitudes and cultural practices, permeate the lived experiences of the colonized to
such an extent that they have become part of the postcolonial landscape. At the point
of decolonization, if there is no deliberate effort to resist, overthrow, or even transform
these colonial legacies, then inherited structures and systems will become normative
and hegemonic fixtures of national life.
Because every education system is shaped by its national history and socio-cultural,
political and economic contexts, the education systems in the Pacific region are man-
ifestations of their colonial histories. For instance, the educational structures in Fiji are
modeled on the British system. Similarly, Palau, Marshall Islands and the Federated
States of Micronesia, continue to maintain strong ties with the United States of
America; the Cook Islands, Tokelau and Niue have close ties with New Zealand, while
Vanuatu faces the challenge of dual Anglophone and Francophone systems. The curric-
ula, teaching methods, assessment and evaluation methods, languages of instruction,
management models, and organizational cultures of schooling in the Pacific continue
in hegemonic forms, usually closely resembling those in place during the former
colonial days.
It is not hard to understand why colonial practices, processes and structures contin-
ued in hegemonic ways after decolonization. Even when countries attained political
nationhood as independent states, the colonizing impact continued in two ways: first,
through the processes associated with neocolonialism, and second through the influ-
ence of local middle-class elites, described by Fanon (1967) as vigilant sentinels who
are ever ready to defend “the essential qualities of the West.” These guards of things
western are usually the educated locals, who, after independence, continue to protect
and maintain systems and structures inherited from their colonial “masters.” An exam-
ple of this is the continuing practice of valuing and elevating English in school, and in
the home, above the mother tongue.
Neocolonialism has been defined as “the highest stage of colonialism” where a polit-
ically independent nation that was under colonial rule continues to be bound, whether
voluntarily or through necessity, to a European or American society, or to a western
derivative society such as New Zealand or Australia. It can range from the open distri-
bution of foreign textbooks to the more subtle use of foreign advisers on matters of pol-
icy as well as the continuation of foreign administrative models and curricular patterns
for schools with very little alteration to the curriculum that was in place before inde-
pendence (Altbach, 1995). This process has continued unabated through the influence
of foreign educational aid, which largely determines the pathways many Pacific curric-
ula, pedagogy, assessment, and resource materials have taken – largely through the
developmental assistance provided by Australia and New Zealand.
The most insidious element of neocolonialism is that relatively little change occurs to
the education system after former colonies attain political independence (Puamau,
1999). As Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin (1995) put it, “Education is perhaps the most
insidious and in some ways the most cryptic of colonialist survivals, older systems now
passing, sometimes imperceptibly, into neo-colonial configurations” (p. 424). In
the case of the Pacific, educational apparatuses can be described as hegemonic because
once structures such as curriculum, assessment and school organization become
entrenched and institutionalized, they have a totalizing effect on society. Education
270 Puamau and Teasdale

deeply saturates “the consciousness of a society” (Williams, 1976, p. 204) and becomes
unquestionably what parents want for their children. In the Pacific, there is a deep-
rooted desire for children to succeed at a Western type education irrespective of its cul-
tural relevance and appropriateness. In fact, many households in countries like Tonga
and Fiji have trophies of success such as educational certificates taking prime place on
walls of living rooms. It has taken three or four decades since political independence for
some shift to take place to make Pacific curricula more culturally relevant, but this
change has been significantly mediated by foreign aid.

Reconceptualizing the Urban in the Pacific

Growth of Towns and Cities
Towns in the Pacific arose as a result of colonial enterprise. They were colonial cre-
ations, occupied largely by migrants from the metropolitan powers (Connell & Lea,
1998) and were mainly colonial outposts of empire. They were established as colonial
administration, trade and missionary centers (Spoehr, 1960), resulting out of two
centuries of contact of island peoples with Europeans, Americans, and Asians.
Spoehr, writing in 1960, contended that the Pacific Islands, as a whole, are divided into
a number of subregions, with each consisting of one or more towns or small urban cen-
ters, surrounded by a hinterland, the latter usually an assemblage of islands with the town
generally a port. There is a series of port towns, varying in size from less than a thousand
to some 30,000 people. Over 40 years later, Spoehr’s observation is no longer valid. While
the scale of some Pacific towns is still small, some urban centers have grown rapidly. For
example, the cities of Port Moresby in PNG and Suva in Fiji have over 300,000 and
180,000 people respectively. The cities and towns of the Pacific are no longer backwater
communities that they may have been in the colonial era, but are vibrant social, economic
and cultural entities where people work, play and live out their lives.
It is interesting to take note of the population sizes of the smaller Pacific countries
because it gives an idea of the challenges that they face not only in individual and
national sustenance, but also in meeting the challenges of a global economy.
Polynesian and Micronesian nations have relatively small populations. Tokelau and
Niue have less than 2,000 people; countries between 10,000 and 20,000 people include
the Cook Islands, Tuvalu, Nauru, and Palau. The Marshall Islands and Kiribati have
population sizes of 54,000 and 88,000 respectively. Tonga, Federated States of
Micronesia and Samoa have between 100,000 and 180,000 people. On the other hand,
the four Melanesian countries have the following population sizes: Vanuatu – 204,000
Solomon Islands – 450,000 and Fiji close to 800,000 people. In contrast, Papua New
Guinea, the largest country, has over 5 million people.
Unlike European and American cities which took a long period of time to grow,
urban centers in Pacific countries mushroomed rapidly after attaining political inde-
pendence. For example, in the 1960s, rapid rural-urban migration of indigenous
peoples produced unusually high urban population concentrations, such as in the four
Micronesian island states of the Pacific (Connell & Lea, 1998). As elsewhere in the
 The Urban and the Peripheral 271

Pacific and other parts of the world, this has created many challenges for city and town
planners as they grapple with increasing population numbers and a huge strain on
social provisions such as land, employment, housing, education, health, transport and
other essential urban services.

Redefining the Urban in the Pacific

Different countries define a town or city in different ways. What may constitute a city
in the Pacific may be a village in the big nations of Asia, or a mere suburb in a mega-
lopolis of Europe or North America. None of the urban centers of the Pacific resemble
those of the developed world. The largest city in the Pacific, Port Moresby, with
300,000 people, is huge by Pacific standards but miniscule on the world stage.
Urban centers in many small island states of the Pacific may not even be classified
as towns, let alone cities, if we assume conventional western definitions. Nevertheless,
this chapter is an attempt to begin the process of reconceptualizing the urban in the
Pacific given the small land area these countries occupy, their relatively small popula-
tion sizes, their colonial heritage and the peculiar social, educational, cultural, spiri-
tual, political, and economic challenges these pose in a competitive, highly globalized
economy.
It is important to note that the size of the urban population, population density, city
dynamics and the complexity of functions that work for the cities of Asia and the West
may not be significant in the determination of what constitutes the urban in Pacific
nations. What matters are the perceptions of the local people and the basic functions
that the urban center serve. If they call it a town because it serves various administra-
tive, municipal, commercial and religious purposes, then it is their town. For example,
Funafuti, the main atoll and “capital” of Tuvalu, is the hub of the nation and is, for all
intents and purposes, its capital city. It contains the seat of government, a town coun-
cil, an all-purpose maneaba (meeting house) which houses the parliament and courts
at different times, and also has a post office, a hospital, schools, several banks, some
supermarkets, three night clubs and a hotel. It is an urban hub, yet is home to only
4,000 people, a mere village from an Asian perspective.
The two cities of the Pacific that may arguably fit conventional Western definitions
are Port Moresby, the capital of PNG, with over 300,000 people and Suva, the capital
of Fiji, with over 180,000 people. The capitals of Palau and Marshall Islands are heav-
ily urbanized with 71 and 60% respectively of their populations living in the main cen-
ters. Nauru has a 100% urban population while Tokelau has no urban center since each
of its three atolls have decentralized local government and educational systems.

Rural-Urban Drift
An interesting feature of contemporary Pacific towns is the changing composition of
the people in the urban centers. Unlike colonial times when indigenous people were
few in number and life revolved around the colonialists, after independence, increas-
ing numbers of indigenous populations moved into urban centers to live because of the
perceived opportunities for paid employment, education, medical, and other benefits.
272 Puamau and Teasdale

While the urban population during colonial days was made up almost exclusively of
Europeans, it is the indigenous people who now make up a significant proportion of
people living in towns and cities of the Pacific.
Many villagers migrate to urban centers because of the lack of resources and oppor-
tunities for their families in the rural areas. In Kiribati, for example, the principal reason
for moving “is the severe limitation of wage and salary earning opportunities in the
outer islands or even the prospect of any in the future” (Connell & Lea, 1998, p. 54). In
the Marshall Islands, the bright lights of the city is significant in drawing people to
Majuro, the capital, and villagers move because there is a lack of entertainment and
recreational activities in the small coral atolls (of which there are 34), and where life in
the small coral islands can be somewhat monotonous (Connell & Lea, 1998).
A common feature in all Pacific Islands is that the movement from the periphery to
the urban is made easier when relatives already live in the town. When rural dwellers
come to visit, they generally find life in the towns attractive and many choose not to
return to the village. If they are fortunate, they find jobs. If not, they continue to rely
on urban relatives for sustenance, thus becoming an additional burden. In many cases,
particularly with young people, those who stay are not prepared to go back to the
seeming struggle of everyday life in the village, preferring to eke out an urban exis-
tence until a means of livelihood comes their way.
Many workers with low paid jobs find themselves cheap accommodation in the
urban centers or their suburbs. It is not uncommon to find such families packed into
small one or two bedroom apartments, or in tiny, crowded houses. This urban crowd-
ing readily gives rise to antisocial and criminal behaviors. The issues faced by the
urban poor are serious. The increase in shanty or squatter settlements in and around
towns and cities is a common sight in the Pacific.
The main reason for the move from periphery to center is the perceived advantages
an urban life offers. The hinterland is seen as too disadvantaged, especially in the con-
text of economic, educational and other social benefits. The urban centers offer modern
amenities that are not readily available or affordable within a subsistence village econ-
omy. The internal migration from the village to the town therefore is seen by many as a
golden opportunity to get jobs, find good schools for their children, obtain better hous-
ing, and generally to be accessible to the “good life” associated with urban living. After
all, most of the action take place in the towns: entertainment, shopping, education,
politics, banking and commerce.
The reality, however, is that many islanders migrating to urban centers find their
rosy picture of what life would be like in the towns and cities shattered. Coming into
town without necessary work skills or any ready money, many find themselves doing
menial jobs or joining the ranks of the unemployed and the growing pool of the urban
poor. This vicious cycle is continued with their children and if education does not
break this cycle, intergenerational urban poverty and struggle continues.

Impact of Urbanization
The rise of towns and cities is associated with the growth of economic centers, the
building of infrastructures to provide transport, municipal services and communication
 The Urban and the Peripheral 273

links, and the growth of the entertainment and information industries. However, when
the provision of essential infrastructures and services cannot keep pace with the rapid
increase in urban populations, many challenges are created and problems arise. The
high cost of living associated with urban spaces can be prohibitive to low-income work-
ers. Additionally, a high unemployment rate, increasing crime, high poverty levels, pol-
lution, an increase in squatter settlements and the increasing demand for schools in the
urban areas all contribute to the challenges that urban dwellers face.
Urbanization has a number of serious impacts in the Pacific, particularly on indige-
nous ways of life. First, the process of urbanization has swallowed up villages in its
wake. Some villages at the periphery of urban centers have been caught in the middle
of infrastructural and transport development and have had to contend with many cul-
tural changes. In some instances, the city has been brought right to their door. For
example, 2 kilometers from the capital city of Fiji, the main highway cuts right through
the middle of Suvavou village, the landowning unit of much of the city. The same
occurs with some villages in Papua New Guinea. As Port Moresby has grown to
accommodate increasing business and population pressures, it has built itself around
villages in its path such that a strange situation prevails – there are some rural villages
that are contained within the urban boundary, but are not counted in that category.
Similarly, in Fiji, the indigenous Fijian “urban villages” are systematically excluded
from the legal city and town boundaries (Bureau of Statistics, 1997). This poses a con-
tinuing enigma because they lie in municipal territory, enjoy all the privileges this
entails, but do not contribute to the cost of the services, “nor are they subject to the
health and amenity controls of the local municipal council” (United Nations Center for
Human Settlement, 1991, p. 3).
Second, the development of urban centers has resulted in disruptions to traditional
land tenure arrangements. Those villages in and around the town or city have had to
lease part of their land to those groups of people or individuals who come to the city
to stay. Usually, a traditional approach is made to the landowning unit for a token sum
of rent per year. Later, this system may or may not be formalized with the relevant
institutions. Native leases are given out for the use of traditional land to accommodate
land needs of immigrants to urban centers. This is particularly true in the case of Fiji
in the suburbs of Lami, Delainavesi, Samabula and Nasinu, which all fall in the Suva
city boundary, for example. In the town of Nadi, 90% of the town is located on native
land (Bureau of Statistics, 1997).
Cultural identity issues have also become serious matters for many indigenous
groups who have become part of the urban landscape. When they lived in their vil-
lages, they shared a common dialect or language and had a common culture and value
system. However, in the city, there is no knowing who one’s neighbor might be. Papua
New Guinea has over 800 distinct languages and the probability of finding another
native speaker in the vicinity is remote indeed. Urban dwellers face the challenge of
maintaining their language and culture amidst the significant diversity in language and
cultural practices prevalent in towns and cities. If one or two generations of city
dwellers do not maintain their cultural and linguistic links with their traditional villages,
there is the real danger that there will be significant language loss in their children and
grandchildren. This situation is not peculiar to PNG. Other Pacific countries, especially
274 Puamau and Teasdale

those with many languages like Vanuatu and Solomon Islands, also face this challenge,
but perhaps to a lesser degree.
Related to this is the rise of the “hybrid generation,” particularly of second and third
generation urban dwellers. From the relative security of the rural village, many Pacific
Island children, born and bred in a town or city, grow up and either become kaivalagi
(foreign or white) in their outlook, especially if they are relatively rich and well edu-
cated, or “fringe dwellers,” neither well versed in their own indigenous cultures and
languages nor well adapted to urban living. These are the growing number of misfits,
youths without an identity, rootless and searching for a meaning in life. This could
explain why the main jails of Pacific Island countries are full of indigenous peoples,
mainly under the age of thirty.
Associated with the development of the hybrid generation of youths is the continued
dominance of English (or Pidgin English in PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu) as the
language of schooling, communication, administration, politics and commerce. There is
also an increasing tendency for many educated indigenous parents to encourage the
speaking of English in the home, to the detriment of their own local languages. The trend
is especially common in Melanesian countries where there is increasing marriage
between people from different language groups. For them, English or Pidgin is their only
means of communication with each other. This adds to the difficulty of maintaining
indigenous languages, and is becoming a serious problem in the Pacific.
Implied in identity issues and the upbringing of urban Pacific youth is a breakdown
in culture and traditions of indigenous societies. For example, whereas there were
sanctions and norms that were strictly adhered to in the village situation, the relative
freedom that comes with urbanization causes many a person to fall by the wayside in
the city, particularly if family and church institutions are weak. The impact of Western
popular culture (e.g., TV shows, magazines, music, movies, hip hop dressing), the
increase in substance abuse, the promotion of materialism through advertisements and
the media, and the power of advertising generally is weakening traditional cultural val-
ues and seriously undermining the integrity of indigenous ways of knowing and doing.
Moreover, a serious concern for city dwellers is the increase in unemployment,
crime rate, pollution, over-crowdedness, traffic congestion and other social, health and
environmental problems that accompany increasing urban population densities. The
increase in lifestyle diseases like diabetes, obesity, hypertension, heart attacks and so
forth has been unprecedented, with many cases of people dying from these diseases
before they are 50. The change in diet from fresh foods to processed and fast foods of
the urban landscape, coupled with a more sedentary and stressful lifestyle, have con-
tributed significantly to this deterioration in health standards. The deterioration in
moral standards is reflected in the increase in HIV-AIDS cases, with HIV-AIDS now a
serious killer disease in the Pacific. It has reached epidemic proportion in PNG and no
Pacific country can remain complacent about this.
A positive impact of urbanization is the rise of the educated indigenous elite in the
Pacific. There is no doubt that education has been a great leveler; it has taken people
out of poverty and broadened the opportunities available to people. Over the last two
or three decades, there has been a definite shift in the fortunes of some former rural
 The Urban and the Peripheral 275

dwellers who moved to the centers. While it is true that there are also segments of the
population who are poor, those who have managed to get themselves educated to a
high level have benefited from medium to high salaries and have nice houses, car
and other material benefits. An offshoot of improvement in the lifestyle of city
dwellers, particularly for Pacific Islanders, is the spiral impact this has on their rel-
atives in the rural areas. Many rural families have significantly benefited from their
richer urban cousins who have not only contributed to helping in the education of
rural children at secondary school in urban centers, but also have significantly lifted
the standard of living of their families in the villages. Remittances sent to the periph-
ery have helped improve the lot of many rural dwellers. It is not uncommon if Fiji,
for example, for an indigenous person to own two houses, one in the village and one
in the urban center.

Challenges to Urban Education

The preceding discussion has a direct bearing on the education of children, not only in
the urban but also in rural areas. There are many educational challenges faced by gov-
ernments and communities in the Pacific: access, equity, quality, relevance, efficiency,
effectiveness, and student achievement, to name a few. Interestingly, these terms are
now fashionable because they are included in the international discourse imposed from
outside the Pacific, and have worked themselves into national strategic educational
plans through the influence of international agencies such as UNESCO with its
“Education for All” and the UN with its “Millennium Development Goals.”
A significant issue in the education of urban children is that of identity formation.
There is a paucity of research on the identity of Pacific children in urban centers. It is
obvious, however, that intergenerational children born and bred in urban centers, partic-
ularly of indigenous parents, will have a “hybrid identity” that is different from that of
their counterparts in the periphery. Their social and cultural identity is shaped and medi-
ated by the urban milieu in which they live. This is vastly different from the typical home
in the rural landscape. For example, urban children are exposed to a constant barrage of
Western popular culture through TV and the print media. They are conditioned from an
early age to the schooling culture where success in examinations is highly valued and
where failure in school is equated to failure in life. Urban children have to contend with
things such as family break-ups, violence in the home and neighborhood, violence in
movies and TV programs, increasing peer influence, and dilution of moral standards in
society. They therefore need a strong cultural and spiritual foundation in order to suc-
cessfully negotiate the pitfalls associated with life in the urban centers.
Since there is a tendency for individualistic lifestyles to prevail in urban settings, in
contrast to the communal concerns of the village, the opportunities that children have of
learning their language, cultural norms and traditional values are significantly reduced
as more and more people adopt a more Western lifestyle. For example, a growing trend
in many Pacific households is for the language of the home to be English, not the ver-
nacular. The danger that this poses for the death of the vernacular language for those
children is significantly high.
276 Puamau and Teasdale

If parents do not deliberately choose to let their children learn their language and
indigenous culture in the home, if parents isolate their children from cultural obliga-
tions and meeting with relatives, if they choose not to maintain strong kinship links to
their cultural roots in the villages, then these children will suffer cultural loss and will
become part of a rootless society. What are the implications for education? How can
schools value the cultural knowledges, languages and ways of knowing and doing of
Pacific peoples? This is a challenge that the PRIDE Project, discussed in the following
section, is trying to address. A key focus of the Project, for example, is that each coun-
try is encouraged to build its education planning on a strong foundation of local cultures
and languages, thus enabling students to develop a deep pride in their own values, tra-
ditions and wisdoms, and a clear sense of their local cultural identity, as well as their
identity as citizens of the nation.
A major challenge for quality education in urban schools is that excessive competi-
tion for educational space has led to significantly larger class sizes. For example, there
are class sizes of 40–60 in some Suva schools. This obviously places a strain on teach-
ers, and on the provision of adequate textbooks and learning resources. On the other
hand, a major challenge faced in rural and isolated schools are small school rolls which
impact on the amount of money the school can raise and the challenges associated with
teaching composite classes.
A significant factor in indigenous children performing poorly at school lies in the
fact that secondary schools in the Pacific are generally an urban phenomenon. The few
rural secondary schools are usually perceived by parents to be inferior to those in urban
centers. Parents by necessity are compelled to send their children either to boarding
schools or to live with urban relatives. While more research needs to be conducted in
this area, there is much anecdotal evidence to suggest that these students are usually
treated like servants, their educational needs are not prioritized, and they may be psy-
chologically traumatized (for a Fijian example, see Puamau, 1999). In small Pacific
islands like Tokelau and Nauru, high school students are usually sent away to be
educated in Samoa and Fiji respectively. This would be the norm where provision of
secondary school facilities is problematic in rural areas.
Poverty, high unemployment and the relatively high cost of living in urban areas
also impact hugely on schooling. While financial poverty is also a way of life in many
indigenous rural subsistence households, it is more pronounced in the urban centers
where kinship networks may be absent. The numbers of people living below the
poverty line in urban centers is increasing. In Fiji, for example, a recent survey iden-
tified 29.3% of urban households as living in poverty (see Ministry of Local Govern-
ment, 2004, p. 9). This has significant implications for the education of children
from poor families, with concomitant problems of absenteeism, malnutrition, school
dropout and low retention rates. In Nauru, which has a 100% urban population with
all 12,000 people living on one small island, an economic crash and subsequent
national bankruptcy in the late 1990s resulted in mass poverty, malnutrition and
social problems. As unemployment has increased, there has been a rise in the crime
rate, particularly amongst young people who are basically stealing for food. With a
wage freeze, and later, a significant reduction in take home pay, hunger has been
the norm with many Nauruans eating only one meal a day. There has been a slight
 The Urban and the Peripheral 277

turnaround in the economy, but the effects of this economic drought will take a long
time to alleviate.

The Diaspora on the Rim

In very similar ways that push and pull people from rural to urban centers, there is an
increasing exodus of Pacific peoples from their countries of birth to cities on the
Pacific Rim. They perceive the advantages of these “greener pastures” as improved
education and employment opportunities for their children, and the promise of better
jobs and incomes for themselves. Permanent residency or citizenship status in the
USA, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia is highly sought after. Polynesian countries
have especially strong outmigration, and there are now more Samoans, Niueans, Cook
Islanders, Tokelauans and Tongans living overseas than at home (Connell, 2000).
Political instability also has been a stimulus to push people out to metropolitan cities.
In Fiji, for example, the coups of 1987 and 2000 have caused significant numbers of
citizens of Indian heritage to emigrate.
Moving from the perceived disadvantages of Pacific peripheries to cities on the rim
has created a dichotomy that resembles the rural-urban drift within national borders.
The impact of this transition is outside the scope of this chapter. However, while much
research is yet to be carried out on alternative ways of responding to the challenges this
poses for migrant Pacific Islanders in their new urban spaces, remittances sent back to
relatives at home have been of significant benefit both to the recipients and to the local
economy. In Fiji, for example, remittances earn almost as much foreign income for the
nation as tourism.
In the preceding sections, we have laid the framework of the urban nature of educa-
tion in the Pacific. In particular, we have noted that the development of towns and cities
has been an outcome of the colonial enterprise. We have also demonstrated that the def-
inition of the urban in the Pacific context is very different from the way it is conceived in
Western or Asian contexts. We have discussed the impact urbanization has had on
indigenous cultural systems. In redefining the urban in the Pacific, we have specifically
addressed issues to do with land tenure, changing social relations, identity reformations
and the concomitant problems that are associated with the process of urbanization. Now
we turn our attention to an important project that involves all fifteen countries covered
in this chapter, a project we believe will make a significant difference to educational
development in the Pacific region, both in urban and rural settings.

The PRIDE Project: Making a Difference

Any current analysis of education in the Pacific must include the PRIDE Project. An
acronym for “Pacific Regional Initiatives for the Delivery of basic Education,” this
major regional project has the potential to impact significantly on Pacific education in
its totality, including both the remote and the urban. Funded by the European Union
and NZAID, its main focus is to support strategic planning in the 15 participating
Pacific countries, and implementation of key priority areas.
278 Puamau and Teasdale

In the following section we describe unique features of the Project and show how it
is reconceptualizing the delivery of education in the Pacific. In particular, urban as
much as rural schools could benefit from the holistic approach it advocates, with an
emphasis on the spiritual development of students, as well as values education, and
indigenous education, including the teaching of vernacular languages. This is particu-
larly important in the urban landscape, given the fragmentation and disintegration of
family units and their isolation from the security that indigenous peoples have in the
tight kinship relationships still evident in more remote settings.

The PRIDE Project

The overall objective of the Project is:

To expand opportunities for children and youth to acquire the values, knowledge
and skills that will enable them to actively participate in the social, spiritual, eco-
nomic and cultural development of their communities and to contribute positively
to creating sustainable futures. (www.usp.ac.fj/pride)

To achieve this objective, the Project is seeking to strengthen the capacity of each of the fif-
teen countries to deliver quality education to children and youth across all sectors except
higher education [i.e., pre-school, elementary, primary, secondary and Technical &
Vocational Education & Training (TVET)], and through formal and non-formal means
(Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 2001). The key outcome will be the development of
strategic plans for education in each country, plans that blend the best global approaches
with local values and ways of thinking. Ideally these plans will be developed following
wide consultation with all stakeholders and beneficiaries, including parents, teachers,
students, NGOs, private providers, employers and other civil society groups. The Project is
also assisting countries to implement their plans and to monitor and evaluate the outcomes.
Capacity building activities are provided for educators at national, sub-regional and
regional levels. To further support these activities, the Project is developing an on-line
resource center to encourage the sharing of best practice and experience amongst countries.
In discussing the PRIDE Project with educators throughout the Pacific and beyond,
a frequently asked question is: “How is it different? We have seen many donor-driven
education projects and initiatives come and go. Why is this one unique?” Their cyni-
cism is justified. The history of educational aid in the Pacific, as elsewhere, is an
ambiguous one, with at least as many negatives as positives. The present Project, how-
ever, does have a number of unique features, and there is considerable optimism that it
can achieve its goals in ways that others have not. These features include:
(1) The fact that the Project was designed and approved by the Ministers of Education:
the process started with them, not with the donors. It has been very clear at recent meet-
ings that they see this as their Project, and are determined to guide and direct it according
to their countries’ needs and priorities. Discussions with individual Ministers have rein-
forced this view. The donors, in turn, have shown quite remarkable preparedness to allow
this to happen.
 The Urban and the Peripheral 279

(2) The significance of the acronym: its choice clearly was deliberate, and reflects
the wishes of the Ministers. Each country is being encouraged to build its education
plans and curricula on a stronger foundation of local cultures, languages and episte-
mologies, thus enabling students to develop deep pride in their own values, traditions
and wisdoms, and a clear sense of their own local cultural identity. This element has
been prioritized by heads of Education Ministries as number one in the list of ten
benchmarks used by the PRIDE Project to review strategic plans in each country. This
very strong focus on the local is of particular significance in urban settings where
Pacific languages and cultures are under the greatest threat.
(3) The strong emphasis on mutual collaboration and support: the aim of the Project
is to help countries to help one another. Earlier projects brought consultants from out-
side the region, and therefore became donor-driven as they responded to donors’ pri-
orities and preferences. The PRIDE Project is sourcing most of its consultants from
within the region, and already has built up an impressive database of qualified people
from Pacific nations. It is also funding local educators to go on study and training
visits to one another’s countries, not to those on the rim and beyond.
(4) The encouragement of consultative and participatory approaches to educational
planning, policy-making and curriculum development within each country: there is a
clear wish to avoid top-down models, and a strong commitment to bottom-up processes
involving parents, teachers, students, private providers, NGOs, employers and other civil
society groups.
(5) The fact that Ministers want the Project to promote a more holistic and lifelong
approach to education, with effective articulation between sectors, and between school,
TVET and the world of work.
(6) The commitment of the PRIDE team to building strong conceptual foundations
for the Project. Earlier projects brought outsiders to the Pacific with western “recipes”
for the reform of curricula. The PRIDE team is committed to helping countries
develop their own theoretical foundations, doing so via the creative fusion of their own
epistemologies, values and wisdoms with the most useful ideas and approaches of the
global world beyond their shores (Teasdale, 2005).

Conceptual Framework
As mentioned above, a unique feature of the PRIDE Project is a commitment to building
a strong conceptual framework for the reform of education in the region. This conceptual
framework3 draws initially from the Report to UNESCO of its International Commission
on Education for the Twenty-first Century (Delors, 1996). The first two pillars of learn-
ing highlighted in the report – “learning to know” and “learning to do” – are adequately
covered in Pacific schools, in fact so much so that there is a serious imbalance, with the
other two pillars – “learning to be” and “learning to live together” – receiving relatively
little attention.
A serious imbalance also exists in the current Pacific curriculum which places an
emphasis on academic learning – “learning to know” – and treats TVET, life skills and
lifelong learning – part of the “learning to do” pillar – as second class. The PRIDE
280 Puamau and Teasdale

Project seeks to rectify this imbalance by having as a benchmark the principle that
national education plans should contain strategies for the systematic teaching of literacy,
numeracy, ICT and English together with life and work preparation skills, thereby equip-
ping all students to take their place in a global world with ease and confidence. This
benchmark seeks a better balance between the so-called academic subjects (literacy,
numeracy and English) with life and work preparation skills that include ICT, TVET, the
visual and performing arts, together with skills for self-sufficiency and self-reliance.
The suggested shift in focus from the teacher to the learner as exemplified in the
Delors Report is highly significant for the Pacific as it is elsewhere in the world.
Ministries of Education will need to grapple with this global shift. The knowledge
explosion brought about by improved ICT has meant that teachers and other education
professionals, including teacher educators, will need to devise new ways of delivering
education to students. With the advent of the independent, lifelong learner, the role of
teacher as facilitator of learning, rather than the old role of dispenser of knowledge, is
becoming increasingly important. In particular, teachers have:

responsibility to help students make effective and appropriate use of this knowl-
edge which requires a capacity to critically appraise all of the material available to
them and to make value judgments of it, often from moral and ethical perspectives.
School curricula therefore need to focus on developing the critical capacities of
students, enabling them to know themselves, to think for themselves, and thus
become active and confident learners. (Teasdale, Tokai, & Puamau, 2004, p. 5)

In this conception, teachers have to lead by example. They need to be role models if
they are to facilitate moral and ethical decision-making on the part of their students.
They need to be culturally and spiritually grounded to make a positive impact. If they
are unable to provide moral and ethical leadership in the classroom, their role as
“teacher,” facilitator and guide will not be effectively fulfilled. Teacher training insti-
tutions must develop appropriate programs to help foster the development of teachers
of integrity and sound character, who in turn will be able to guide their students into
making moral and ethical choices in their learning and living.
The teaching of values, and the strengthening of students’ moral and ethical deci-
sion-making, are particularly urgent in the new urban landscapes of the Pacific. Yet it
is here, in these increasingly multilingual and multicultural settings, that the teaching
of indigenous values and wisdoms is becoming increasingly neglected. Urban schools
are no longer grounded in communities, but are part of an urban conglomerate. The
wisdom and educational leadership of the older generation are often lacking.

A Holistic Approach
Is it possible to have education systems that are owned by the people of the Pacific? In
light of over a century of colonization, and the current colonial substitutes of global-
ization and educational aid, can Pacific educators develop their own distinctively local
systems, firmly founded on their local cultures and traditions, and strongly under-
pinned by indigenous value systems, philosophies and epistemologies? Is it possible,
 The Urban and the Peripheral 281

even desirable, to do so, especially in light of increasing urbanization and the steady
outmigration of Pacific peoples to urban cities in countries on the rim and beyond?
How can education reform in the Pacific be reconceptualized? A holistic approach
needs to be taken not only in discussions on education in the Pacific, but more impor-
tantly in its practices and processes. Currently, learning and what happens in schools
are disparate and disconnected from the daily lives of students, especially in urban
areas. It is mainly abstract, too academic and fragmented. From a traditional perspec-
tive, the two pillars of “learning to be” and “learning to live together,” until the colo-
nial era, were a fundamental part of a holistic process of lifelong learning throughout
the Pacific. In order to regain wholeness and a seamless connection in education, a
shift must now occur in the following areas:

(1) Balanced and holistic ways of “knowing,” “doing,” “being,” and “living together”
need to be reflected in curricula. The current perception that livelihoods and life skills
knowledges are of second-class status should be discarded. A more holistic approach to
learning would necessitate a better balance in academic, technical, vocational, life skills
and lifelong learning. As well, a holistic approach needs to be taken also to the old
demarcations between the various levels of education – pre-school, kindergarten,
primary/elementary, secondary, technical/vocational – with more effective articulation
between each level.
(2) Because formal schooling is largely derived from foreign value systems, there is
a serious cultural gap between the lived experiences of most Pacific Island students
and what is offered in schools, including the way schooling is organized and struc-
tured, the culture and ethos of schooling, its pedagogical practices and the assessment
of learning. And because the outcomes of schooling continue to be measured in terms
of examination passes, many Pacific Islanders fail to succeed in school. A holistic
approach to education will also mean a rethinking of all these factors.
(3) A holistic approach to education will particularly necessitate a culturally inclu-
sive curriculum where cultural and linguistic literacy is part of what is offered in
schools (Thaman, 1992). It is critical that every child learns the language, culture and
traditions of the particular human society into which s/he is born. This is particularly
so for indigenous cultures. It is important that the curriculum is grounded in the local
cultural systems of knowledge and wisdom. The cultural identity of indigenous peo-
ples must be reaffirmed at school, beginning with a culturally inclusive and demo-
cratic curriculum which halts the “cultural and environmental bankruptcy” that is “an
affliction which has been an obstacle to sustainable development in much of the mod-
ern world” (Thaman, 1995, p. 732). It is envisaged that curriculum development for
schools (Thaman, 1992) and teacher-training institutions (Thaman, 1996) will focus
on making the curriculum more culturally democratic at these sites.
(4) The spiritual development of the child is currently missing from most educa-
tional discourse in the Pacific. This is a serious gap that needs to be rectified. An
emphasis on spiritual development or moral education needs to occur in Pacific
schools. The region has successfully internalized Christianity as the dominant religion.
Because the bulk of a child’s waking hours are spent at school, and because of chang-
ing economic and social conditions which weaken the role of the church and families,
282 Puamau and Teasdale

we believe schools and their teachers now have a crucial role in building morally
strong citizens for the future. The teaching of Christian values and principles should
therefore be incorporated into the curricula of Pacific schools. At the same time, however,
an inclusive environment strongly suggests that the spiritual needs of non-Christian
students also be taken into account.

Countries that are developing or reviewing their curricula should ask the following
questions:
● What are the current curriculum goals? What should the goals be?
● What and whose values, philosophy, ideology does the curriculum profess? What
and whose values or ideals should it promote?
● What knowledge, skills and attitudes should the curriculum emphasize?
● Who decides on content?
● What language should the curriculum be taught in?
● Whose interests will the curriculum serve?
● What are the social, educational, economic and political implications of such a
curriculum?
In order to have a holistic approach4 to curriculum reconceptualization and educa-
tional reform, these questions should be answered in light of the quest to be culturally
inclusive, to be cognizant of indigenous concerns, and to blend both local and global
ways of knowing and doing. Values education or spiritual development should also be
included in this holistic approach to education in urban settings. The latter is of crucial
importance given the increasing stress and challenges that urban people face, particu-
larly relating to changing social relations, identity and the negative realities associated
with living in urban landscapes.

Conclusion
There is no doubt that the colonial encounter with indigenous peoples of the Pacific
region, as elsewhere, brought untold psychological, social and cultural damage. After
decolonization, Pacific peoples, living in small island countries, continue to grapple
with challenges brought about by the impact and influence of neocolonialism, west-
ernization, urbanization, globalization, foreign aid and market capitalism. Education
systems in Pacific countries have been significantly affected by these onslaughts.
Noting the paucity of research and theorizing on anything urban in the Pacific region
and the fact that different countries have defined the urban differently, we have attempted
to explore the meaning of the urban in the contemporary Pacific, emphasizing that towns
and cities are colonial inventions. In redefining the urban, we have particularly examined
the impact the growth of towns and cities has had on indigenous cultures and languages
since it is the indigenous peoples who predominate in contemporary Pacific urban areas.
We have specifically addressed issues to do with land tenure, changing social relations,
identity reformations and the challenges associated with the process of urbanization,
particularly on the education of children in urban areas.
 The Urban and the Peripheral 283

In reconceptualizing educational reform in the Pacific, and the work of the PRIDE
Project, the need for a holistic approach to education, including grounding formal
schooling in the spiritual and cultural realities of indigenous communities, has been
emphasized. This holistic approach should also include working towards a balance in
other areas: curriculum coverage; levels of schooling; school structures and lived expe-
riences of Pacific peoples; and local and global intersections.
Research that concerns Pacific education and its relationship to development and
urbanization, amongst other things, needs to be undertaken on a more intense scale in
order to build up a body of knowledge that is unique to the Pacific.

Notes
1. The exception is Fiji where a little less than half of the population is Indo-Fijian.
2. The term “postcolonial” is a hotly contested one and much theorizing revolves around it. A useful defini-
tion for the purposes of this chapter is given by Leela Gandhi (1998) who defines postcolonialism as “a the-
oretical resistance to the mystifying amnesia of the colonial aftermath. It is a disciplinary project devoted to
the academic task of revisiting, remembering and, crucially, interrogating the colonial past” (p. 4).
3. See Teasdale, Tokai, and Puamau, 2004, a paper presented at a Commonwealth of Learning Consultative
Meeting, Vancouver, November 15–17, 2004, available on www.usp.ac.fj/pride
4. See Puamau (2005) for a detailed presentation on a holistic approach to rethinking Pacific education, a
paper presented at the international conference on Redesigning Pedagogy: Research, Policy & Practice
at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 30th May – 1st
June, 2005, available on www.usp.ac.fj/pride

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15

DUCKED OR BULLDOZED? EDUCATION OF

DEPRIVED URBAN CHILDREN IN INDIA

Anita Rampal
Delhi University, India

When Time Stands Still

Time: Time stands still when water runs out and the tap is dry. When electricity
goes … Time stands still when we sit in class in school. Time also stands still when we
cannot go out and have to stay at home (Ayesha, age 14 years; translated from Hindi).
These words were penned by Ayesha, a withdrawn and shy girl studying in Class
VIII, who died from an undiagnosed disease in the summer of 2001. She wrote for the
collective diary “By Lanes” (jointly published by the two groups, Sarai & Ankur,
2002), as part of a project for urban slum children of Delhi. The “Cybermohalla” proj-
ect draws on the Hindi word “mohalla” – denoting a dense urban neighborhood, its
lived sense of alleys and corners, “its relatedness and concreteness” – to interrogate a
child’s place in the city, through articulation in cyberspace. The diary provides space
for reflection and creativity, to serve as an “act of everyday intransigence” in a cruel
urban environment, to young people from two working class settlements. One is an
“illegal” squatter colony facing constant police harassment and threat of eviction, and
the other a legal re-settlement colony. Yet, both are home to the increasingly con-
tentious metropolitan reality of unemployment and violence. The young people who
meet regularly in the self-regulated spaces called “Compughars” have acquired tech-
nical skills in handling computers and digital cameras, and have created booklets, wall
magazines, e-postings and short animation films to narrate their memories and testi-
monies of the city through diary entries.
The import of Ayesha’s transient life’s intractable struggle for water, electricity, or
mobility outside her home are placed, almost symbolically, in stark contrast to the
“timelessness” of her experience of schooling. Curiously, time stands still for her when
the tap runs dry, when the feverish and densely purposeful hustle and bustle of life is
summarily silenced. In her innocent and perhaps unintended metaphorical comparison,
the aimlessness and “lightness of being” in school is equated with that moment when
life loses its momentum and meaning. The majority of our children who somehow
285
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 285–304.
© 2007 Springer.
286 Rampal

manage to stay on in school face similar alienation, which is not always benign, and can
often be humiliating, even violently oppressive.
Other young authors of the above diary also use “water” as a marker to punctuate the
flow of their lives, as the “time for water to start flowing from the tap.” In describing
the dramatic fights at the public outlet, the frenetic screaming, the single-mindedly
rushed activity of filling utensils, rudely brought to a halt as the flow stops, they doc-
ument their fears and concerns, their reading of the changes and the growing tensions
in their locality.

Flows: A fight began between them. But the tap was running. And water was flowing
into the drain nearby. Something in the drain was already obstructing its flow and caus-
ing water to fill up. The drain was filling up but their fight was not coming to an end. It
went on, and finally it was time and the tap ran out of water. Meanwhile the water over-
flowed from the drain onto the lane … . For two or three days, walking in the lane proved
to be a major problem (Sarai & Ankur, 2002; diary entry “Flows –13.10.2001”).

Fights and Fear: The basti (settlement) has changed over time. Something new
appeared; something suppressed erupted. The population here has grown. And space for
the people living here is constrained … . For some reason, due to unemployment and
the conditions of helplessness at home, boys tried to drown their sorrow in alcohol. Bad
habits, teasing girls, fights among neighbors, thus began the animosities. … We fear
most the fights here! We fear someone going around drunk. We fear the police! We fear
the dogs here! The innocent are trampled upon while the cunning go scot-free. … One
only fools one’s heart by saying that all is well when one’s own environment is fine.
After all, the surroundings do affect a human being (Sarai & Ankur, 2002; diary entry
“People – August 30, 2001”).
Indeed, this reflection is poignantly mirrored in The Weight of the World: Social
Suffering in Contemporary Society where Bourdieu et al. (2002) document the
“vicious circle of rejection” of urban working class students in France. Their rejection
by school and then of school, gradually traps them into the defiant role of the “tough,”
in coping with the humiliation of academic failure. His interviews with young men at
urban housing sites highlight the “inert violence in the order of things” – and the links
between the school market, the job market, and their “everyday experience of racism”
(also present in the “police forces” actually meant to repress it). Their collective bad
luck only enhances their self-despair, “and attaches itself, like a fate, to all those that
have been put together in those sites of social relegation, where the personal suffering
of each is augmented by all the suffering that comes from co-existing and living with
so many suffering people together – and perhaps, from the destiny effect of belonging
to a stigmatized group” (p. 64).
In complacent contrast the school textbook maintains an inert distance and refuses
to acknowledge their lives, its turbulent flows and fears, its sense of time or timeless-
ness. It deals with the issue of water or housing in a sterile manner, assuming that
everyone lives in a brick and mortar bungalow provided with tapped water, and
preaches “water conservation” so that taps are not kept running while brushing one’s
 Ducked or Bulldozed? Education of Deprived Urban Children in India 287

teeth. It also deliberately evades any conflicting issues seen as “uncomfortable” by its
middle-class urban authors, and unabashedly pontificates on what “they” – the poor
and the unclean – must do to keep themselves and the city clean. There is an implicit
understanding that while education must inform “those backward” children on how to
conduct their lives “properly,” it should project only happy and “positive” situations to
protect the “innocence” of the privileged. Textbooks for government schools, fast
becoming sites of social relegation, therefore contain highly prescriptive and moralis-
tic lessons (about hygiene, cleanliness, hard work, etc.) together with naive but insipid
generalizations about the perceived needs of the poor.

The Timeless “Civilizing” Agenda?

The lesson on “Communicable Diseases” of the earlier version of a primary science
textbook for Class V (for 10-11 year olds) produced by the National Council for
Educational Research and Training (NCERT, 2003; the fourteenth edition, reprinted
annually since 1989, but radically revised in 2006), is a classic example of middle-
class callousness. It is also a telling illustration of the language of school, how texts
pay little attention to the language and concepts appropriate for children that age.
The lesson shows a shockingly crude (and crudely drawn) picture of a child defe-
cating in the bushes outside a house, while another one holds a “lota” (metallic mug)
and walks towards a tin-shed toilet. The textbook states: “Is this a healthy practice?
Often germs spread in this manner.” It then goes on to ask, “Which is the proper place
to defecate?” (implying that there is much choice!). With another picture depicting
people washing and bathing near a well, it states:

What would happen if you contaminate the source of water? Garbage thrown here
and there also decays. Flies breed in such decaying matter. They also sit on
exposed excreta or stool. Then they carry the germs. When they sit on the
exposed food it gets contaminated … . Diarrhea can cause loss of water and salts
from the body. You have learnt earlier how to prevent dehydration. If there is a
case of dehydration in your family, remember you can prevent it by giving the
child Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS). (Exploring Environment: A Textbook for
Class V, NCERT, 2003, p. 59)

The next paragraph feigns an interrogative stance – “How to prevent water and food
borne diseases” – but only to spout a didactic list of do’s and don’ts, which include:
– “Do not pass stool anywhere and everywhere. Use a sanitary latrine” (sounds
almost like toilet training for a pet dog!)
– “Wash your hands with soap or dry ash after defecation” (more choice!).
Similarly, another picture shows a person sleeping on a rope-cot near an open window,
half covered with a sheet and with mosquitoes hovering around. However, the “sensi-
ble” person sleeps fully covered, head and body completely wrapped in a sheet, and
288 Rampal

miraculously, the mosquitoes are now nowhere to be seen! The didactic list to prevent
malaria advises the use of a purportedly banned chemical:
– “Spray insecticide such as DDT in your house regularly. Take care that it is not
sprayed in excess” (yes, the story of how excessive DDT sprayed earlier by gov-
ernment agencies went all wrong for malaria is now well known).
– “Do not keep stagnant water. Change the water in the storage tank or reservoir at
least once a week” (as if there is always plenty to store!).
A detailed table (probably meant for a medical worker) then gives the vaccination
schedules for tuberculosis, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, typhoid and polio,
using terms such as “triple antigen,” “DPT,” “polio booster,” “tetanus toxoid,” etc. The
lesson triumphantly (though certainly not accurately, as most would know from their
experience) declares, “So you see, you can protect yourself from these diseases if you
take vaccination in time. … These vaccinations are given free in the Primary Health
Centres” (p. 60).
The message is loud and clear. If despite this “scientific” education you still continue
to fall ill and prey to such diseases, surely you are to blame for not learning your lesson.
The “civilizing” agenda of school has almost been timelessly and righteously
imposed on poor children, who supposedly need to be “rescued from the abyss,” where
the discipline of school is meant to be contrasted with the chaos and squalor in their
homes. In fact, the disdain faced by the urban poor in our city schools is reminiscent
of nineteenth century England, where the Compulsory Education Act of 1870 gave
state sanction to the purported maintenance of “order” through often oppressive meas-
ures. Education was enforced with prosecutions and fines, with seizure of goods if
parents could not pay, and even prison. Order and obedience came with cleanliness,
vested with the same moral righteousness, the same sense of “shame,” and even
greater priority than instruction. Clean clothes offered the most taxing demand, on
children and their already vexed mothers. “It was not easy to look neat. … Water for
all purposes had often to be fetched in from an outside tap or even a street standpipe,
and in many poor districts it was turned on only for part of the day, at least before the
1890s” (Davin, 1996).
The experience of “clean and compulsory” schooling for disadvantaged urban chil-
dren somehow transcends its temporal and colonial legacy. It still seems to ring true for
Ayesha, in twenty-first century Delhi, for whom, in any case, time stands still, when try-
ing to be clean and in school. Curiously, the ubiquitous head-louse has symbolically
offered a historic challenge to the civilizing crusade, right across the space-time of
universal schooling. The following account of indignant poor urban mothers in England
200 years back could warm the hearts of their many Indian counterparts today, and
perhaps inspire them for similar action:

“Their outraged dignity led them to visit the school and even to assault the
mistresses … . In one month four mothers were prosecuted for personally assaulting
mistresses” … (from the 1937 unpublished memoirs of Thomas Gautrey, “School
Board Memories,” quoted in Davin, 1996, p. 137) … . Gautrey here implies that the
resentment was provoked by the mere demand for “clean” hair. One reason for it,
 Ducked or Bulldozed? Education of Deprived Urban Children in India 289

however, was probably the equation by the authorities of headlice and dirt, and their
euphemistic, but insulting, reference to “clean” or “dirty” heads rather than to infes-
tation. … The schools did not confine themselves to stimulating a sense of shame
and demanding “clean” heads: they also cut the children’s hair. Gautrey quotes a let-
ter to the headmistress from a mother who saw this as one more in a series of offi-
cial attacks: “I should like to know how much more spite you intend to put upon my
child for it is nothing else. First you send the Sanitary Inspector and I have my home
taken away, … and now you cut the few hairs my girl was just beginning to grow so
nice … she had no need to have her hair cut off as it was washed with soft soap last
night. The child is thoroughly heartbroken” … . In the 1900s systematic inspection
for headlice began … (and) children … not certified “clean” were segregated (they
“sat at benches together, shamed outcasts” and were referred to as “the dirty girls”)
… .Cropped hair meant a loss of a central feminine attribute; it was also the mark of
the children in orphanages … . It was also an attack on the mother, since her child’s
shorn hair then declared her uncaring or incompetent. (Davin, 1996, pp. 138–139)

The same “shame” and indignity, heaped with loud indiscreet labels of being “back-
ward/slow learners,” continue to torment the majority of first generation learners in our
city schools. Yet, time has moved on for the middle-classes, and a more realistic engage-
ment with the ordinary louse is now considered too “filthy” for the textbook. Indeed, in
the state capital of Bhopal (in Madhya Pradesh) it was found that poor mothers were lib-
erally using DDT and other cheap insecticides on children’s heads to treat lice. During
the textbook writing exercise, when we suggested the use of creative narratives, not
didactic messages, to introduce safe practical ways to deal with lice or scabies, the offi-
cial “expert” frowned disgustedly and, scratching her scalp, decisively dismissed such
true-to-life topics that actually made her feel itchy and lousy! (PROBE Team, 1999).
Moreover, even as we strive today to develop new national textbooks, despite the new
syllabus we have framed for the primary school level, we contend with unrelenting
pressure to impart didactic “messages” about cleanliness and orderliness. “We have to
teach children to avoid putting their dirty hands into water, and to keep food covered!”
is what traditional teachers and textbook writers tenaciously insist. In any case, we hope
to redirect this fetish into an exercise for “critical reading of messages” – asking chil-
dren to critically reflect and respond to such posters or advertisements routinely brought
out by the municipal agencies during the monsoons, warning people about uncovered
food and unsafe water which could cause water-borne diseases. However, the greatest
challenge lies in transforming classrooms, to sensitize over six million teachers towards
a dialogic constructivist pedagogy that can give voice to the majority of our children
who continue to be alienated by school.

Transformative Curricula
Shagufta, a primary school teacher in Lahore (Pakistan), focuses on her students’ lived
struggles, framed by high urban poverty, through the political lens of her lessons. She
begins with their homes and a walk down their streets, covered with garbage and sewer
290 Rampal

water, encouraging questions such as “Are your streets clean?” or “We cannot live
without water. If all the water is dirty, what will we do?”(Roth & Barton, 2004). The
critical stance, according to her, is not meant to make them feel bad about where they
live, but to empower them for responsible citizenship and community action, to help
them analyze and change their surroundings. Ironically, she had faced daunting oppo-
sition from the men in her own family and her neighbors when she had aspired to study
beyond school to become a teacher, and was taunted by comments such as “yay to pani
bharaygee” (“she will only carry water” in Urdu). However, despite a constraining
national curriculum, she has shown that school can play a transformative role, and she
strives alone to give voice to her disadvantaged students as she continues to metaphori-
cally “carry water” through environmental action, well beyond the expectations of her
community.
The role of transformative curricula has been stressed in India by some non-
governmental organizations (NGOs), working largely in the context of rural schools or
centers for out-of-school children. For instance, an innovative curricular intervention
in the government system, initiated in the 70s through voluntary groups and activist-
scientists, was the Hoshangabad Science Teaching Program or HSTP (in the state of
Madhya Pradesh), catering to a thousand predominantly rural schools (Rampal, 1991,
1992). We had designed lessons based on an enquiry oriented approach that encour-
aged democratic interactions between the children and teachers, in an attempt to demys-
tify science and loosen its hegemonic control on school. The use of low-cost and locally
available or indigenously designed equipment promoted self reliance and creativity
among teachers and students; they confidently handled apparatus in elementary school,
unlike what happens even today in the best of schools. Some girls from working class
families had moved far beyond their texts to question traditional beliefs and potent
superstitions. In one dramatic case, they outshone even college science students: after
investigating all by themselves, they challenged their families about the cause of the
white snake-like lines on the purportedly “cursed” leaves (infested by the leaf minor),
which had caused thousands of people across the country to shun green vegetables
over weeks and even go fasting (Rampal, 1994).
However, despite having achieved wide acclaim, nationally and internationally, over
the three decades that it ran, the program (along with two others supported by the NGO
Eklavya) was summarily closed in 2003 by a state government aggressively pursuing
neo-liberal reforms in education. As seen in other countries, neo-liberal reforms have
devalued diversity in curricula and instead enhanced the power of the dominant mod-
els of “traditionalism” (Apple, 2001; Gillborn & Youdell, 2000). The Madhya Pradesh
government tenaciously promoted its low-cost “alternate” schools and Education
Guarantee Scheme centers, run by untrained contractual para-teachers, while it dis-
missed what it saw as an undesirable competitor in the critical pedagogy of HSTP.
Having stopped all regular recruitment of teachers over the last decade, and having
decimated and demoralized what it calls a “dying cadre” of teachers, the state contrac-
tually appointed almost 200,000 para-teachers, on a fraction of the salary of a regular
teacher. It thus led the way in drastic cost-saving measures, often propelled by priori-
ties proposed by funding agencies, later adopted nationally and by the other states. As
a result, the public provision of education in the country has today been rendered most
 Ducked or Bulldozed? Education of Deprived Urban Children in India 291

starkly differentiated and unequal, while the government grapples with its constitu-
tional declaration of Education as a Fundamental Right and still shirks enacting the
Free and Compulsory Education Act.
There are serious repercussions and future ramifications, of the current trends
towards globalization that buttress the notion of “uniformity” and “standardization” in
the school curriculum. This is meant to facilitate a privileged section of students, who
may need to move across state or country boundaries and be assessed comparatively
through what are considered equivalent testing systems. In some countries this has led
to a flourishing industry of “high-stakes” testing, such as in the “No Child Left Behind”
regime of the US, where it is causing grave concern. However, despite the shrinking
space for NGOs, and their changing relationship with the State in the neo-liberal era,
there are still some that attempt to bring critical pedagogy within government schools.
In the Municipal Schools of Mumbai, the mega-city with a population of about
18 million (including the area covering Greater Mumbai), of whom more than half are
estimated to be living in slums and temporary settlements, a supplementary program
aims to redress the alienating influence of the traditional curriculum. Through its own
materials and volunteers, the Avehi-Abacus team enables children to sensitively view
urban reality from their different perspectives. For instance, the chapter on Urban Life,
in the Teachers’ Manual on “Parivartan Ki Parakh” (Reflections on Change) used in
Class VII, presents detailed “frames” contrasting rural and urban life. While viewing
the opportunities for employment, and freedom from the oppressive caste and gender
relations that influence large migrations from villages, it also shows the degraded and
dehumanizing living conditions of urban slums. In one frame on “Nandita,” a girl living
with her relatives in a slum in Kolkata, the narrative states:

Nandita is living here since one month to look after her mother hospitalized in
Kolkata. Every morning she wakes up at 3:30 A.M. and goes to fill water at the
nearby tap with her cousin and aunt. If you do not reach early you get no water for
the day. Every day there are fights among the women at the tap. Nandita gets upset
when her day begins with such shouting and screaming. Even her house in the vil-
lage has no water, but the pond is only ten minutes away. If in summer the pond
happens to dry up she needs to walk 45 minutes to the river. But at least there are
no fights over water! … However the biggest problem is with latrines. There is a
row of latrines ten minutes away, but so filthy that Nandita finds it nauseating. So
it is better to go to the little space near the river. The women all go together while
it is still dark; after 4.30 A.M. vehicles start plying and people stare from atop the
bridge. The village too has no latrines; all go out in the open, but women have a
separate area. … If only her village had a hospital where her mother could get
treated! (Sangati Teachers’ Manual 5, Avehi-Abacus Programme, 2005)

Leading questions help relate the above narrative to children’s own experiences, while
the next frame provides information about their own city – Mumbai, where more than
half the people live in slums, covering less than 6% of the total land. One million live
on pavements; half the slums have no latrine, and a single tap can cater to between
200–8,000 people.
292 Rampal

Contrived Divide: Urban vs. Rural,

“Quality” vs. “Relevance”?
The Declaration on Education For All (EFA) in 1990 had demanded an ambitious par-
adigm for reform, transcending the conventional understanding of education. It called
for an “expanded vision of learning” by linking educational and social processes
through school and life, education and work, curriculum and culture, theory and prac-
tice, etc. EFA programs had aimed for curricular reform to address issues of diversity,
of different knowledge systems and linkages between life and learning. Yet the objec-
tives soon narrowed down to “numbers enrolled” in primary schools, and the initial
vision for all – to encompass youth and adults – is now almost forgotten in most inter-
national reviews. A study by UNESCO on South Asia, to see how issues of “quality of
life” and “empowerment of learners” (a rare phrase indeed in the present policy dis-
course) had been addressed, candidly acknowledged that “lack of relevance” and “poor
quality” continued to plague all countries of the region, greatly impacting children
from poor families. It noted that attempts to give a life orientation to school is often
consciously thwarted and that any attempt to change curricula faces stiff resistance
from elitist groups which tend to use school only as a stepping stone for employment
(UNESCO-APPEAL, 1998).
Even in the countries of the North there has been a tension between criteria of
“relevance and practical usefulness” on the one hand, and “quality” on the other, where
“quality” is defined in a narrow way to suit the needs of privileged groups. Thus those
whose children grow up in stimulus-rich environments may judge the “quality” of an
education system by its ability to cultivate special or exclusive skills and talents, while
parents of less privileged children will look for the system’s ability to foster more equi-
table learning opportunities for a larger number of people (Weiler, 1993).
Some of our restructured state curricula were resisted on grounds of deliberately
fractured notions of “relevance” and “quality” of schooling for rural and urban children.
Conventional curricula are equally “irrelevant” for rural and urban children, and do not
achieve much useful learning, but the urban/rural divide is used euphemistically to
differentiate between the employment interests of the middle classes and the “basic needs”
of the poor (Rampal, 2002). Ironically, “lack of relevance for urban children” and “dilution
of academic standards” were cited as the reason for resisting curriculum renewal even in
the state of Kerala, where there is today no sharp rural–urban divide, but where, despite
near-universal enrolment (and consistently high social indicators), the quality of learning
has remained dismal (KSSP, 1999). Through concerted newspaper campaigns, fuelled by
political opponents and other vested interests, including publishers of commercial
“guidebooks” and the network of coaching classes, the middle classes engaged in often
rhetorical and uninformed protest. This resulted in the loss of momentum and even sig-
nificant reversals in a program that, in a relatively short span of time, had indeed made
a difference to the school performance of the poor, whether rural or urban (Rampal,
2001).
The paradox of the rural/urban divide has reduced the “urban poor” in our cities to
greater social and spatial relegation, to remain a relatively neglected and increasingly
“peripheral” group in the discourse of education interventions. A large majority of the
 Ducked or Bulldozed? Education of Deprived Urban Children in India 293

urban poor still continue to have shifting and multiple identities, owing to their organic
links with their rural families, socially, culturally and economically. Moreover, there
exist culturally diverse and ambiguous notions of “home” and “place,” which even
after decades of urban living may still anchor them to their rural roots through a strong
sense of belonging.
The majority of rural migrants, who come to the city primarily to earn money to
remit or periodically take back to their rural households, are absorbed into the urban
economy in a highly differentiated manner, in sectors such as casual or unskilled labor,
factory work, the informal and unorganized sector and domestic service (Rigg, 1997).
However, with the increasing exploitation of the flow of cheap, captive and “compliant”
rural labor, including large numbers of women and children employed for globalized
production, cities are reconfiguring as “meccas for the formation of a transnational
working class … living under conditions of poverty, violence, chronic environmental
degradation, and fierce repression” (Harvey, 2000). Indeed, to engage with the stark
“local reality of global inequality,” schools must reconfigure as sites that allow educa-
tion “to re-root itself in the organic conditions of daily life” (p. 82). Moreover, since
education can be “about learning to live across borders and within them, and in and
through differences instead of against or in spite of them, … (in other countries too)
struggles have arisen to develop a vocabulary and optics for seeing the heterogeneity of
their student population” (Nozaki, Openshaw, & Luke, 2005, p. 3).
A relational understanding of “urbanism” helps engage with the collapse of tradi-
tional dualisms, such as, the blurring distinction between production and distribution
(Giroux, 1994; Harvey, 1973). The interplay of how different human practices in cities
create and make use of specific spaces, as in the spatiality of life and work between
the metropolitan hub and its increasingly peripheral “re-settlements,” continues to
shape what it means to be children of the “urban poor.” In fact, the sharp segregation
of the poor in Mumbai has led to the large and well-constructed government schools in
its posh south being rendered vacant and “unviable,” while its north struggles despair-
ingly with the displaced and dispossessed. A few educational programs have coined a
category of the “Deprived Urban Children” (DUC; ironically pronounced “duck”) but
these remain essentially nominal and peripheral, easily ducked during considerations
of contending priorities.
A household survey conducted by the Delhi government in collaboration with an
NGO, shows that of almost 200,000 out-of-school children (aged 6–14 years), 80% are
concentrated in about a third of the “difficult” geographical/administrative units
(Pratham Resource Centre, 2005). Many of these “difficult” pockets have large migrant
or resettled populations, no schools or, at best, a deplorably overcrowded school with
very poor learning achievements. In addition, the proximity of industrial units or
garbage dumps seriously affects children’s health. A case study documents the pressing
fears of thousands of children threatened by relocation in Delhi, owing to the Yamuna
river beautification plan, who took a delegation to the local police station to request
delayed action until after their exams were over. Similarly, Rafiq Nagar is a “huge slum
perched on the rim of Mumbai’s largest garbage dumping ground. The densely crowded
lanes wind through the hutments … then the ocean of waste begins … Water is scarce
and has to be bought and carried home. In the monsoon, and when water is released
294 Rampal

upstream, the drains overflow and sewage enters the homes … the life and duration of
the entire community is insecure … . Uncertainty and insecurity (of demolition) keep
children from making use of the meager existing facilities” (p. 14).
The segment of “hard core child labor,” living in the city alone, without parents, is
found concentrated in specific urban locations, such as, railway stations, religious
places, red-light areas, and particular industries of the unorganized sector. An estimated
70,000 children work for pitiably low wages, almost exclusively and “invisibly” in haz-
ardous industries in Mumbai, doing up to 18 hours a day in cramped, dark, low-ceiling
pits, often suffering acute physical abuse (Roy, June 2005). They remain “invisible” to
most statistics; to policy makers and educationists who might conceal them as “helps”
behind their own domestic doors, perhaps even to the above household survey, which
shows but a total of 79,000 children (aged 5–15 years) out-of-school in Mumbai. Some
NGOs, with police help, have been “raiding” factories to free children, and escorting
them back to their villages, often in the poorest districts of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar or
Orissa. State governments claim there is a need to set up alternative residential schools
for the education of such children brought back to their rural homes. Yet, most of the ini-
tiatives are taken up by NGOs, such as M.V. Foundation, Bachpan Bachao Andolan
(Movement to Save Childhood), etc. Moreover, very little has been done to construct
appropriate “bridging” curricula, acknowledging the children’s maturity, knowledge
and skills, acquired especially during their urban sojourn in coping alone with the cruel
city, while also helping them to soon enter the mainstream of rural schools.
Despite the sharp spatiality of their existence, schools seldom engage critically with
children’s “geographical imagination” in the spirit of Harvey’s proposition, to enable
them to recognize the “role of space and place in their own autobiographies.” Spatial
metaphors have played a role in the framing of emancipatory pedagogies to counter the
domesticating tendencies of education, ranging from phenomena of “border crossing”
to “legitimate peripheral participation” (Edwards & Usher, 2000). In countries of the South
the urban poor today are witness to increasingly dehumanizing, even “savage inequalities,”
as the city reconfigures and monstrously metamorphoses into a modern metropolis. In
addition, the media relentlessly imprints surreal images on young fertile imaginations
and blossoming aspirations; jazzy jacuzzis and fancy fittings seem to acquire a com-
monplace realism while modest taps and sanitary latrines remain remotely unimagin-
able. Yet schools make no attempt to scaffold the “spatial consciousness” of an urban
child to interrogate “the relationship that exists between him and his neighborhood, his
territory, or to use the language of the street gangs, his ‘turf ’ ” (Harvey, 1973, p. 24). On
the contrary, urban schools meticulously try to stay clean of the child’s neighborhood,
the language of his territory, and very certainly that of his “turf!” Moreover, rural
accents or colloquial terms, different dialects and even children’s “rural” (especially
tribal) names are frowned upon and arrogantly “corrected.”

Bulldozed: Without Homes and Schools

Schools and urban administrations make no concessions for children who are force-
fully evicted out of their houses through regular demolition or relocation. Often in the
 Ducked or Bulldozed? Education of Deprived Urban Children in India 295

middle of a school term, thousands of urban squatters are brutally bulldozed and there
is no attempt to get children readmitted; in fact, usually there is no school at the new
“dumping” sites. In a spate of ruthless demolitions between November 2004 and
February 2005 in Mumbai, over 300,000 people were rendered homeless for having
encroached on what was called “illegal” land, even though government agencies had
provided services such as electricity, and the police had made large sums in repeated
extortions. During the prompt mobilization and depositions held by the Indian People’s
Tribunal for Environment and Human Rights (IPTEHR), a victim, Anita Shukla,
poignantly declared: “My husband is an ice-candy seller and we have two children.
There is no count of the demolitions of our houses; it must be 17–18 times … Children
cannot go to school; those who do manage to go find it difficult because … other chil-
dren tease them. Children feel sad about it. They start avoiding school … (and) have
lost their bags and books in demolition” (IPTEHR, June 2005).
Over 180,000 children were estimated to have been rendered homeless in Mumbai
within a couple of months of the demolitions, most of them left out in the cold – out
of school, insecure and vulnerable. There were several cases of children succumbing
to extreme climatic conditions. “A common thread running through the accounts (of
the depositions) is not only the effect on people’s lives and livelihoods, but also the
future of their children. Given the fact that February–March is the end of the school
year, and a time when examinations are conducted, many children have lost a
year … , many suffer post-demolition trauma due to which it is impossible to cal-
culate how many will drop out from the school system completely” (IPTEHR, June
2005). This despite the Supreme Court rulings that, as part of Fundamental Rights,
“the right to shelter includes adequate living spaces, decent structures, clean sur-
roundings” and (in 1997) that “the state has the constitutional duty to provide shel-
ter to make the right to life meaningful.” However, what worried 12 year old Savita
most on losing her home was the forced loss of school for children who “will find it
difficult, because their mothers won’t even be able to bathe and dress them”
(Srinivasan, 2004).

Clean Cities and Citizens: “De-territorialized”

Global Aspirations
Clean and health-conscious citizens, in synergistic action between “environmental
self-help” and a new “caring for the self ” aggressively marketed by the cartel of
weight-loss clinics, yoga parlors, reiki gurus or gyms and gizmos, are buying in to the
idea of active “citizenship” to clean their cities of all “pollution.” Indeed, the democ-
ratization of the environmental discourse – “it affects us all, belongs to all” – has
obscured how conflicts of “the environment” of an abstract “public” may be justly
resolved with the many “environments” of differentiated publics (Sharan, 2002).
Several corporate NGOs, such as Bombay First, CitiSpace, and Merchants Chambers,
are now on the forefront, in collaboration with the World Bank and other international
agencies, to build public opinion and rebuild “public spaces.” This new environmental-
ism bids for a more “realistic” use of real estate, through the removal of encroachers and
296 Rampal

“deviants” such as hawkers, slums, street children and beggars from public land, as
also other pollutants from air and water.
However, the global aspirations of Delhi have been found to be somewhat fatally
flawed by its alarming gender ratio (868:1,000 female to male in the 0–6 age group),
owing to high female feticide by expensive sex determination technologies. The
Census 2001 (www.censusindia.net) shows figures as low as 762 female toddlers in its
“clean,” affluent, and highly educated south Delhi colonies, with substantially higher
ratios in the congested quarters or rural habitations of the less-literate “polluting” poor.
Ironically, this is similar to the national pattern, where the more prosperous, educated
urban districts show the least “tolerance” for the girl child. This raises critical ques-
tions, not only about gender justice or overarching notions of development and pros-
perity, but also, more pointedly, about the efficacy of the present education system, and
its ability to shape such mindsets. In addition, Mumbai is tarnished by alarming levels
of urban malnutrition which, according to the National Family Health Survey, is 29%
in the 0–6 age group – much higher than in the rural or even tribal areas of the state of
Maharashtra (17% malnutrition), owing to the extremely low purchasing power of its
urban poor.
The devastating demolitions in Mumbai have been seen as part of the city’s “Vision
Shanghai,” attributed to its proposed multi-billion dollar development plan to trans-
form the industrial capital of India into Asia’s leading financial capital. Indeed, the
planned “makeover” of Asia’s biggest slum, Dharavi, located on prime land in
Mumbai, and home to more than 600,000 people in ramshackle corrugated tin-sheds,
has sent warning signals about the government’s intentions. Dharavi, with a thriving
business worth $1 billion a year in local enterprise turning out everything from leather
goods, pottery, and jewelry to fake “branded” watch straps, remains an enigmatic
study in cosmopolitan contrast – between the enterprise, ambition and good humor of
its heterogeneous habitants, and their soul-deadening surroundings (Ahmed, BBC
News, 2004; D’Souza, 2002; Sharma, 2000; Verma, 2002). Meanwhile, large textile
mills set up in 1854, to serve as the harbingers of industrial and economic growth of
Mumbai, when the British allocated central land to house textile factories and workers’
quarters, have been closed. The owners threw out over 200,000 workers in the last
three decades, and sold most of the land to builders of high-rise luxury houses, not
“public housing,” as had been decreed in the sale permission granted by the govern-
ment, which had also called for investment in modernization.
“My heart breaks every time I see a mill being torn down,” says Narendra Kargaonkar,
42, a second-generation mill worker who lost his job at Phoenix Mills, now working as a
door-to-door milk deliveryman, earning a fraction of his mill salary in 1982. The mill has
been reconfigured into a mall – a bustling shopping complex, nightclub and bowling
alley. “They say they want to turn this city into Shanghai,” says Mohammad Badruddin,
“I don’t know what the word Shanghai means, but it is an excuse to kick poor people in
the stomach.” He is “a mason who lived in a cramped, fly-infested slum with open drains,
and was laying floor tiles in a gleaming residential high-rise recently when he heard that
four bulldozers had flattened his neighborhood of tin-walled homes. To prevent their
return, the government dumped heaps of putrid garbage on the slum land and posted
 Ducked or Bulldozed? Education of Deprived Urban Children in India 297

security men to guard the area” (Rama Lakshmi, 2005). It is cruel irony that settlers, who
had transformed marsh and muck into habitable land through investment of their own
labor and funds, patiently filling it with soil and debris over several years, are brutally
evicted by the untamed power and greed of the builder-politician-mafia nexus on
grounds of their having “encroached on public land.”
Delhi, where slums house more than one-fourth of its population, leads the way in
“environmental activism,” with recent large-scale eviction of polluting industries and relo-
cation of about 50,000 workers and families. However, there have been few questions
asked about the health of the workers themselves and those living in the relocated polluted
sites. Moreover, with increasing demands for Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and
mushrooming “call centers” connected to their First world clients in clean cyberspace,
Delhi aspires to be on-call globally through such “de-territorialization.” Indeed, the city
has shed its democratic pretensions through a recent Supreme Court Order, which states
that the health of some is more important than the livelihood of others.
The contemporary civilizing agenda for “clean cities” has also influenced schools
directly through a recent Supreme Court order directing that “Environmental
Education” be taught in schools as a compulsory examinable subject in all classes.
A separate national syllabus, in the traditional “information-transmission” format, was
hurriedly drawn up to comply with the court orders. However, as part of the national
Syllabus Revision in 2005 it has been decided to integrate these issues into the exist-
ing subjects, instead of inventing yet another one to subject children to.

The New Environmental Studies: Integrating Science and

Social Sensibility
I shall discuss here in some detail our recent attempts to reconfigure one subject,
which according to the policy framework, has long been meant to be taught as inte-
grated “Environmental Studies” (EVS) at the primary school, instead of separate
general science and social studies. However, “integration” was only nominally and
superficially achieved earlier; it is in the present exercise of syllabus revision in accor-
dance with the National Curriculum Framework 2005 that this has been seriously
attempted. Its objectives include: “to help children to locate and comprehend relation-
ships between their natural, social and cultural environments, … based on observa-
tions and illustrations drawn from lived experiences, rather than abstractions; to be
able to critically address gender concerns and issues of marginalization and oppres-
sion, with values of equality and justice, and respect for human dignity and rights”
(NCERT, 2005).
Transcending rigid disciplinary boundaries and resisting the pressure to include
“key topics” from traditional “subjects,” the new syllabus format proposes themes that
allow for a connected and inter-related approach, grounded in a social constructivist
perspective of children’s learning. It begins with “key questions,” framed in a language
that can stimulate and scaffold the thinking of children that age, and then indicates the
key concepts that relate to the elaboration of the questions. It also lists suggested
298 Rampal

resources and activities, such as, stories in oral and written literature, local games and
puzzles, information from local resource persons including grandparents, medical
workers, artists and books, experiments, excursions, observations, etc.
Despite consistent pressure to specify “learning outcomes” for each sub-theme, a
legacy of the atomized and absurdly behaviorist “Minimum Levels of Learning” that
held sway in the last decade, the new EVS syllabus stays clear of such statements. The
“outcomes” of competencies and skills tie in with the increasingly problematic mana-
gerial discourse of “inputs–outputs,” as also with the minimalist requirements for
developing countries to produce sufficiently productive humans for the global market.
The EVS Syllabus Preamble I had written has a section on this issue:

What Learning Do We Expect?

How can Environmental Studies help all our children, … those for whom the
main purpose in life is going to school, as well as those who aspire for a school
that can support life, with meaning and dignity?
This syllabus format consciously does not spell out any outcomes for each
theme. However, schools must ensure that these activities or discussions will be
conducted because only then can it be ensured that learning will happen. … (for
instance) EVS classrooms will need to provide opportunities to children to be able
to progressively ask higher order questions that require different levels of reasoning
and investigation, by planned activities and exercises to get them to phrase their
questions, to answer, discuss and investigate them. These are basic to the learning
process in EVS and yet, unfortunately, most classrooms are not designed to ensure
this. How then can we expect all children to learn? What then does it mean to spec-
ify any outcomes at this point? (NCERT, 2005; also at www.ncert.nic.in)

With a focus on those who are most vulnerable to be pushed out of school and, unlike
the prevalent “culture of silence” or evasion at school, some key questions openly
address issues of inequality or difference, and encourage children to reflect on their
lived experiences, however unpleasant. For instance, the syllabus departs from the tra-
ditional manner of treating “Our Body” in a purely scientific, socially distanced man-
ner, through routine topics such as “our senses,” “parts/organs of the body” and their
functions, etc. The new unit “our bodies – old and young” helps children place their
own bodies in relation to those of their family members. The rubric of the “family” is
meant to provide intimacy and empathy, to help develop sensitivity towards people
having different abilities/disabilities. “Feeling around with eyes shut” explores their
senses of touch, smell, etc. – not in isolation of the people or animals they care for –
but by trying to identify all those by touching, hearing or smelling them. Instead of
introducing “touch,” without feeling, only “objectively” as one of “our senses,” it sub-
jectively views how touch can mean both a caress and a painful slap, where the caress
too can be a “good” touch or a “bad” touch. In higher classes this could lead to more
complex issues about security and sexuality, a major issue for urban girls in cities such
as Delhi, where rape and molestation have assumed numbing proportions.
Similarly, the theme on “Food” begins with “cooking” and “eating in the family,”
about what we eat and what others eat, what animals eat, etc. “Plants” and their leaves,
 Ducked or Bulldozed? Education of Deprived Urban Children in India 299

stems or seeds are introduced here through “food.” The key question “Which of the
following is food? – red ants, birds’ nest, goats’ milk, etc?” focuses on differences, and
that food is a deeply cultural notion. It moves on to how food is grown, how it reaches the
city, who grows it, and the hardships farmers may face, while staying grounded to
the reality of our own pangs of hunger or the plight of people who do not get food.
Changes in food habits and crop patterns are analyzed through the experiences of
elders/grandparents, not just from what the teacher or textbook says.
“Water” and “Shelter” include questions on the immediate issues of disadvantaged
children, both in rural and urban environments. For instance, the following questions
could scaffold critical dialogue equally well in either case: How far do you have to go
to fetch water? Are there some people not allowed to take water from your source?
What are underground wells and do you still see them being used? Have you seen
water being wasted? Are there some people in your area who always face water short-
age? Do you find factories or people dumping garbage or harmful materials in rivers or
seas? Similarly for “Shelter”: Does everyone have a shelter to live in? Why do people
live together in hamlets/colonies/neighborhoods? The resources suggested in the syl-
labus include a story of a child displaced by the construction of a dam or the demolition
of an urban slum.
“Work and Play” includes sensitive issues of caste, gender or child-labor through
their understanding of “clean” and “dirty” work; work patterns in the family, comparing
the daily schedule of work done by different children, also comparing with when their
grandparents were young. It looks at games and martial arts, local and national sports,
their “heroes” and how they acquire their skills. “Travel” was developed to take the
child on a journey of expanding social and physical spaces, into newer and unfamiliar
terrains of often mind-boggling and no less fascinating diversity. A “resource” narrative
of a child from a rural migrant/itinerant family and her problems of schooling helps
look at difference through flesh and blood characters children relate to.
New NCERT textbooks based on the revised syllabus have been introduced in
schools in 2006. As part of the Environmental Studies (EVS) textbook team we went
through an intense process of debate and reflection to respond to the vision of the
new syllabus. To remain sensitive to all children and to consciously include the lived
experiences of the disadvantaged is indeed a challenge, especially when most of us –
teachers and educators – are from among the urban educated sections of society, with
increasingly fewer shared spaces of social and cultural interchange. For us tapped
water (though now in short supply in most cities) or personal toilets are unquestioned
essentials of urban life, while many other markers of our middle class existence – be it
cooking gas, a refrigerator, an ice cream cone, or even ordinary colored paper – often
unthinkingly appear in the chapters we draft. We also continue to contend with middle
class moralistic notions of hygiene and cleanliness, and the belief that the poor need
the “right messages” through school. Nevertheless, we have made space for different
children’s voices and concerns, from diverse regions, cultures and socio-economic
backgrounds – of those whose houses are washed away by floods each year and also those
who walk miles to get a pot of water (NCERT, 2006; freely available at www.ncert.nic.in).
We are also focusing on real life narratives of inspiration and transformative action for the
textbooks for Classes IV and V.
300 Rampal

Excerpts from the chapter “Too much water, too little water” of the class IV environmental studies textbook
published by NCERT
Ducked or Bulldozed? Education of Deprived Urban Children in India 301
302 Rampal

“Quality” for Equity in Environments Thriving

on Inequality?
In 2002, the 86th Amendment to the Constitution of India, for the first time in half a cen-
tury, brazenly attempted to dilute the state’s commitment towards universalization of
elementary education (UEE). Under pressure, both external and internal, to declare
Education as a Fundamental Right, a deliberately ambiguous clause was added to what
is now Article 21A: “The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all chil-
dren of the age of 6–14 years, in the manner as the state may by law determine.” Not only
does it retract from the original “all children until they complete the age of 14 years,” but
also allows the state to get away with whatever “quality” it deems fit for those who suf-
fer the severest inequalities. Subsequently, several drafts of the Free and Compulsory
Education Bill have been proposed and contested, and the Parliament has still not passed
an Act to ensure “education of equitable quality” as the right of every child.
India’s last Education Commission (GOI, 1966), inspired by a socialist democratic
vision of national development, had reflected a somewhat dialectical relationship of
“quality for equality” and “equality for quality” and recommended the Common
School System, strongly endorsed by subsequent policy documents (Rampal, 2004).
However, the proposed draft Act of 2004 sought legal sanction to legitimize the deeply
discriminatory public system set in place over the last decade. Terms such as “transi-
tional school,” “Education Guarantee Scheme (EGS) Center” or “Alternative School,”
were euphemisms the state had carefully crafted through programs promoting low-cost
poor quality options for poor children. State provision of elementary schooling has
never been as starkly stratified, ranging from the few better endowed Navodaya
Vidyalayas and Central Schools for the children of Central government servants and
army officers, to the poor State government schools, and now “alternative schools,” for
the poorest and the socially “hardest to reach.”
The proliferation of sub-standard private schools needs to be checked by improving
the quality of public education, and projecting the model of a Central School as freely
accessible to all. Ironically, prominent private schools in cities are wooing affluent
clients and influencing public perceptions of “quality,” even using absurd quality
benchmarks used for industrial products to advertise how they convert “raw material”
into “finished products” (not really, because they diligently reject any “raw” material
to begin with, carefully collecting information about parents’ salary, proficiency in
English and other attributes of social capital in their admission questionnaires).
Judicial intervention of individuals and legal aid organizations is actively engaged in
ensuring that private schools do not violate basic norms of social justice. From biased
admission procedures to flouting of land lease rules that require 25% seats to children
from poor households, private schools have now increasingly been brought under the
legal scanner. They in turn have been vociferously lobbying against the Free and
Compulsory Education Bill, which calls for “Common Schooling” and expects them
to reserve seats for the underprivileged.
More damagingly, there exists a differentiated vision of learning for the “hardest to
reach.” There is a palpable sense of impatience with the notion of “quality” in large
urban enrolment programs run by the government in partnership with NGOs, often
with corporate support, aggressively professing a minimalist vision of schooling.
 Ducked or Bulldozed? Education of Deprived Urban Children in India 303

Some have questionably fragmented the skill to read, claiming they achieve “reading”
first and only later “reading with meaning.” Others have proposed a “Reading
Guarantee Program”; we shall wait to see when it graduates to Reading With Meaning
Guarantee, Writing Guarantee, and so on, and if ever the disadvantaged can get to the
more exotic schemes for Curiosity Guarantee, Creativity Guarantee, and even, perhaps,
Empowerment Guarantee! An ostensible dichotomy between “access” and “beyond,”
or between the “basic” provision and its “quality,” has been propagated to justify not
being able to do “both” simultaneously. The belief that only some “wanted” education,
while the “unwilling” majority contributed to high “wastage” by dropping out of
schools without learning much, has been sufficiently contested by several studies,
including ours conducted in the most educationally backward states (PROBE Team,
1999; Rampal, 2004). The poor aspire for education as a possible way out of their con-
dition, and are dropping out mainly because there is little being learned. The numbers
of those out of school are alarming, and amount to almost as many as a 100 million
children between the ages of 6–14 years. Their right to education remains unfulfilled
and few organizations strive to devise programs to address their needs, while respect-
ing their knowledge, self esteem and maturity. The sharp “quality” divide between
those who can pay and those who depend on public education has accentuated in the
last decade as developing countries use cost-reducing means to provide Education
For All. However, studies from Chile, Argentina and Columbia have shown that more
and better resources invested in making schools of low-performing groups as good as
those attended by higher performing students has an “equalizing” impact for creating
a culture of success in the education system (Carnoy, 2004).
The urban disadvantaged, who live in environments that thrive on inequity, and
are constantly being shoved or bulldozed around, need education that can nurture a sense
of equality and empowerment. What is urgently required is a much more innovative
academic engagement in curricula, including creative teaching and assessment peda-
gogies, for courses offering “open learning” and vocational education. Unfortunately,
the National and State Open Schools have not taken their mandate for “openness” and
flexibility seriously, often emulating formal syllabi with mediocre and modest resources.
Vocational education has long been assigned a second rate status for the “less able,”
with an instrumental emphasis on “training” for employment, not on education, and
has largely been relegated to the Labor Department. There is an urgency to break away
from the hegemony of the formal system, especially for the millions of urban adoles-
cents who have opted out and who are desperately looking for alternate avenues of
education with suitable certification. The timelessness of Ayesha’s experience of
school needs to be addressed with a greater sense of urgency than what is being wit-
nessed in present policy discourse and action.

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16

WITHERING THE STATE? GLOBALIZATION

CHALLENGES AND CHANGING HIGHER
EDUCATION GOVERNANCE IN EAST ASIA

Ka Ho Mok
University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Globalization and the “Hollowing out of the State”?

Before the end of the Cold War, according to Hirst and Thompson (1999), nation
states were:

perceived as the primary political communities with the capacity to determine the
status and to make rules for any activity that fell within contemporary understand-
ings of the scope of legitimate authority. States were sovereign and hence each state
determined within itself the nature of its internal and external policies. (p. 258)

The revolution of 1989 in Eastern Europe and their aftermath have led to a growing
concern about whether modern states are losing their capacities for governance, and
whether national-level processes are ceding their primacy to global ones. Believing
capital is becoming more mobile and has no national attachments, national politics and
political choices are considered to have been sidelined by the global market forces
while transnational corporations are perceived as the key players in defining not only
economic, but also social and political agendas. Hence, national-level governance is
regarded as ineffective in coping with challenges generated from globalizing eco-
nomic and social processes (Horsman & Marshall, 1994). The rise of “the borderless
world economy,” “global politics,” and “global civil society” seems to suggest the sov-
ereignty of the state and the capacities of any government are being eroded (Garrett,
2000; Woods, 2000).
Against the wider political economy context discussed above, hyper-globalists such
as Ohmae and Reich even believe nation states have become the local authorities of the
global system (Ohmae, 1990, 1993; Reich, 1992). Without the capacity in riding over
the competing and even contradictory economic, social, and political demands result-
ing from growing globalization challenges, nation states are reduced to becoming
“municipalities within states … to provide the infrastructure and public goods that
305
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 305–320.
© 2007 Springer.
306 Mok

business needs at the lowest possible cost” (Hirst & Thompson, 1999, p. 262). With
such conceptions in mind, the globalists believe the scope, roles, forms, and architec-
ture of modern government should change. Unlike the globalists, the skeptics and
transformationists believe nation states still retain the ultimate claim of legal legiti-
macy within their territories even though they have to respond to external pressures
generated by the changing global contexts (Jayasuriya, 2001; Pempel, 1998). Contrary
to strong globalists’ arguments for “the decline of nation states,” the skeptics and trans-
formationists believe globalization challenges could be conducive processes for recon-
figuring modern states, driving them to restructure their governance models and
reform the ways that they manage the public sector (Pierre, 2000).
More specifically, non-globalists believe modern states would make use of the glob-
alization discourse or globalization challenges as justifications for shaping domestic
political and public policy agendas or legitimizing public sector reforms (Cheung, 2005;
Cheung & Scott, 2003). By adopting trendy “global practices” like decentralization, pri-
vatization, and corporatization strategies in governing public policy and managing the
public sector, coupled with adherence to the neo-liberalist doctrines in reducing the
state’s burdens in providing and financing public services while simultaneously institu-
tionalizing state-society linkages,1 modern states can regenerate and reinvent themselves
into successfully riding over the challenges of globalization (Knill & Lehmkuhl, 2002;
Scharpf, 1994). The present paper sets out against this theoretical context to examine
how East Asian states have been affected by the growing impact of globalization, in what
ways they have attempted to change higher education governance, and specifically what
strategies they have adopted to enhance the global competitiveness of their higher edu-
cation systems. Has the search for new governance weakened the state capacities of East
Asian states in shaping public policy formation and governing public sector manage-
ment? Would the adoption of more “pro-competition” policy instruments make the
developmental state model irrelevant to East Asia? The following discussion will address
these questions.

Globalization Challenges and Educational Restructuring

A close examination of international trends in higher education shows that the global-
ization of the economy, the decline of the welfare state, and the commodification of
knowledge have continued to shape higher education developments globally (Burbules
& Torres, 2000; Marginson, 2002; Schugurensky, 1999). In order to meet the height-
ened expectations of the public for more higher education opportunities and the need
to enhance the global competence of citizens in the increasingly competitive global
marketplace, modern states are confronted with growing demands for better quality
higher education. Yet at the same time, they are constrained by limited resources.
In attempting to resolve such dilemmas, a significant global trend during the last two
decades is the restructuring of higher education (Mok & James, 2005).
Central to this restructuring process is the introduction of restructuring strategies
along the lines of decentralization, corporatization, privatization, marketization, and
commodification to transform higher education institutions. Similarly, diversified
 Withering the State? 307

policy tools and instruments such as commercial banks, private corporations, indus-
trial corporatizations, networks, and partnerships in education financing and provision
are becoming increasingly common in generating additional resources to support
higher education (Rhodes, 1997, 2000). The diversification of financial sources and
the proliferation of actors in education provision suggest that higher education is now
experiencing fundamental governance changes from the “state-centered” towards a more
“society-centered” approach. Such developments may supplant hierarchical command
and control; more importantly, such restructuring processes would inevitably lead to a
redefinition of the relationship between higher education institutions and the market, as
well as a drastic reduction of institutional autonomy. Although it is difficult to make
generalizations about the patterns and trends in higher education developments in East
Asia since each country/society may have its own stage and speed of development,
comparative studies of similar settings have reported some interesting patterns and
trends common to the development of education in East Asia (Mok & James, 2005), and
even to the Asia and Pacific region (Mok & Welch, 2003). Some of the major changes
in higher education governance are as follows.

Changing Higher Education Governance in East Asia

Quest for Entrepreneurial Universities
Against an increasingly competitive global context as outlined above, schools and uni-
versities in different parts of the globe have been under tremendous pressures from
governments and the general public to restructure or reinvent the way that they are
managed in order to adapt to the ever-changing socio-economic and socio-political
environments and to maintain individual nation-states’ global competitiveness. As
Martin Carnoy (2000) has pointed out, “globalization enters the education sector on an
ideological horse, and its effects in education are largely a product of that financially
driven, free-market ideology, not a clear conception for improving education” (p. 50).
Education reforms, under the context of globalization, could be characterized by a
finance-driven reform emphasizing decentralization, privatization, and better perform-
ance. Attaching far more weight to entrepreneurial efficiency and effectiveness, con-
temporary universities are under immense pressures to transform their roles to adapt to
rapid socio-economic and socio-political changes. This is particularly true when mod-
ern governments have reduced capacity to continue financing growing demands for
higher education.
It is against the socio-economic context discussed above that the processes of aca-
demic capitalization in general, and the pursuit of academic entrepreneurship in par-
ticular, has become increasingly popular in shaping the relationship between
government, university, business, and industry. Therefore, new “university-academic-
productive sector relations” have emerged (Sutz, 1997); notions such as “corporate
academic convergence” (Currie & Newson, 1998), “entrepreneurial universities”
(Marginson, 2000), “campus inc.” (White & Hauck, 2000), “capitalization of knowl-
edge,” “strong executive control” and “corporate characters” are used to conceptualize
308 Mok

current changes in contemporary universities (Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 1997). In the

context of reduced financial support from the state, higher education systems across
different parts of the globe have attempted to generate incomes through entrepreneur-
ial activities (see, e.g., De Zilwa, 2005; Marginson & Considine, 2000; Mok, 2003a).
It is therefore not surprising that “the language of human capital dominates official policy
recommendations dealing with growing economic and social problems” (Spring, 1998,
p. 163).
My recent comparative studies on how governments in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and
Singapore have tried to foster entrepreneurship among their higher education systems
indicate that the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
(HKSAR) has played a facilitating role in promoting entrepreneurialism (Mok,
2005a). Instead of high levels of government intervention, the HKSAR acted as a
“market-facilitating state” that set a conductive policy framework bridging the various
sectors – university, business, and industry – for exploring and developing entrepre-
neurial opportunities. Similar developments have been found in Taiwan and Singapore
when these Asian governments attempted to partially retreat from directing and inter-
vening in industrial and business developments. Conventional wisdom suggests that
the postwar East Asian economic miracle was directed by highly interventionist states.
Entrepreneurial activities in general, and industrial and Research & Development
(R & D) policies in particular, were directed by the state. In Taiwan, for instance, the
government used to play a significant role in coordinating R & D collaboration.
According to Gregory Noble (1998), research and development consortia in Taiwan
were “actually forms of direct provisions of technological services by the government
and its quasi-public research institutes” (p. 146). Similarly, Meaney (1994) argues that
“state intervention took the form of focused R & D” by “choosing technology, acquir-
ing technology [and] developing domestic R & D capability” in Taiwan (p. 173). In the
same vein, Robert Wade (1990) contends that the postwar developmental state in
Taiwan strategically intervened in the market. Government hands were highly visible,
especially when competition was mediated by purposive public policies. Through the
use of “incentives, controls and mechanisms to spread risk,” these sorts of public poli-
cies “enabled the government to guide – or govern – market processes of resource allo-
cation” (p. 26). Therefore, the market in Taiwan was “organized” in order to maximize
productive or innovative efficiency. Judging by the significant role that the govern-
ment had played in industrial and entrepreneurial activities, we may well argue that the
Taiwanese government was actually a “market-constructing” state.
Nonetheless, such conventional wisdom has been challenged. Recent studies focus-
ing on organizing technovation and technological dynamism in Taiwan suggest that
there has been a fundamental change in the state’s role with regards to R & D policies.
Changing from acting as a “market-constructing state” to a “market-facilitating state,”
the Taiwanese government now encourages collaboration and competition among
various actors. Government policymakers, previously the main actors promoting R & D
and entrepreneurial activities, now interact more with other actors from the scientific
community and the market in order to pull them together to conceive and develop proj-
ects that promote entrepreneurialism. Instead of being heavily involved in directing
R & D and other entrepreneurial activities, the Taiwanese government entrusts other
 Withering the State? 309

public organizations such as the National Science Council (NSC), one of the govern-
ment organizations in Taiwan, to oversee biotech development on the island state.
Working closely with the Science and Technology Advisory Group and the Biotech-
nology Strategic Review Board, the NSC is responsible for implementing key national
science and technology projects. Meanwhile, many more of the biotech projects have
been directly run by commercial firms.
Despite the fact that the Taiwanese government remains important in shaping the
rules for the introduction of competition in R & D and entrepreneurial activities, non-
state players like those who work in the scientific community and the market actually
determine the R & D and entrepreneurial developments in Taiwan (Chen, 1997; Hsu &
Chiang, 2001). Since the 1990s, an increasing number of alliances have developed in
Taiwan, “bringing together firms, and public sector research institutions, with the added
organizational input of trade associations, and catalytic financial assistance from gov-
ernment” (Mathews, 2002, p. 633). Such developments have been confirmed by another
study of technological dynamism in Asia, which concludes that “innovation in Taiwan
and Hong Kong is a result of domestic individuals and independent firms” (Mahmood
& Singh, 2003, p. 1052). Similarly, another study focusing on the development of
biotechnology and R & D collaboration in the biotech sector has also argued with
evidence that R & D and entrepreneurial activities are becoming more commercially-
driven, the development of which has been significantly directed by market forces
rather than state initiatives.
Openly recognizing the lack of the spirit of inventiveness and risk taking, and, at the
same time, worrying about the lessening of its competitiveness in the globalizing
economy, the Singapore government has begun to launch projects in promoting entre-
preneurship. Comparing Singapore to Taiwan and Hong Kong, entrepreneurial activity
is relatively low since the Singapore government has long been orchestrating the
developments of the city-state. Having been paternalistic, the Singapore government
has put the promotion of entrepreneurship at the top of its political agenda in recent
years (Tan, 2003; Tan & Tan, 2002). According to unofficial estimates, the Singapore
government, together with its linked companies, employs more than half a million peo-
ple in the island nation (Asia Times, November 27, 2002). Singapore, regarded as a
“government-made city-state” (Low, 2001), has seen very high levels of government
intervention across different social, economic, and political aspects. Criticized for its
over-concentration of economic decision-making, control of factors of production
(including corporations) and unnecessary influence over-pricing and supply of land
and savings, the Singapore government has attempted to change its governance strate-
gies by introducing privatization to the Government of Singapore Investment
Corporation (GIC) (Institute of Policy Studies, 2003).
In addition, the government has designated a Minister of State to be responsible for
promoting a more entrepreneurial Singapore. By setting up a Public Service for the
twenty-first Century (PS21) Office directly under the Prime Minister’s Office, the
government hopes to make civil servants think more innovatively and creatively. In
addition, the Civil Service College of Singapore has been organizing different kinds of
exhibitions and symposia promoting the spirit of entrepreneurship. Personal visits to
the PS21 Office and the Ministry of Education in Singapore repeatedly confirm how
310 Mok

important the promotion of entrepreneurship is in Singapore. On the public adminis-

tration front, the Singapore government has started reforms in making its administra-
tion more efficient and responsive to changing market needs (PS21, 2005). Believing
that education significantly determines the creation of an entrepreneurial spirit, the
Ministry of Education in Singapore has started a new reform movement called
“Innovation and Enterprise,” where students are encouraged to venture in the com-
mercial sector by developing their own small firms or engage in selling and buying
activities after school (Ministry of Education, 2004).
Realizing that the conventional university governance model (i.e., a state-directed
and centralized model) can never drive state universities in Singapore to become entre-
preneurial, the government has adopted an entirely new governance model in setting
up the Singapore Management University (SMU). Intending to make SMU more flex-
ible in governance and more responsive to changing education needs of the business
and commercial sectors, the Singapore government deliberately made SMU a pub-
licly- funded but privately-run university. The government provided the set-up fund
and established an endowment to finance the future development of SMU. According
to Prof. Tan Chin Tiong, Provost of SMU, the newly established University has been
very successful in developing close relationships with the business and commercial
sectors not only in Singapore, but also overseas. In response to the Singapore govern-
ment’s University Matching Grant Scheme, SMU has been able to match the fund-
raising targets set by the government. It secured one billion for the endowment fund by
approaching Dr. Lee Ka Shing, a very famous Chinese businessman in Hong Kong.
In addition to fund-raising, SMU has maintained a very close relationship with business
and commercial sectors (communicator’s name, personal communication, February
Date, 2005). Putting the above observations together, it is clear that universities in East
Asia, like their counterparts in Australia, the U.S., and the U.K., have begun to shift
their paradigms from purely upholding the mission of research and teaching to the
third mission of promoting economic and social development. The pursuit of academic
entrepreneurship and the transformation towards the “entrepreneurial university” has
started in East Asia.

Corporatizing and Internationalizing Universities

Another emerging trend commonly found among East Asian university systems is the
adoption of corporate or business ideas/principles and strategies in reforming/running
higher education institutions. Yonezawa’s recent work (2007) compares and contrasts
the backgrounds and the current developments of the evolution of the “education mar-
ket” in Singapore, Japan and Malaysia. Unsatisfied with the conventional model along
the lines of “state-oriented” and “highly centralized” approaches in higher education,
these Asian governments have introduced and implemented “corporatization” meas-
ures to turn their state/public universities into independent legal entities, allowing
them more flexibility and autonomy in running and governing their own businesses.
Adhering more towards the market and corporate principles and practices, these state
universities are now run on a market-oriented and business corporation model instead
of being closely directed by the Ministry of Education or equivalent government
 Withering the State? 311

administrative bodies. State universities are now also required to become more proac-
tive and dynamic in looking for their own financial resources. With reference to the
previous discussion on how universities have tried to become more entrepreneurial,
Yonezawa’s article adds value to the current debates on how state universities in
Singapore, Japan and Malaysia have transformed their governance and management
styles to meet the changing social and economic needs of their nations.
Like universities in Hong Kong, universities in Taiwan have also experienced mar-
ketization and corporatization processes in the last decade. The Ministry of Education
in Taiwan has decided to change the “statutory” position of state universities into
“independent judicial entities” by adopting principles and practices of corporatization.
In order to reduce the state burden in higher education financing, all state universities
in Taiwan have to generate additional funds from non-state sectors such as the market
and enterprises. Like Hong Kong, university presidents in Taiwan nowadays are occu-
pied with fund-raising since the Ministry has cut down its financial support to state
universities by 20–30%. In order to generate sufficient funds to finance their institu-
tions, various kinds of market-driven strategies have been adopted. Like Japan and
Singapore, the Taiwanese Government has also tried to restructure its state universities
by passing a new University Bill to make state universities independent legal entities.
Influenced by the Japanese model, state universities in Taiwan have to establish new
governance structures while facing immense pressures in searching for additional
financial support from the non-state channels, especially when the Taiwanese govern-
ment has significantly reduced its funding (Lo & Weng, 2005).
Having reflected upon the changing university governance models and evaluated the
recent experiences of SMU, the Ministry of Education in Singapore has decided to
change the governance models of the existing state universities, namely, National
University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University, by making them
independent legal entities through the process of “corporatization” (communicator’s
name, personal communication, December Date, 2004). By incorporatizing these state
universities, the Singapore government hopes that universities on the island state could
become more entrepreneurial. Such discussions have once again shown that the ide-
ologies and practices of the market have become increasingly influential in shaping
higher education governance in East Asia (Mok & Tan, 2004). Similarly, public uni-
versities in Malaysia have begun to experience the “corporatization” processes.
According to Lee (2004), the restructuring of higher education in Malaysia is very
much influenced by neo-liberal economic ideology. In order to expand higher educa-
tion opportunities, the Malaysian government has adopted similar strategies in incor-
poratizing some of the public universities. After the reform, “the structural changes in
the corporatized universities show that collegial forms of governance has been side-
lined, entrepreneurial activities have increased, and corporate managerial practices
have been institutionalized” (Lee, 2004, p. 15).
Recent study on changing university governance has also found that Japan, like other
East Asian states, is not immune from the impact of neo-liberalism, managerialism,
and economic rationalism, three major ideologies underlying the tidal wave of public
sector reforms and reinventing government projects across the world. With the inten-
tions to make its state university system more responsive and flexible in coping with
312 Mok

intensified pressures generated from the growing impacts of globalization, the Japanese
government has incorporated all state universities since 2004. Central to the transfor-
mation of the existing national universities into “National University Corporations”
are three major reform aspects: increased competitiveness in research and education;
enhanced accountability together with introduction of competition; and strategic and
functional management of national universities (Mok & Yonezawa, 2005). It is in such
context that the Japanese government has begun to take “internationalization” of the
higher education agenda more seriously.
Roger Goodman, in his recent paper (2007), examines a Japanese term “kokusaika”
(often translated as internationalization) and its related expressions from the mid-
1980s. Goodman argues that “globalization” has become one of the most fashionable
concepts in social scientific discourse over the past 15 years, along with a related vocab-
ulary of words such as “transnationalism,” “McDonalization,” “Cocacolanization,”
“localization,” and “globalization.” Much ink has been spilt on how such terms should
be defined and used in a theoretical context and how they can be mobilized method-
ologically, but little agreement has been reached on either score (see, e.g., Eriksen,
2003; Guillén, 2001; Rosenau, 2003). Nonetheless, he argues that there is a lack of
consensus about the exact meaning of any new concept, resulting in it becoming what
the anthropologist Victor Turner (1974) has called a “multivocal symbol.” Such sym-
bols are capable of being interpreted in multiple ways by different actors and in some
cases can become the site of conflict as different interest groups compete to have their
own interpretations accepted as the dominant one. Therefore, Goodman believes that
it is necessary to undertake a detailed, “thick description” of the use of such words in
a particular social context during a defined historical period. His article provides fur-
ther insights on how Japanese people interpret “internationalization” and how they
have attempted to make their higher education system more “internationalized” in
response to the growing impacts of globalization.
Lesley Vidovich, Rui Yang, and Jan Currie (2007) address another dimension of
“corporatization” of universities in their co-authored piece examining how universities
in mainland China have been affected by the growing impact of globalization. Based
upon empirical findings generated from fieldwork observations and interviews, this
research team has found that academics in Chinese universities are not happy about the
evaluation measurements and performance and assessment criteria imposed from the
top and borrowed from the West. With a focus on changing accountabilities in higher
education after China “opened up” to globalization, academics have inevitably had
very different lifestyles in the university sector. Criticizing the Chinese government for
taking to the extreme performance assessment in light of “imposed western standards,”
some interviews on teaching and research performance in general and individual job
appraisals are just “like forcing a gentlewoman to be a prostitute.” Such a critical
analysis on the accountability movement in Chinese universities have reminded us of
the very important fact that we should not take “global trends” or “global practices”
for granted. Without proper contextualization, the adoption of such “trendy global
strategies” or “global reform measures” may be counterproductive. Most important of
all, globalization processes are complex and often contradictory; we therefore need to
avoid an overly deterministic view of globalization. We should not underestimate the
 Withering the State? 313

social and political costs of globalization. In particular, when we try to make use of the
globalization discourse or globalization framework to drive reforms in the public sec-
tor and public policy in East Asia, we must appreciate the strong traditions, rich cul-
tures and social norms embedded in these societies. The extreme form of globalization
along the “Anglo-Saxon” line may produce adverse effects and threaten the social,
economic, political, and cultural developments of East Asian states.

Diversifying Policy Instruments in Education

The processes of globalization discussed above have accelerated changes to the public
sector, driving more East Asian governments to engage in public sector reforms to
search for alternative “policy tools” or “policy instruments” to solve public problems.
Hence, new governance models are evolving and different kinds of management
reform measures are developing to improve public sector performance. Despite the
fact that theories of new governance are contested and in some respects appear contra-
dictory (Peters, 2000), they grapple with a broad set of “mega-trends” across a wide
range of institutions and relationships that are not easily or precisely operationalized in
testable propositions. To try to overcome this, the approach adopted here by an increas-
ing number of governments not only in East Asia, but also in the West, is to focus on
one important dimension of new governance: changes to the mix of policy instruments
(Pierre, 2000). According to Salamon (2002), instruments can be distinguished in a
number of ways – one can draw up more or less exhaustive lists (e.g., “direct govern-
ment provision, social and economic regulation, grants, information collection and
dissemination” and so on; p. 21).
According to the most recent statistics of OECD and UNESCO, consistent trends
and patterns of reductions in state funding in higher education have been found, while
the non-state sectors have become increasingly important in higher education financ-
ing and provision. In 2001 alone, household expenditure, expenditure of other private
entities and other private sources constituted about 25 and 43%, respectively in terms
of the total expenditure on education in Japan and South Korea (OECD, 2004).
Looking closely at relative proportions of public and private expenditure on tertiary
educational institutions, we find that public sources constituted only 44.5%, while pri-
vate sources contributed to 55.5% in Japan in 1999. Similarly, public and private
expenditure on tertiary educational institutions in South Korea indicates that private
sources constituted 79.3% and public sources were about 20.7% in 1999 (UNESCO,
2003). UNESCO data also show that private sources constituted around 43% and pub-
lic sources about 57% on tertiary educational institutions in China in 1999. Similar
trends can easily be found in China and other Asian societies when these Asian gov-
ernments began to reduce their financial support to higher education. This is particu-
larly true when higher education institutions are urged to become more entrepreneurial
(as discussed earlier) and the role of student loans and fees is becoming increasingly
important in higher education financing. Similar to what happened in the U.K., where
young people in particular and the public in general are now beginning to question
whether it is worth having a university degree (especially when more and more young
graduates only find themselves burdened with a huge amount of student loans, graduate
314 Mok

loans and many of them becoming debtors upon graduation), governments in East Asia
have begun to introduce other policy tools like student loans and charge more fees in
university education instead of simply treating it as a “public good.”

New Governance and the Demise of the East Asian

Developmental State?
The above discussions regarding higher education governance change seem to suggest
that these East Asian states are reduced to the role of the “night-watchman state” of
classical liberalism, only taking care of law and order, protecting the sanctity of con-
tract, and maintaining the minimum level of welfare to protect those really poor and
vulnerable and facilitating the free operation of the market particularly in the tidal
wave of a “pro-competition” regime. In this role, it may seem like the capacity of
nation states have changed in the sense that they become less autonomous and have
less exclusive control over the economic, social, and cultural processes in their territo-
ries. However, before we jump to such a conclusion, we must first examine how suc-
cessful these Asian states have been in protecting their own autonomy when making
use of these indirect policy instruments.
Our above discussion has shown that the adoption of “pro-competition” policy instru-
ments in response to the growing impact of “liberalizing and marketizing” forces does not
necessarily lessen state capacity in public sector management. As outlined earlier, East
Asian governments find it easier to govern their higher education systems by introducing
corporatizing strategies that drive institutions and academics to perform and enhance their
productivity. The quality assurance movements institutionalized in these Asian higher
education systems, with references drawn from international benchmarking, and good
practices would have strengthened nation states in their capacity to steer higher education
developments rather than weaken it. Accordingly, Lee’s research on university corporati-
zation in Malaysia indicates that the role of the state is strengthened instead of being
weakened. He stated unequivocally, “the restructuring of higher education in Malaysia is
taking place in the context of a strong interventionist state” (2004, p. 15). My recent com-
parative research on educational decentralization in Mainland China, Taiwan, and Japan
has also revealed a “centralized decentralization” trend evolving in education governance,
further suggesting that these Asian states still maintain a significant level of control over
higher education policy formulation, management and governance (Mok, 2003b, 2005b).
According to Castells (1997), the developmental state has now run its course, at
least in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. It has performed its historic mission and in so
doing, has made itself redundant. It now represents a barrier to development in the
informational economy of the global age:

The success of the development states in East Asia ultimately led to the demise of
their apparatuses and to the fading of their messianic dreams. The societies they
helped to engender through sweat and tears indeed (created) industrialized, mod-
ern societies. But at the end of the millennium, their actual projects are being
shaped by citizens, now in the open ground of history making. (p. 286)
 Withering the State? 315

Contrary to Castells’ argument of the demise of the developmental states in East Asia,
our case studies above have shown that East Asian states remain robust and dynamic in
pursuing their nation-building projects despite globalization pressures and crises. It is
particularly true when we analyze the current educational developments in these soci-
eties from a public policy perspective – we may find that the higher education reforms
in these East Asian societies are pursued within the context of managing state-building
(or government-capacity) and economic growth within a paradigm of governance
rather than to de-power the state/government. In this regard, the adoption of new gov-
ernance in higher education in these Asian states can be interpreted as the strategies
adopted by the government to cope with problems of political and bureaucratic gover-
nance instead of purely problems of severe economic and social difficulties.
More importantly, our discussions above suggest the presence of diverse national
and local agendas that have given different meanings to common management jargons
and statements. Even though similar strategies are adopted by different countries in
response to the so-called tidal wave of policy instruments reform, different govern-
ments may use the same strategies to serve their own political purposes. As Hallak
(2000) rightly suggested, modern states may tactically make use of the globalization
discourse to justify their own political agendas or legitimize their inaction. Similarly,
Painter and Wong (2005), in their recent study of the telecommunications regulatory
regimes in Hong Kong and Singapore, has also observed that in the era of growing pro-
competitive regulatory, states still exhibit distinctively different regulatory regimes
due to the need to formulate strategies to suit their own traditions, capacities and goals.
Putting the above observations regarding changing higher education governance
and choice of policy tools/instruments in light of the conventional wisdom in under-
standing public policy governance in East Asia such as the “East Asian Economic
Miracle” thesis (World Bank, 1993), attributing the economic success in Japan, South
Korea, and Taiwan to the strong developmental state (“East Asian developmental
state” or “plan-rational” theses; Johnson, 1982), or Wade’s (1990) argument of “gov-
erned market” in East Asia, as well as the fourth world of welfare regime that Ian
Holliday (2000) calls “productivist welfare capitalism” in East Asia, we can easily find
that the Asian states do play significant roles in social/public policy formation. Recent
comparative studies related to policy instruments and governance in East Asia have
repeatedly reported that adopting “pro-competition” policy instruments may not nec-
essarily weaken the capacity of nation states (Stiglitz, 2005). On the contrary, the
adoption of “pro-competition” and indirect policy tools may well have strengthened
the state’s capacity in steering public sector management more effectively.
Taking the case of mainland China for example, the accession to the World Trade
Organization and the adoption of privatization strategies in the economy and social
policy reforms are selective internalization by China of principles, institutions and
rules embedded in the world economy being dictated by strategic and instrumental
rationale (Wong, 2002; Zheng, 2005). Similarly, the Chinese government has skillfully
and tactically made use of the “globalization discourse” to justify its reform programs
originally grounded locally; while other Asian states like Malaysia and Thailand can
guard against the growing impact of globalization by creatively developing policies
matching their local needs instead of blindly following global trends (Moore, 2005;
316 Mok

Yeoh, 2004). A rich literature on government-industry relations and state capacity in

East Asia (see, e.g., Brodsgaard & Young, 2000; Evans, 1995; Wade, 1990; Weiss,
1998), coupled with the literature related to the strong and staying force of the bureau-
cracy in public policy formation and public sector reforms in East Asia (see, e.g.,
Cheung, 2005; Cheung & Scott, 2003; Mok, 2003a, 2005b; Ramesh, 2005), indicate that
East Asian states are highly interventionist. They may adopt popular “pro-competition”
instruments and “indirect policy tools” to reduce the state financial burden in financing
and providing higher education or other public/social policies, but still maintain a strong
“state-planned, state-led or state-managed” approach to economic and political develop-
ment. Therefore, “it is not surprising to observe that governance reform programs have
not carried any overly anti-public-sector connotations, and do not seek to denigrate the
bureaucracy per se” (Cheung, 2005, p. 13).
Most important of all, the choice of policy tools is highly political and governments
should pay particular attention to the particular socio-economic and socio-political
contexts of their countries when making such choices (Peters, 2002; Salamon, 2002).
In addition, the adoption of policy tools is significantly shaped by political feasibility,
resources available to implement policy, and behavioral assumptions about the target
populations. In this regard, we must be sensitive about the political culture, the nature
of the state and the unique socio-economic and socio-historical contexts in which
policy tools are chosen by different Asian states, bearing in mind the fact that they are
not entirely immune from the growing impact of globalization. The comparative stud-
ies presented above have clearly indicate that the role of government in East Asia is
still important, especially when there is a strong need for government to set up appro-
priate regulations, social protection, and welfare. Hence, governments in East Asia are
very much conceived as a complement to the markets (Stiglitz, 2005). Despite the
changes in governance and the adoption of pro-competition policy instruments in a
neo-liberalist fashion, such changes have not moved significantly beyond the original
policy paradigm, while the whole restructuring processes are still state-directed and
conforming to the model of state developmentalism.

Conclusion
In conclusion, the above scrutiny of higher education governance change in East Asia
has clearly shown that the revitalization of non-state sectors (including the market or
private actors) in education provision and financing may not necessarily weaken the
states’ capacity (Knill & Lehmkuhl, 2002), but instead may drive modern states to
reconstitute and restructure their systems to become activist and proactive in shaping
policy agendas and policy directions. As Pierre (2000) has rightly argued, “as the
state’s traditional power bases seem to be losing much of their former strength, there
has been a search for alternative strategies through which the state can articulate and
pursue the collective interest without necessarily relying on coercive instruments”
(p. 2). Similar to experiences elsewhere (e.g., the U.K.) when strategies of deregula-
tion, contracting-out, agencification and privatization were introduced to reform the
public sector (Bache, 2003; Hood, 1991), the reforms did not necessarily lead to the
 Withering the State? 317

“hollowing out of the state” and weakening of the state capacity. On the contrary, the
introduction of new governance, particularly the diversification of non-state actors and
proliferation of policy tools, may in fact enable the state to retain and enhance policy
control. Through prudent restructuring exercises, these Asian states can successfully
reinvent to steer the public policy/public sector management more effectively with
considerable financing and provision burdens downloaded to other one-state sectors.

Note
1. This refers to the mobilization of non-state sources and proliferation of non-state actors in social/public
policy provision and financing.

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17

MADRASAH AND MUSLIM EDUCATION:

ITS INTERFACE WITH URBANIZATION

Sa’eda Buang
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Introduction
Madrasah, a Muslim religious school, and pesantren, loosely defined as a Muslim
boarding school, are amongst the many Muslim educational institutions that still exist
today amidst the tides of challenges brought about by urbanization. In contrast, pon-
dok, another informal religious boarding school, and Imam-Khatib (Teacher–Student)
schools in Turkey, are experiencing a near demise (Hasan Langgulung & Che Noraini
Hashim, 2005) or political obliteration (Soon-Yong Pak, 2004), respectively. Such
differing positioning of Muslim educational institutions has been attributed to the inter-
face with and impact of urbanization, amongst other key socio-politico-economic
factors. In other words, urbanization has been perceived as a contributing factor to
the decline of Muslim educational institutions, including the madrasah, and Muslim
education in general. Yet, arguably, urbanization has accelerated the process of
madrasah’s curriculum reformation, and strengthened madrasah’s position as the
focal point of Muslim individuals’ quests for their personal equilibrium. Such com-
plex interface between madrasah and urbanization, and its seemingly imponderable
ironies will be the focus of this chapter. In a nutshell, this chapter proposes to review
the challenges of madrasah and Muslim education in and around the process of
urbanization and its responses and strategies in mitigating the impact of the interface.
These strategies, such as the Islamization of knowledge, curriculum reformation, and
the promotion of Muslim education for human and social capitals, in turn, will be
critically analyzed. Case studies of Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Turkey will be
surveyed from its comparative socio-historical analysis rather than chronological per-
spective, to give an overview of the madrasah and Muslim educational system in
those countries.

321
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 321–342.
© 2007 Springer.
322 Buang

Contextualizing Urbanization
Urbanization needs to be contextualized for it to be meaningful and relevant to our dis-
cussion. Unlike European history, where industrialization necessitated urbanization
narrowly defined as “city formation” (Scott Marshall, 2005) brought about by capitalism
and population growth due to migration from rural to city. Colonialism, instead, was
the primary impetus for the formation of modern urban centers in most Asian countries
such as Malaysia, Indonesia (Evers & Korff, 2000), and the Indo-Pakistani region. This
suggestion does not negate the existence of indigenous entrepot cities or traditional
urban-centers such as Malacca of fifteenth and sixteenth century with its cosmopoli-
tan characters, or Yogyakarta and its centralized government. In relation to this,
O’Connor (1983) posits that colonialism continues to magnify and ossify the long-
standing pattern of immigration, pluralism, the primate city and ethnic division of
labor. The city remained the centre of wealth, power, and prestige, but with coloniza-
tion, development of cities is now being measured against European civilization,
modernity, and economic surpluses. The cities of countries under discussion were not
unaffected by such major shift in the socio-economic parameters of progress, through
the exertion of colonials’ influence. Madrasah, as the primary institution for Muslim
education, whether in urban or rural sites, has also been impacted by such changes. It
is however erroneous to oversimplify and suggest that traditionalism disappears com-
pletely and be replaced by rationalism and westernization with the formation of colo-
nial administration and trading centers. Rather, modern urban centers of these
countries are the symbiosis of traditionalism and modernity and this is reflected in the
city-dwellers’, in particular, and in general, Muslims’ strategies to overcoming the
challenges of madrasah.
Collectively, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, and Pakistan have divergent and complex
socio-historical and political experiences that mediate how each experiences urbanism.
Nonetheless, besides Islam as a common religion, again with its differing dominant
schools of thought and theological stance, and as foundation for religious educational
typology in the four countries, certainly another common denominator is the high
urban population. By early 1994, about 32% of all Pakistanis lived in urban areas.
Thirty-Six percent of Indonesia’s 216.4 million citizens were living in urban areas in
1995 (Asian Development Bank, 2005) and the figure is estimated to double in the
next few years. In 2004, 62.8% of Malaysian population of 26 million people resided
in urban areas, while 65% of Turkey’s 69 million people in 2000 can be classified as
urban.1 This indicates simply that the impact of urbanization on the Muslims and
madrasah will be increasing in relation to the growing number of urban centers and
population in the near future.
Integral to urbanization is a broad spectrum of socio-economic and cultural processes
such as pluralism, westernization, modernization, and capitalism. It is therefore this
writer’s interest to articulate her conceptual framework of urbanization as beyond physi-
cal landscaping or habitation. In other words, the city as spatial locus remains, but urban-
ization carries with it such cultural processes that transcend into socio-political domains
and belief system regardless of locality. In this regard, it is highly probable to find a
village madrasah or pesantren with characteristics assumed to be solely associated with
 Madrasah and Muslim Education 323

modern urban schools, such as formal organizational structure and liberal curricular con-
tent promoting social and economic transformations; schools that can be found in many
rural areas in Malaysia and Indonesia (Maksum, 1999). Conversely, one may discover
archaic pedagogy of rote-learning and memorization in many madrasahs and general
public schools in urban sites of the same countries, and as in the case of Pakistan (Kazi,
2000) and the more cosmopolitan state of Turkey.
It would be naïve to solely render urbanization responsible for the better or for worse
in madrasah and Muslim education while negating other socio-economic, ethical, and
political factors. It is the interplay of all these factors, facilitated by urbanization, that
becomes the angle of this analysis. In this regard, we forward Castells’ (Evers & Korff,
2000, p. 11) contention that cities are created, interpreted, and experienced by the peo-
ple, where social construction of the city’s citizens is a volatile process with fissions and
conflicts. With this perspective, we approach the subject matter of our study.

Colonial-Sponsored Urbanism and Educational Dualism

Colonization has, to a large extent, determined the socio-political environment, which
in turn impacted the educational sector, of the countries under study. It is therefore
necessary to briefly review these impacts on Muslim societies and their responses in
order to understand their strategies, or lack thereof, to grapple with issues of Muslim
education and its interface with urbanization.
The nineteenth century witnessed colonization of many Muslim states, much to the
dismay of the Muslims who saw the occupation as a European and Christian expan-
sion, not only to subjugate the land, but also the mind, spirit, and faith of the Muslim
populations (Saqib, 1981). With colonization, the advent of urbanization was inevi-
table particularly with the formation and expansion of colonial-administrative and
business centers, heightening the Muslims’ fears that traditional educational institu-
tions such as Madrasah, pondok, and pesantren, along with other religious institutions,
would vanquish and be replaced by secular structures and other forced reforms. In
response, the Muslims resisted these radical changes. For instance, for fear of being
proselytized by Christian missionaries who set up English schools in the cities,
Muslims in Malaya (known as Malaysia after Independence in 1957) distanced them-
selves from these institutions that were known to have the agenda of producing lower
and middle rank government and civil servants who would run the administrative
machineries of the Colony (Chelliah, 1960). Similar resistance against vernacular
schools was observed. The colonialist’s condescending attitude to champion “the grad-
ual emancipation of the Malayan race from the present state of ignorance, apathy and
barbarism” (Chelliah, 1960, p. 94) did not help to foster the much needed trust of the
Muslims. In contrast, realizing its pragmatic value and future career prospects, the
immigrants and a small number of Muslim aristocrats seized the opportunity to send
their children to English schools. Upon graduation, these children enjoyed a better
position in the socio-economic strata while the majority of Muslims continued to send
their children to pondok in the outlying rural areas or to madrasahs with the hope of
gaining divine guidance in this world and the hereafter (Rahim Osman, 1979). This
324 Buang

underlying attitude towards education and knowledge dominated the weltanschauung

of the Muslims then. This was further strengthened by the encroachment of imperial-
ism that threatened to change the socio-religious fabric of the Muslims. Madrasah and
pondok provided them a strong network in the field of religious education and social
functionaries, and more significantly, a sense of hope, self-identity, and political will
amidst the changing political environment and the advent of westernization. Similar
communal resistance against British education shaped the educational landscape of
the Muslims in India, prior to the creation of modern Pakistan in 1947. One writer
opines that although the Muslims’ own education system had seriously decayed by the
middle of the nineteenth century, they continued to persist that education should essen-
tially be religious, that it should contain religious subjects and be taught through the
medium of Arabic or Persian (Peshkin, 1962). Educational dualism gradually deep-
ened social stratification that worked against the Muslims’ interests, but their determi-
nation to defend madrasah education overruled any socio-economic consideration.
As it was in Malaysia, madrasah thrived on nationalism and heightened religiosity
in response to colonialism, and particularly, the colonial’s repressive measure against
religious schools in Indonesia (Hasan Langgulung, 1989). However, Maksum (1999)
observes that response from the general public for sekolah desa or village schools
(equivalent to vernacular schools) was equally keen due to the public’s awareness of its
socio-economic benefits. Sekolah Desa, therefore, provided a strong competition
against the madrasahs. In this instance, the growth of educational dualism gained
momentum with the sponsorship of colonial power.
In the case of Turkey, Muslim education did not “suffer” in the hands of external
forces, but rather its secularization process self-initiated by the founding father of mod-
ern Turkey, Mustafa Kamal Attarturk. Trying desperately to erode the image of the
“dying old man of Europe” and to modernize, Turkey since 1920s had enforced military
might to abolish any paraphernalia, Arabic language or institutions that can be associ-
ated with the Ottoman Empire. Muslim education was not spared. Religious schools
were closed down under the Law of Unification of Instruction in 1924 and replaced by
secular education fashioned after the French public schooling system. Although not
subjugated by European colonial power, Muslims in Turkey perceived the reform policy
introduced by Kamal Attarturk was akin to mental and spiritual colonialism.
Although the Muslims’ strong support for madrasah as a counter-strategy against
colonialism was evident, educational dualism, viz. secular and religious, has since con-
tinued to exist in all the countries under study. Educational dualism has been taken as a
great challenge to madrasah’s survival, particularly when it gradually plummeted to an
alternative, rather than the mainstream system, a status now conferred to the English
and vernacular schools. Muslim education was marginalized via socio-economic mech-
anisms. Generally, educational dualism has led to dual career paths, one producing reli-
gious functionaries and the other, the bureaucrats, civil servants and technocrats who
ultimately became the judiciary of the country. Over the years, cross-over disciplines
from religious to secular, but not vice-versa, has become more prevalent and rampant
with the introduction of common national examinations after Independence and liber-
alization of higher education to private corporations, as in the case of Malaysia.
Nonetheless, with educational disparity, socio-economic strata were more obviously
 Madrasah and Muslim Education 325

defined by the type of schools one attended. More often than not, for lack of relevant
skills and knowledge, graduates of madrasahs face difficulties in securing gainful
employment (Bakri Musa, 2003).

The Urban and Repositioning of Madrasah

Ironically, while colonial-sponsored urbanization provided the ground for the birth of
educational dualism and therefore the depositioning of madrasah to the periphery of
states’ educational realm, urban centers provided the geographical and ideological
spaces for discourses on religious education reformation to be articulated and subse-
quently implemented. To cite one socio-historical observation, early curriculum refor-
mation of madrasah took place in urban centers where Pan-Islamic reformist ideology
thrived due to the absence of traditional ruling power and authoritative religious bodies
(Rahim Osman, 1979). To a certain extent, urbanism gave room for democratization of
ideas so long as it supported the colonial political agenda to delegitimize the feudal
ruling elite and the issue of decolonization was not propagated.
The discourse on Muslim educational reformation in the four countries under review
was to a large extent possible due to the impact of a Pan-Islamism movement initiated
by Middle Eastern reformists in early twentieth century. The reformists’ notion of
Islam as a religion that perceives life non-transiently – hence the strife for socio-
economic prosperity in this world and the hereafter – and the inculcation of the spirit
of enquiry and critical thinking amongst its adherents, gained foothold especially in
the urban centers via locals who have come back from the Haj2 or studies in Egypt or
Mecca, or through socio-cultural contacts with visiting Indian and Middle Eastern
Muslim traders or missionaries. The introduction of printing press in urban centers by
the colonials helped to accelerate the dissemination of reformist ideology and more
importantly, the printing of new textbooks and other educational literature. In addition,
the socio-economic inequality of the Muslims in Malaysia and Indonesia under the for-
eign rule provided a fertile ground for the reformists’ ideology to take root in the two
countries. This ideological initiation helped, to a certain extent, to heighten local Muslim
intellectuals’ socio-political consciousness that sought to reform the religious outlook
and socio-economic standing of the global Muslim community or ummah. Local reli-
gious scholars pushed for radical curriculum reformation in all madrasahs. Curriculum
reforms included the introduction of commercial and non-religious subjects such as
English, Malay language, mathematics, and humanities; subjects that will prepare stu-
dents to face the challenges of the contemporary and modern world, along with Quranic
reading, theology, Arabic language, Arabic literature, and Islamic history. “Archaic”
curricular content that solely concentrated on theology and jurisprudence; merely oral
and aural aspects of the Quran and not its meaning; teaching methodology that empha-
sizes memorization and uncritical following of religious tenets; were proposed to be
axed. Promisingly, madrasah was set to put up a formidable front against secular edu-
cation. However, reform through Muslim education was never the agenda of the feudal
ruling or traditional religious elites who controlled all religious machineries including
the mosques, madrasahs, and pondoks of the two countries. Any suggestion for social,
cultural, religious, or educational reforms from Muslim intellectuals was vehemently
326 Buang

opposed by the feudal religious elites, as could be witnessed in the Kaum Tua – Kaum
Muda (conservatives-reformists) polemic that lasted up to 1945s (Roff, 1994). It was
therefore logical for the Muslim reformers to concentrate their efforts in urban areas
where the power of the feudal religious elites was less effective. Similar confrontational
attitude from the traditional religious elites in Padang Panjang, Indonesia against such
reformists had forced one Abdullah Ahmad to transfer his village Madrasah Adabiyah
to the town of Padang in 1907. Whether in Indonesia or Malaysia, efforts for socio-
economic transformation through education by curricula reformation ala the pan-
Islamist’s Middle Eastern reformed madrasahs were propagated and only plausible in
many urban centers. The setting up of reformed madrasahs in urban centers of the
Straits Settlements such as Madrasah al-Hadi in Malacca in 1917, Madrasah Al-Iqbal
Al-Islamiyyah in Singapore in 1908 and Madrasah Al-Masyhor Al-Islamiyyah in
Penang in 1919 offered new religious outlook towards education for the Muslims.
Popular reformist religious organizations like Muhammadiyah of Indonesia went one
step further by providing two parallel systems to suit the needs of the society, one that
was run similar to government schools with additional religious subjects, and another
that was fundamentally religious with some secular subjects in its curriculum. Both
offered schooling in the “Islamic” environment and received strong financial support
from members who were town officials and traders dwelling in urban areas. Graduates
of these madrasahs were perceived to be “balanced” Muslims, productive to the econ-
omy of the country, while maintaining their religious identity as best as they could.
Modern infrastructure in urban centers facilitated the promotion of educational refor-
mation by allowing radical marketing strategies to be carried out even in the nineteenth
century; strategies such as publicity tours to the many towns in Malaysia by a reformed
madrasah, not unlike the road shows of the present day. Interestingly, despite educa-
tional dualism and the prevalent political hegemony, madrasah flourished in the urban
setting. In fact, the prospect of recapturing its status of importance was promising if
not for another obstacle in the form of post-colonial state nationalism.

Facing Nationhood
Madrasah faced another formidable challenge when countries gained their Indepen-
dence and the sense of nationalism for nation building was enhanced. In Malaysia’s
case, national survival based on a comprehensive national education system anchored
on curriculum that promotes national unity further marginalized the madrasah as an
alternative educational system. The Education Act of 1961, based on the Razak and
Rahman Talib Reports acknowledged the importance of religious and moral education
and from 1962, Islamic religious subject was officially included in the national school
time-table and taught for 120 hours per week. However, Rosnani (1996) opines that
these religious and moral education recommendations proved to have a negative
impact upon madrasah’s enrolment and therefore, future. At the same time, the rise of
consumerism posed another challenge to madrasah. Consumerism, as a result of cap-
italism, very much influenced the urban Muslims’ worldview and therefore, educa-
tional choices. It became apparent that madrasah’s curriculum reformation was not
formidable enough to recapture its once premier position amidst the vast array of
 Madrasah and Muslim Education 327

secular educational opportunities made available, either by public or private corpora-

tions. Fed by an undercurrent of pragmatism or consumerism, more post-Independence
urban Malaysian parents saw the benefits of enrolling their children in national schools,
viz. inculcation of both religious and secular knowledge and more opportunities for fur-
ther studies, which finally add up to socio-economic betterment. Madrasah’s position
weakened further when the centralization of madrasahs curriculum was enforced
through the National Education Policy’s two major initiatives. One, the use of Malay
language or national language instead of Arabic as the medium of instruction, and two,
the introduction of more secular subjects such as Malay language, English, Mathematics,
Geography, History, and general science, thus displacement of religious subjects to make
room for new ones (Rosnani, 1996). With these initiatives, madrasah curriculum was
further streamlined to replicate the government school’s model, minus the better facili-
ties, trained teachers and higher staff salary enjoyed by the latter. With the relinquishing
of its bargaining power as the sole Islamic knowledge and Arabic language repository,
parents did not have any reason to send their children to madrasahs anymore, espe-
cially when the Muslim code of dressing could be observed in government schools. In
many cases, even religious teachers saw the socio-economic benefits to enroll their
children in national secular schools and did not encourage their children to follow their
footsteps in terms of career choice (Nagata, 1984).
Similar declining interest in the religious profession was observed and prevalent in
Indonesia, particularly as teachers in pesantren and madrasah. Suminto (1991) posits
that this decline was due to inadequate recruiting of replacement and the lack of ade-
quate training in Muslim schooling which boils down to the decline of traditional reli-
gious scholars’ importance as a result of the narrowing of socio-religious structure.
This vicious cycle has become a matter of great concern for Indonesian Islamists.
Underlying this great concern was the fact that the number of students in religious
schools was further declining (Dhofier, 1991). Whether due to pragmatism or con-
sumerism, madrasah was further marginalized, ironically in relation to increasing
religious and moral education.
By contrast, Independence in Pakistan witnessed a marked increase in madrasahs.
Since 1947–2001, according to Riaz, a 2,745% increase, or an average of 120 madrasahs
per year, with 870 madrasahs came into being in the first 28 years of independence (Ali
Riaz, 2005, p. 9). One study suggests that there were 7,000 madrasahs in 20033 while
other studies show staggering figures of 9,880 in 2002 and 10,000 in the same year.
Riaz attributed the phenomenal increase to a number of factors, highlighting US
Carter administration’s financial and military sponsorship particularly during the cold
war between the West and the Soviet Union, and the Afghan war as the leading fac-
tors.4 1970s Islamic revivalism, the US nexus to create militants for the Afghan war,
the Islamization program of the military regime of Zia ul Huq and the unremitting flow
of external funding for ideology-based religious education have been identified as
responsible for the accelerated growth of madrasahs. While external military usurpa-
tion through educational sponsorship was at play, the country’s lack of educational
opportunities for the vast majority of its people, especially for rural population and the
poor cannot be ignored. Hence, the popularity of madrasahs particularly when the
schools provided much needed two basic necessities: food and lodging. The state’s
328 Buang

expenditure for the education sector has been relatively low as compared to defense,
reflecting the state’s paltry emphasis on broad based education for the masses. It is this
vacuum that was filled by the madrasahs run by private individuals, and largely by
Muslim sects or factions.
On the other hand, Turkey’s policy of pro-West and secularization that hoped to
bring about modernization and westernization to the country through a new system of
national secular education impacted negatively upon madrasah education. The single
education system aimed to create a monolithic national character to fit the mould of
the Kemalist definition of a modern citizen (Soon-Yong Pak, 2004). It subsequently
reduced the function of religion to a personal and private affair. The policy augured
well with the political and military elites in the urban areas, but not with the ulama
(religious clerics) and 90% majority Sunni Muslim population, who mostly lived in the
rural or relatively poor sector of the urban areas.
However, Islam as an endearing political tool was fully capitalized by all players of
Turkish politics, be it the Islamists, leftists, rightists, ultra-rightists, nationalists, and
the ruling elites. In 1949, among other initiatives, the government permitted Islamic
studies to be introduced in the fourth and fifth grades of elementary schools, and a
Faculty of Divinity was established at Ankara University (Kazamias, 1969). The politi-
cizing of Islam by the ruling group to the masses was spearheaded in full speed to turn
the public’s attention away from economic problems (Guven, 2005). By 1962, there
were 36 middle-level and secondary Imam-Khatib schools and a Higher Islamic Studies
institution with 5,820 students. By the end of the 1980s, there were 376 religious schools,
9 Theology faculties, and more religious high schools in Turkey than vocational and
technical schools. School curriculum included Turkish components of historical Islamic
civilization and universities opened their doors to religious school graduates. More
Islamic supporters migrated to urban centers to gain access to formal education and
opportunities for upward social mobility. Although products of Imam-Khatib schools
were categorically prepared to take on functions as local religious leaders or preachers,
with pro-Islamic support and bureaucratic mechanism, they assumed 50% of appoint-
ments in Turkey’s public administration department. This newly formed urbanized
community pushed Islamic resurgence forward at neck-breaking speed and created
dualism not only in education, but also public and state ideology, much to the dis-
pleasure of the pro-secular military. The state-sponsored Imam-Khatib schools were
closely monitored and expected to work as a deterrent against possible radicalization
of Islamic organization (Soon-Yong Pak, 2004). Inadvertently, the state’s calculated
attempt to politicize Islam until 1990s had in turn produced an unexpected result of
destabilizing secularist national identity. Once again, as in the 1920s, the reinstatement
of the republic’s secularist policy was seen as sacrosanct, resulting in the imminent clo-
sure of Imam-Khatib schools through the introduction of eight-year compulsory secu-
lar education in 1997.5 Again, Muslim schools vanquished in the interest of secularism
and national identity.
It is interesting to note that Marx’s idea of perpetual class struggles which dominated
the industrial-urban European socio-political history has its parallel in Malaysian,
Indonesian, Pakistani, and Turkey’s urban history, but involving different contenders
and for different reasons. Spearheaded by the religious elites, political struggles took
 Madrasah and Muslim Education 329

place between the politically suppressed Muslim populace against the colonial or
military-cum-ruling powers throughout nineteenth until mid-twentieth century. This
observation prompts us to consider that although the seed of socio-economic disparity
of the Muslims through political and educational hegemony in the urban setting had taken
root, it was the socio-religious impact that captured the Muslims’ attention more read-
ily, hence the struggle to defend religious schools and education at micro level through
curriculum reformation, or macro level via pressure groups, mass popular support, or
political movements.
Madrasah has been observed to negotiate the political and educational challenges
from the ruling groups’ educational and political maneuverings by avoidance, reluctant
participation or total integration into the national educational system. While participa-
tion promises madrasah’s survival, avoidance on the other hand spells an imminent dis-
aster. By adopting avoidance, pondok had paid a high price of being almost obliterated
from the physical and socio-educational space of Malaysian urban society. Yet, the same
set of maneuverings cannot be used for Imam-Khatib schools of Turkey that could per-
ish as the result of politicization of religion and political hegemony. The interplay of
numerous factors that led to the near demise of pondok cannot be denied. But ulti-
mately, the pondok’s resistance to changes or lack of knowledge, skills, finance, and
opportunities to reform its curricular content and administration to suit the needs of the
day was primarily responsible for its sorry state. At this juncture, an overview of socio-
historical aspects of pondok in contrast to pesantren is necessary not only for brief
analysis of tensions and differing negotiation strategies adopted, but more importantly
in identifying a prognosis of sorts for Muslim education in general.

Pondok and Pesantren: The Tale of Two Schools

Either directly or indirectly, Pondok was the casualty of colonial sponsored urbaniza-
tion. Pondok’s existence and survival was fundamentally relied upon one charismatic,
highly knowledgeable religious teacher. An informal system, male students of various
age groups may attend the same classes and conclude their course of study without sit-
ting for formal examination system. To be in close proximity with their teacher, students
built pondok or small huts and lived spartanly around the residence of the religious
teacher and a surau (prayer house), thus the generic name of pondok schools. Students
attended religious classes on the appointed time of the day or evening while toiling on
the teacher’s land or doing other menial tasks for the latter for the rest of the day.
Memorization of the Quran, the Prophet’s Traditions, and Arabic classical texts or Kitab
Kuning (yellow scriptures, indicating its well-used state) was commonly practiced.
Critical inquiry was unheard of and if ever articulated, frowned upon. Graduates of
pondoks were highly respected as key religious and social functionaries. It was not too
long ago when parents would gladly give their daughter’s hand in marriage to religious
teachers in order to receive divine blessings and secure paradise in the afterlife (Nik
Abdul Aziz bin Haji Nik Hassan, 1979).
However, the popularity and relevance of pondok did not last partly due to the corre-
sponding relation between the rise of the more formal educational system of madrasah,
330 Buang

vernacular schools and Muslims’ change of mindset due to urbanization. As much as

they initially resisted English schools for fear of being proselytized, the nineteenth cen-
tury Muslims in Malaysia equally viewed the Malay vernacular schools set up by the
British colonial suspiciously (Chelliah, 1960; Khoo Kay Kim, 1991), that is, until the
Colonial’s strategy to improve vernacular education by reintroducing Quranic reading
and religious subjects within the formal school curriculum. This move proved popular,
but at the expense of the pondoks. Along with the three Rs, religious texts commonly
used in pondoks were adopted and religious teachers were engaged; partly to appease
the Muslim community, but more for administrative expediency. With increased migra-
tion to cities and suburban areas due to socio-economic reasons, the idea of living and
studying in an informal system in remote areas seemed less economically attractive for
the Muslims. In the meanwhile, pondok remained persistent in using the orthodox
method of teaching and learning, classical scriptures and laissez-faire system of admin-
istration. This refusal to adapt and change to suit the new socio-economic environment
and sophistication of parents put pondok, in the eyes of the Muslim urbanites, in a dif-
ferent socio-historical dimension altogether; one that is no longer relevant to the current
demands of society then. Subsequently, the number of pupils in madrasah, seen as a
more formal and reformed religious educational institution, and vernacular schools
increased particularly after the colonial’s enforcement of compulsory elementary edu-
cation for Malay boys in the Straits Settlements towns in 1902.
With the change in parents’ socio-economic outlook, graduates of the vernacular
schools were perceived to enjoy the best of both worlds. As a result, many pondoks in
Malaya suffered dwindling numbers in registration and had no choice but to merge with
or be subsumed under the administration of madrasah, except in states like Kelantan. The
final blow came from the hegemonic power of the feudal ruling elite that caused the near
obliteration of pondok from the educational space of the Muslims. In its bid to maintain
control over aspects of religion and Malay culture of the Muslim community, the ruling
elite had regulated that religious educational institutions succumb to its administrative
fold, or be relinquished.
Unlike pondok, pesantren flourishes until today. There are about 17,000 pesantrens
throughout Indonesia. Its strategy to actively participate and contribute to the state
education by alleviating literacy rate especially amongst the rural, poor, and hard-to-
reach population cannot be downplayed; in fact it received commendations and finan-
cial support from Asian Development Bank for its role (Asian Development Bank,
2005). This is a far cry from the defensive approach the pesantren adopted during the
Dutch colonial period due to political repression. In the late nineteenth and early twen-
tieth century, the best tactical strategy to avoid encroachment of the Dutch, physically
or politically, was by moving further away from the urban site, although that risked
making it further alienated from society (Maksum, 1999, p. 116).
Pesantrens have been highly regarded as the last bastion of Indonesians’ “pure”
Muslim education, although attempts have made by the pesantrens to include some
secular subjects such as arithmetic and geography into its curriculum. One pesantren
even engaged graduates of Dutch schools and Dutch teachers to teach the language
(Maksum, 1999). Currently, the efforts by 17,000 pesantrens to join hands with the cen-
tral government become the anchor for the national poverty reduction scheme. The
 Madrasah and Muslim Education 331

writer’s own journey to Pondok Pesantren Modern Darussalam Gontor in West Java in
1999 and 2000 witnessed the institution’s struggles in educating the students for the
benefit of self, society, state, and the Muslim ummah. The pesantren determines to stay
relevant and modernize by including ICT, English, and other humanity subjects in its
curriculum across all levels, from primary to university. The graduates of this well-
known self-sufficient pesantren have filled many political and prominent posts in the
country. However, to assume that all is good and well with pesantren is disastrous to
our search for educational prognosis. Undeniably, more improvements in terms of its
pedagogy, inculcation of critical and creative thinking, educational facilities and stan-
dard of hygiene could be done. Other areas of concern had also been identified by
Indonesian analysts. Billah (1991) highlighted three areas. One, religious scholars and
teachers of pesantren were inward-looking toward spiritual matters, with limited
understanding and vision concerning earthly matter; second, there is a strong sense of
in-group loyalty and solidarity against outsiders or parochialism; and third, there is no
regular structure among pesantrens and consequently the process of learning differs
from one to another. There is no standardization of syllabi, curriculum, literature, and
grading (Billah, 1991). Yet, the less than satisfactory standard of teaching for non-
religious subjects remains the locus for pesantren’s improvement (Rahardjo, 1991).
Like pondok, pesantren had its share of colonial and feudal religious elites’ hege-
mony, and many had perished. In negotiating educational and political hegemony,
most pesantrens took the non-confrontational path. Although lacking the sophistica-
tion of urban educational centers in terms of facilities, obviously, most pesantren’s
willingness to adapt and change its curriculum to suit the reality of the day while main-
taining its religious sanctity spells its current winning formula for survival.
While it has been argued that the impact of urbanization along with other cultural
processes on madrasah and Muslim education is tremendous and at times irreversible,
it does not necessarily put madrasah at the receiving end permanently. Nor is madrasah
resigned to playing second fiddle to secular education, or worse, be phased out from
geographical and educational spaces in totality. In the wake of madrasah’s decline, a
wide spectrum of differing opinions and suggestions that dissected the Muslim educa-
tion backwardness problem, have been offered. The most prominent discourse is on
Islamization of knowledge, believed to be an ideal strategy to end the educational dualism
that has led Muslims to confusion, chasm, and cultural decadence. The extent of the
Islamization approach towards achieving its goal will be our next focus of discussion.

Islamization of Knowledge: A Strategy that Needs Restrategizing

Generally, Islamization of knowledge has been touted by Muslim scholars as a solution
to the Muslim educational crises and savior for the Muslim world. It is believed to be a
building block for a comprehensive Islamization process that encompasses all spheres
of Muslims’ life (Al-Faruqi, 1982). The discussions and literature on the ill-effects of
educational dualism which necessitates Islamization of knowledge are numerous.6
Basically, Islamization of knowledge incorporates Islamization of language, curriculum,
and finally, the reinstatement of Muslim ethics or adab (Al-Attas, 1999). The wave of
Islamic revivalism in 1970s throughout the Muslim world particularly after the successful
332 Buang

Islamic revolution in Iran reignited the ideation of Islamization and its concretization by
Muslim countries. Muslim scholars’ collective effort in 1977 at the First World Conference
on Muslim Education organized in Jeddah, Mecca, formulated the recommendations and a
blueprint on Islamic education and its proliferation in Muslim countries and by Muslim
minorities. Underpinning the recommendations is the gravity of the far-reaching effects of
westernization, secularism, urbanization, and dualism in Muslim education. This was the
first collective attempt to remove the dichotomy of religious and secular education systems
prevalent in many Muslim countries. Not wanting to superficially mix secular and religion-
oriented courses, the conference restated the nature of Man, the purpose and goal of his
existence, and central role of education in helping Man achieve this end, all of which are
embodied in the following proclamation (Al-Attas, 1979):

The aim of Muslim education is the creation of the “good and righteous man”
who worships Allah in the true sense of the term, builds up the structure of his
earthly life according to the Shariah (Islamic law) and employs it to subserve his
faith … From the Islamic point of view the object of education in the most com-
prehensive sense of worship is the upbringing of the true believer, it follows that
education must achieve two things. First, it must enable man to understand his
Lord so that he worships Him in full conviction on His Oneness, observes the rit-
uals, and abides by the Shariah and the divine injunctions. Secondly, it must
enable him to understand the ways of Allah in the universe, explore the earth, and
use all that Allah has created to protect faith and reinforce His religion in the light
of what Allah has said in the Quran.

The recommendations hoped to reinterpret secular knowledge from primary to univer-

sity level in the shade of Islam. A series of conferences followed suit to identify weak-
nesses of and reformulate strategies in approaching Muslim education related issues
such as textbooks, teacher training, and infrastructures. All the four countries under dis-
cussion adopted Islamization at different points of their socio-historical developments.
The Malaysian government adopted the Islamization policy in 1983 and sanctioned the
establishment of governmental or private Islamic educational institutions from nursery,
pre-school, primary, secondary, colleges, to vocational institution levels (Nagata, 1984).
The setting up of International Islamic University (UIA), a product of collaborative work
and funding from the Organization of Islamic Conferences (OIC) comprising 56 Muslim
states; and Islamic Banking served as pinnacles of the government’s Islamization policy.
The recently adopted national policy of Islam Hadhari (Civilizational Islam)7 (Sekretariat
Islam Hadhari Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia, 2006; Wikipedia, 2006) is seen as the
next phase to concretizing the Islamization process in Malaysia.
Islamization has been attempted oftentimes overzealously by some countries, but
after 20 years of its inception, voices of cynicism question the feasibility of such refor-
mulation, particularly when the whole educational transformation involves major shift in
terms of values, mental and cultural paradigms of the teaching profession, parents, stu-
dents, and the ulama. UIA has been accorded the pinnacle of the Islamization process
and a model by many Muslim countries, but as many faltered in their attempts to realize
the Islamization of knowledge and managed only to integrate both religious and secular
 Madrasah and Muslim Education 333

subjects in one school, these run parallel to each other without any convergence. This is
the current situation prevalent in the Muslim world. Due to strong political and reli-
gious oppositions from the ulama or religious groups, or the failure to correctly inter-
pret the Islamization process as inclusion and not exclusion of modern, oriental, or
Judeo-Christian sciences, Islamization has been read as the reaffirmation of the tradi-
tional status quo, dutifully observed by many madrasahs. As the discourse on Islami-
zation of knowledge continues at the theoretical level, political and educational
environments changed even more swiftly and radically. While serious thought is dedi-
cated to promulgating Islamization of Arabic language and its use in madrasahs and
Muslim education, the nationalism process is fast underway, requiring the replacement
of Arabic language with national languages. If Islamization of knowledge accorded
importance to the transmitters of Islamic knowledge or religious scholars as a source
of reference and for policy making, the diminishing interest in the profession speaks
volumes of Muslim society’s changing attitude towards the ulama. In one study, there
was even a growing reluctance among the Muslims in Indonesia to become religious
teachers due to social stigma (Federspiel, 1991, p. 175).
The conference of international Muslim scholars and academics in Malaysia to delib-
erate on the challenges and prospects of religious curricula in the Muslim world demon-
strated their search and continuous attempt to reformulate the most ideal curriculum that
embodies the spirit and philosophy of Islamization (International Seminar on Religious
Curricula in the Muslim World: Challenges and Prospects, 2005). The very existence of
such seminars reflected the Muslims’ continuing struggle and Herculean task to com-
prehend, conceptualize, realize, and internalize Islamization when faced with the sur-
mountable internal and foreign socio-political complexities, such as globalization and
modernization. Islamization of knowledge as a vehicle to finally achieve a holistic
Islamic system of governance is an unfinished business of the Muslim world. As an ideal
impetus for Muslim civilization, Islamization of knowledge must be a definitive point to
render madrasah’s relevance in the modern world. It would be a great loss if such ideation
becomes less important in pulling society into the fold of madrasah than the factor of
refuge from social ills which are perceived to be perpetuated by urbanism. Apparently
and ironically, urbanization and its negative deliverables provide a life-line for madrasah
and Muslim education. In this regard, the dominant discourse on madrasah’s function as
a medium for attaining Muslims’ personal equilibrium will be deliberated next.

Urbanization and madrasahs: In Search of

Personal Equilibrium
In the context of social science and to borrow Merton’s notion of structural strain,
equilibrium is achieved when any deviance behavior that is perceived to violate a
widely held social norm or value or seen to be as a departure from the shared norms of
a well-integrated society is realigned or modified towards and for social normative con-
formation. Equilibrium is achieved through social structures, laws, and norms as inter-
nal regulating mechanisms that provide societies with continuity and stability (Calhoun,
2002). Religious education through madrasah is said to possess such mechanisms to
334 Buang

preserve one’s equilibrium in the face of urbanization. Urbanization gives rise to cap-
italism, secularism, egalitarianism, and liberalism, which promote free competition in
all fields of life. Such new traits proved to be too overwhelming for the urban Muslims
who are not psychologically ready, or lack the correct attitude, skills, and capital to keep
up with the rigorous competition. As a result, compulsive character, like destructive-
ness against others or own-self may surface. Examples of destructiveness are abundant
in urban setting, such as drug addiction, moral decadence, depression, and loss of tra-
ditional values. Madrasah and religious education have the capacity to return a person
to a state of equilibrium and turn him or her away from personal, social, and religious
annihilation. It is therefore considered ideal to equip him with religious education
through the study of the two primary sources of knowledge, namely wahyu (Divine
revelation) and aqli (the human intellect); in short, a balanced and wholesome reli-
gious education. The emergence of Man as a khalifah (God’s vicegerent) true to his
fitrah (potentials) is said to be made possible through madrasah education that under-
takes such synthesis in its curriculum planning. Difficult as it is to measure one’s
religiosity and morality or its antonyms, many anecdotal accounts point accusing fin-
gers to non-madrasah students for the increase in delinquent behaviors in Indonesian
society (Rohmat Mulyana, 2005). The role of religious education to inculcate students
with moral values gained legitimacy when firmly entrenched in the constitution of
Indonesia and its national educational policy, especially during the post-New Order
regime in late 1960s, when religious education became a compulsory subject in national
schools (Muhammad Zuhdi, 2005). These curriculum changes are seen as insuffi-
cient to create an Islamic environment and enforce the strict discipline prevalent in
madrasah. In this regard, religious education through religious schools became both the
ideal vehicle for moral education and a shield against the enticement of social ills asso-
ciated with urban living. Simply, madrasah is seen as an ideal mechanism for personal
equilibrium.
Although the Muslim community is fully aware that madrasahs have to confront
with inadequacies such as curriculum, untrained teaching staff, poor facilities due to
lack of finance, and poor administration, many parents in Malaysia, particularly since
after Independence, have decided to send their children to Sekolah Menengah Agama
Negeri (State’s Religious Secondary School or SKAN), or the privately run Sekolah
Agama Rakyat (People’s Religious Schools or SAR) due to increasing social ills
amongst the youth, especially in urban areas. The city’s rising juvenile delinquencies,
particularly in drug abuse, are reportedly rampant (Lau, November 5, 2005). In the
light of this, parents blame the national secular schools for their alleged failure in pro-
viding a good religious and moral education curriculum to arrest rising social deca-
dence. Strong criticisms against the government and national schools became louder
with increasing number of both parents working to meet the high cost of living in
urban areas. Parental and family institution’s traditional role in providing moral edu-
cation is now transferred to the madrasah or SAR. Global Islamic revivalism has also
reignited urban Muslims’ religious consciousness in the realms of daily rituals and
education. Currently, there are 500 SARs throughout Malaysia with 1,26,000 students
receiving Islamic education in such institutions (New Straits Times, January 22, 2003,
p. 3). This staggering figure raises many eyebrows, particularly when the quality of
 Madrasah and Muslim Education 335

teaching and learning in such madrasahs is questionable. One observer even concludes
that it is the decline in the quality of national schools that prompted parents to send their
children to madrasahs (Bakri Musa, 2003). If this is the norm rather than exception,
we may generally observe that it is not the strength of madrasah schooling but the
socio-environmental factors that determine madrasahs’ future.

Madrasah, Human and Social Capital

The central thesis of human capital theory is investment in education, which includes
training, to elevate one’s earning power. Simply, the more investment one puts in edu-
cation and training, the more personal income one will receive. At group level, human
capital investment serves to increase the productivity level, hence higher profits
(Scott Marshall, 2005). Like other theories, human capital is imperfect. It assumes that
the playing field is even and is ignorant of the blame it casts on individuals for any
defects in economic system. Worse, it is silent in acknowledging the superlative role of
political and religious dynamism in any economy or even ideology. We acknowledge
both the merits and deficiencies of human capital theory and apply the concept to our
survey, bearing in mind that socio-political factors, individual-society relations and
religious dynamism too play a great role and have contributed to the resultant chal-
lenges of madrasahs.
Malaysia, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Turkey are fast-developing Muslim nation-states
with strategies to modernize and sustain economic growth via, among other things,
huge investments in education and training for the people, and poverty reduction
(Asian Development Bank, 2004). By 2000, Indonesia hoped to reduce the percentage
of its population living below the poverty line to 8.3%, Malaysia to 0%, and Pakistan
from 47.8 to 31%. The literacy rate, another key indicator for improved human capital,
is improving for these countries although still lower in the female population, particu-
larly in Pakistan. Madrasah has, to a great extent, helped to improve the literacy rates
in these countries. However, to become responsible and active economic contributors
of their countries, madrasah graduates cannot be expected or left on their own to rely on
occupations related to religious functionaries such as religious teachers, mosque offi-
cials, and ulamas, who are limited in number. One case in point: although the annual
need for religious functionaries in the late 1990s was around 3,000, Imam-Khatib
schools in Turkey produced 50,000 graduates (Guven, 2005, p. 202). In another
instance, when the Malaysian government advertised 100 vacancies for Islamic teach-
ers, it received 4,000 applicants (Bakri Musa, 2003). M. Bakri argued that huge num-
bers of these Muslims with qualifications in Islamic studies were unable to find
employment and thus felt betrayed. While the government is attempting to champion
the cause of Islam by establishing more Muslim educational institutions or depart-
ments to win the hearts and popular votes of the masses, due consideration must be
given to the end product of such a strategy and proper human resource planning must
be made to avoid disastrous socio-political implications. The disparity between
socio-religious idealism and economic opportunities is wide and prevalent in all
countries reviewed, and could lead to more social unrest rather than enhancing social
capital. Indeed some reformations in madrasah education have taken place where its
336 Buang

curriculum was liberalized to include secular subjects to allow its graduates’ place-
ment in the open job market. Indonesia, since the reign of New Order in 1966, for
instance, has instituted minimal percentage allocation of 30% secular subjects and 70%
religious subjects for all madrasahs. A number of studies on pesantren and madrasah
concluded that the quality of teaching and learning in non-religious subjects is much
to be desired, underscoring the critical need for teacher training and improved
textbooks (Billah, 1991; Rahardjo, 1991). Curriculum reformation could be further
improved to include not only subjects currently vital for socio-economic development,
but also of future importance, such as bio-sciences, bio-technology, and finance. The
recent worldwide phenomenon of an Islamic banking system perceived to worth
billions of US dollars per annum should be seen as a promising avenue for madrasah
graduates.
To go a step further, liberalization of madrasah curriculum under the auspicious
guide of an Islamization process should be revisited and redefined. After 20 years of
its implementation, reformed religious curricula have been seen as a cocoon. One aca-
demic observed that the overall curriculum of religious institute of higher learning has
insulated and isolated its student-participants from the plural society dynamism and
socio-political reality of the day (Kamar Oniah Kamaruzaman, 2005). The researcher
opines that the products of religious institutions may be further “displaced and dislo-
cated of their future, particularly career-wise and leadership-wise … . Thus they will
remain in the peripherals, marginalized and marginalizing themselves, despite the fact
that in campus they may be the creams of the University, in academics as well as in
co-curricular activities.” The voice of urgency to expose madrasah’s community to
their country’s pluralism can also be discerned in Tariq Rahman’s comparative study
on madrasah and secular school students’ worldview towards religious tolerance, gender
equity, and issues of militancy in Pakistan (Tariq Rahman, 2004). In relation to this, the
OIC’s call (Whitaker, December 9, 2005, p. 23; The Third Extraordinary Session of the
Islamic Summit Conference, 2005) for the reformation of religious textbooks to depict
such multi-cultural, multi-religious, and global realism is timely, and must be sup-
ported by financial-political commitment by its 56 member countries.
The recent global construct of madrasah is a major challenge to negotiate. The dev-
astating event of September 11, 2001, put madrasah in the limelight through media
frenzy, but for a specific reason. Attempts have been made either by the media or inter-
ested countries to connect madrasahs to terrorist acts, even though such connections
have never been logically substantiated by hard evidence. The fact that key radical mil-
itants graduated from secular institutions of higher learning, or went through a process
of socialization in western urban soil (Bergen & Pandey, 2005) did not alter such mis-
conceptions. Pakistani madrasahs, in particular, have been frequently highlighted to
represent “schools of hate” and the hotbed for terrorism (Hasan Zaidi, 2005). This
unfortunate global construct puts madrasah and Muslim education, be it in rural or urban
centers, in great pressure to wrestle with insurmountable challenges at micro and macro
levels; from curriculum reformation to engagement of sorts with world major powers.
In a cautious, pre-emptive act, Pakistan for instance has regulated all madrasahs to
register officially with the government and to deport all foreign students studying in its
madrasahs to their countries of origin, while Indonesia has enforced security measures
 Madrasah and Muslim Education 337

by finger printing its 3.5 million madrasah and pesantren students, selectively profil-
ing these students as potentially state security concern (Salim Osman, December 7,
2005). Whether this profiling process is dehumanizing and creates an atmosphere of
mistrust rather than promotes responsible citizenship should be given serious thought.
Muslim nations’ commitment to promote a balanced and practical Muslim educa-
tion, for the salvation of one’s life in this world and the hereafter, is long overdue.
Unfortunately till today, many Muslim countries belong to the underdeveloped circle,
with majority of its people earning less than US$1 per day, lacking knowledge, skills
and funds to arrest the socio-economic problems that have since become their number
one preoccupation. In this regard, if education is taken to be a reflection of, and pro-
motion for, society’s endearing norms and values, ceteris paribus, it is far from being
successful in comprehending the socio-economic expectations of the ever-changing
environment and in preparing the students with necessary knowledge and skills to face
those realities. As long as the education sector is nowhere near defense terms of budget
allocation and state-of-the-art infrastructure, society must remain critical of such skewed
relations impacting their lives.
To the extent that curriculum liberalization should be, inclusive of socio-economic-
political realities rather than exclusive, adaptive of other civilizations than aloof, dex-
terous to the ever-changing world environment than stagnant, promoting critical
thinking than subservient to popular opinions, maximizing individuals’ potentials than
strengthening the status quo of the selected few, it is still found wanting. The impor-
tance of madrasah and Muslim education in the face of urbanization and its social ills
should not be doubted. In as much as Muslim society remains steadfast to the belief
that madrasah has its relevance in the rebuilding of civil society, social justice and
Muslim civilization through religious ethics and intellectualization, madrasah educa-
tion must rise to expectation by proving itself able to realize such social roles through
practical, forward-looking and robust curriculum, teacher training, textbooks, assess-
ments, and vocational training that befit its claims to be the ideal manifestation of
Islamic education and training. At mundane but concrete level, madrasah’s contribu-
tion to social capital in producing morally upright citizens should and has been
acknowledged, evidently in the dramatic upsurge in the number of madrasah intakes in
urban centers. However, such idealism could run counter itself if not supported by
socio-economic opportunities to sustain the upright citizens while they perform their
acts of worship, including earning a decent living, on earth. That the presence of child-
labor in trades not only pose danger to their health and moral upbringing, but also rob
their rights to education in the midst of our Muslim civil community or any commu-
nity for that matter (International Labor Organization report, 1997), should be a mat-
ter of great and direct concern to Muslim education. In this regard, the Muslim
educational framework should not be just theoretically ideal, yet proving elusive in its
practical merits for the masses. The latter must be attended to in order for Muslim edu-
cation to be true to its philosophy and wholesome educational aims promoted during
the First World Conference on Muslim Education in 1978.
For this very reason, we support the contention of the classical Muslim thinker Ibnu
Sina,8 that to identify and support the natural talent and vocational skill of a child is
the primary function of parents and Muslim education, so that civil society could be
338 Buang

established and strengthened. The essence and spirit of human and social capital have
been aptly articulated as early as tenth century. These are yet to be realized and con-
cretized by modern and urban Muslims.

Conclusion
Madrasahs’ challenges in the face of urbanism are a facet of its continual struggles
against forms of hegemony at the societal, state and transnational level. In the race for
modernization and despite its Herculean task to face many challenges, madrasah and
Muslim education are very much a force to reckon with. Its administrative aspects,
pedagogy, textbooks, syllabi, teacher training, management, and infrastructure have
undergone changes due to urbanization, modernization, international community’s
coercion, and Muslims’ own desire for the reemergence of Islamic civilization. These
transformations are also necessary to equip city dwellers in their economic pursuit and
search for personal equilibrium. It is therefore incorrect to negate the impact of
madrasah upon city dwellers, at least in its functionary role as normative determinant
that helps them achieve personal equilibrium against the challenges of socio-economic
inequality and cultural decadence characterizing the urban. As long as madrasah
embodies the spirit of human and social capitals as promulgated by the religion and
correctly understood by the Muslim masses and elites, it will remain relevant for many
years to come. The determination to continuously review, reconstruct, synthesize, and
adapt Muslim education curriculum and its infrastructure to suit the ever-changing
socio-political environment proves the ummah’s will to witness madrasah and Muslim
education as major contributors to the development of knowledge and post-modern
civilization. What remains to be seen is the realization of such determination at a broad
and more concrete level. Interestingly and perhaps ironically, urbanization, with its
encroaching values of westernization, secularism, and modernization, accelerates the
cycle of such a cultural reaffirmation process.

Author’s Note
Sincere gratitude to Prof. S. Gopinathan of National Institute of Education, Nanyang
Technological University, for graciously sharing some articles and newspapers cut-
tings on the madrasah.

Notes
1. See Library of Congress Country Studies (2003); http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?cstdy:1:./
temp/~frd_GN5i Retrieved on October 25, 2005.
2. The Pilgrimage to Mecca performed in the month of Dzulhijjah is considered as one of the “five pillars”
of Islam; a requirement that must be fulfilled by all Muslims if they are able, once in a lifetime.
3. Figures are taken from Ali Riaz (2005).
 Madrasah and Muslim Education 339

4. According to Javed (2003) as quoted by Riaz (2005), the US Carter administration established a 500
million dollar fund for preparing Mujahiden to fight against the occupying Soviet forces. Later on, 4 bil-
lion dollars were provided for this purpose and the project was given the title of “Operation Cyclone.”
The results have been astonishing: the number of traditional religious schools in Pakistan rocketed from
700 in 1980 to 20,000 in 2000.
5. An eight-year compulsory education has implications beyond a simple policy change. If implemented,
it would mean the closing down of the sixth, seventh, and eight grades, or the middle school section, of
all vocational schools in Turkey including the Imam-khatib schools. Moreover, learning the Arabic
language – the foundation of much of the Islamic curricula – became more difficult if students began
taking Arabic language classes from ninth grade instead of sixth. See Soon-Yong Pak (2004), p. 323.
6. Please refer to M. Waiullah Khan, (Ed.) (1981); Al-Attas, S. M. N. (1999); Al-Faruqi, I. R. (1982); Wan
Mohd Nor Wan Daud (1989); to name a few. Al-Attas’ seminal work on the subject has become the main
reference point for Muslim education.
7. Islam Hadhari is a theory of government based on the principles of Islam as derived from the Quran. It
is being promoted by the current Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. It consists of ten
fundamental principals: Faith and piety in Allah, just and trustworthy government, freedom and inde-
pendence to the people, mastery of knowledge, balanced and comprehensive economic development,
good quality of life for all, protection of the rights of minority groups and women, cultural and moral
integrity, protection of the environment, and a strong defense policy. See Islam Hadhari (Civilizational
Islam), Wikipedia, Retrieved on June 14, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_Hadhari; and
Islam Hadhari Menjana Kemajuan Ummah (Islam Hadhari Generates the Muslim Community’s
Advancement), Retrieved on June 14, 2006, from http://www.islam.gov.my/islamhadhari
8. Abu Ali Al-Husain Ibn Abdallah Ibn Sina, or commonly known as Avicenna, was born in the Persian
city of Afshana near Bukhara in 980 A.D. and died in Hamadan in 1037 A.D. At the age of 18, he was
well versed in Greek astronomy (particularly Ptolemy’s Almagest), mathematics, deductive logic,
Muslim philosophy and jurisprudence, and medicine. He wrote important treatises such as, among
others, the Canon of Medicine which is the epitome of Islamic medicine, and which has been translated
into Latin and taught for centuries in Western universities; the Kitab al-Shifa’ (the Book of Healing), on
physics and metaphysics which is popularly known as an encyclopedia of Islamic-Greek learning in the
eleventh century; the Najat (The Salvation), which is popularly taken as a summary of al-Shifa’, and the
Hikmat al-Alai. Some 276 titles have been credited to his name. See Winter, H. J. J. (1952). The life and
thought of Avicenna. Bangalore: The Indian Institute of Culture.

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18

WOMEN IN EAST ASIAN EDUCATION AND

SOCIETY: WHOSE GAINS IN WHOSE
PERSPECTIVES?

Grace C. L. Mak
The Hong Kong Institute of Education, China

The World Bank attributed the East Asian miracle of nine high-performing economies to
the rapid growth between the 1960s and 1990 that began with Japan, followed by the
Asian Tigers of Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and more recently China,
Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia (World Bank, 1993, p. 2). The works on education and
development in East Asia generally celebrate the phenomenal economic growth in this
region, driven by export-led industrialization, an educated labor force, and relatively
equal distribution of social opportunities (Green, 2006; Kim & Lau, 1994; Sen, 2000;
World Bank, 1993). Such certainty in the perspective of the outside world is indeed
shared by many individuals that live in these societies. The latter are typically members
of the new entrepreneurial or professional classes, who are well-educated urban dwellers
whose prime years coincide with the boom and have benefited from it. Thus, in broad
terms there is agreement on the positive view in and outside East Asia.
A closer examination reveals a much more complex picture of how perspectives on
development are derived. A perspective is shaped by two sources of information: the
differential impact of development on different social groups, and the nature of
evidence that substantiates a claim. While country-level indicators point to overall
success, a breakdown shows that development benefits urban dwellers more than rural
and men more than women. Thus, the perspective of the outside world is shared only
by a select group of beneficiaries. This group is in the forefront of development and
projects a new social profile that eclipses the plight of the groups on the periphery.
What are the perspectives of these other groups and how are they formed? Another
way of understanding differential impact lies in the classic comparison in absolute and
relative terms. For example, increase in women’s earnings in absolute terms indicates
improvement in women’s situation, but the same earnings may be relatively lower than
men’s and indicate a lack of improvement in relative terms of equality. The same data
then lead to contradictory conclusions. The second source of perspective formation is
the nature of evidence. Evidence in the form of statistics is an important, but insuffi-
cient, measurement of social progress. Social life is the sum total of diverse values and
343
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 343–358.
© 2007 Springer.
344 Mak

behavior, and its significance cannot be neatly captured in numbers. One has to look
beyond statistical evidence for phenomena that are the early hints of social change. These
phenomena are captured in non-statistical works like biographies, creative writing and
above all, daily social life.
This chapter examines the impact of education and development on a social group
that enjoys the privilege of urban residence, but faces the disadvantage of gender in the
four Tiger economies and China, namely, women. In his study of Tanzania, Morrison
(1976) concluded that one’s proximity to Dar es Salaam, the capital city, is the single
most important predictor of one’s life chances. The same holds true in other societies
with sharp rural-urban disparities. The recent history of urbanization of the Tiger
countries and China, in contrast with the rest of developing Asia, is a constant reminder
of the privilege of urban residence. These five societies are good cases for understand-
ing the complex interaction between women’s education and gender roles in the public
and private spheres at a time of economic boom. The first part of the chapter reviews
the status of women as a group. Collectively, they have benefited from development in
terms of rising levels of educational attainment, labor force participation, later marriage
and lower fertility. At the same time, they have actively contributed to development in
the form of a large supply of cheap labor in manufacturing and services. The second
part of the chapter examines inter- and intra-gender comparisons. It is argued that there
has been little fundamental change in gender equality; women continue to be subordi-
nate in both the public and private spheres. Urbanization reduces gender inequality
only to a limited extent; new forms of inequality have emerged. The situation varies
with sub-groups of women. Whether there is any gain depends on the interaction of gen-
der with education, social class, race/ethnicity, and urban–rural residence, and how –
whether in absolute or relative terms – impact is assessed.
We then shift our focus from the macro level to amorphous social phenomena to
identify the values, perspectives and behavior of women which have the potential for
change. In affluent East Asian cities, there emerged a visible force of new age women
who are assertive in education, employment, marriage, and sexuality. They react to patri-
archy in different ways and some of them try to deny gender as a key factor in concep-
tualizing their social role. This discussion draws on evidence in creative writing, the
arts, and social activities. Such evidence has an urban slant. Education is an important
attribute in women’s value formation. New values in turn shape the demand for and use
of education. The focus of discussion in the first two parts of the chapter is on women
as a group or sub-group, while the third part focuses on women as individuals. A bal-
anced view of women in Asian education and society will need to connect these two
levels of perspectives. The connection is relevant in the current context of urban Asia –
the spread of new opportunities as well as exploitation, and the emergence of a new
sense of individuality and construction of womanhood as autonomous personhood.

Overall Improvements in Women’s Status

The last three decades has witnessed unparalleled change in key dimensions of
human development relevant to women’s status. In the latest (2005) Human
 Women in East Asian Education and Society 345

Table 1. Key indicators of human development

HDI HDI trend Urban Total fertility Life

rank, population rate (birth expectancy at
2003 (% of total) per woman) birth, 2003

1975 2003 1975 2003 1970–1975 2000–2005 Female Male

Hong Kong 22 0.761 0.916 89.7 100.0 2.9 0.9 84.6 78.7
Taiwan 23 – – – 69.1 1.8 1.5 78.4 72.7
Singapore 25 0.725 0.907 100.0 100.0 2.6 1.4 80.6 76.7
Korea 28 0.707 0.901 48.0 80.3 4.3 1.2 80.6 73.3
China 85 0.525 0.755 17.4 38.6 4.9 1.7 73.5 69.9

Sources: United Nations Development Program (2005), Tables 1, 2 and 5. Hong Kong is a Special
Administrative Region of China and is presented separately in the UNDP’s Human Development Reports.
Taiwan is not included in the UNDP’s Human Development Reports. The Taiwanese government did their
own calculations using UNDP’s instrument. See Taiwan Bureau of Statistics (2003). Information on
Taiwanese urban population in 2005 is from Taiwan Government Information Office.

Development Report, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and Korea rank 22, 23, 25, and
28 respectively in the human development index (HDI) (Table 1). The HDI is a com-
posite index that measures the average achievements in a country in three basic
dimensions: health, education, and standard of living. These improvements place the
four societies in the high human development group of 57 countries/territories. China
ranks 85th, rising from the low- to the medium-human development group, and is
expected to continue in bold strides. The number of cities in Asia has increased with
economic transformation. The cities are centers of goods, services, innovations,
lifestyles and, above all, opportunities (Asian Development Bank, 1997). They pro-
vide an escape route and give rise to new gender relations and family structure for
rural women. Hong Kong and Singapore are fully urbanized. Taiwan and Korea are
mostly urbanized with reasonably developed rural areas. In China, however, the rural-
urban gap is widening. In 1990, the average per capita income in rural areas was 45%
of that in urban areas; in 2002 it was 32% (China State Statistical Bureau, 2004).
Rural life is a world apart from urban life.
The totality fertility rate in the world has dropped as a result of various factors –
increase in participation in education and waged employment, technological progress
in birth control, and state policy on population control. At the same time, women and
men live longer than before.
The Asian Tigers and China are all Confucian societies which attach a high value to
education. Educational expansion is a combined result of state development policy and
strong social demand. Table 2 shows the high adult literacy rates and school enrollment
rates in these societies. Some of the figures in the table are for the years 1999–2000.
The most recent figures from the respective national offices are higher.
The gender gap in primary and secondary enrollment is more or less closed. Recent
data from national statistical offices show that girls’ rates have surpassed boys’ in post-
compulsory schooling. There is also a clear inverse relationship between education and
fertility (United Nations, 2000, Ch. 4). With drastic fertility decline, there are fewer
346 Mak

Table 2. Literacy and educational enrollment rates

Adult literacy Primary net Secondary net Gross tertiary

rates, 2003 enrollment rates enrollment rates enrollment
rates, 2002/03

Female Male Female Ratio Female Ratio Female Ratio

of Female of Female ratio of female
to male to male to male

Hong Kong 89.6 96.9 97 0.99 75 1.04 31 0.99

Taiwan 92.5 98.5 98 – 95 – 80 –
Singapore 88.6 96.6 – – – – – –
Korea – – 100 1.00 88 1.00 64 0.61
China 86.5 95.1 – – – – 14 0.84

Source: United Nations Development Programme (2005), Table 27. The figures in italics are for 1999–2000.
Taiwan Bureau of Statistics: Primary and secondary enrollment rates, 2002, the rest are 2000 figures.

Table 3. Economic participation

GDP per Ratio of Female economic activity Employment by economic

capita estimated rate (ages 15 & above), activity, %, 1995–2002
PPP female to 2003
US$, male earned Agriculture Industry Services
2003 income

Rate Index As F M F M F M
(%) (1990 = 100) % of
M
rate

Hong Kong 27,179 0.56 51.2 105 66 – – 10 27 90 73

Taiwan 15,100 0.52 46.0 – 66 8 13 33 43 59 44
Singapore 24,481 0.51 50.0 99 64 – – 18 31 81 69
Korea 17,971 0.48 54.4 113 71 12 9 19 34 70 57
China 5,003 0.66 72.4 98 86 – – – – – –

Sources: United Nations Development Programme (2005), Tables 26 & 28.

Taiwan Bureau of Statistics: “Employment by economic activity” statistics are for 2005; the rest are 2000 figures.

primary school children, and resources previously allocated to primary education can
be reallocated to secondary schools, allowing more adolescents, including girls, to
remain in school (United Nations, 1995, p. 40).
One of the most direct benefits for women is economic participation (Table 3). Unlike
in education, the gender divide in the economy is striking. The ratio of female to male
earned income is estimated to be in the neighborhood of 50%, ranging from 0.48
(Korea) to 0.66 (China). These ratios show that wealth generation does not necessarily
bring gender equality in wealth distribution.
The tables above and later in this chapter show that social opportunities open up to
women in the order of education, economy, and family and politics. Within each sphere,
 Women in East Asian Education and Society 347

the nature and extent of women’s gains vary. Generally, where legislation reaches effec-
tively and where there is less competition, for example, in education and public sector
employment, the sphere opens up more readily. Otherwise, for example, in private sec-
tor employment, politics, and the family, inequality perpetuates. The extent to which
improvements in women’s status have been achieved depends on different criteria:
(1) whether one looks for overall equality between women and men, (2) whether the
improvements some groups of women have enjoyed are brought about at the expense of
other groups of women, and (3) whether personal gains can be expanded to become
collective gains. These criteria help us understand whether the improvements outlined
in the above tables represent a fundamental change or merely an enhanced version of the
past. They also beg the question of how women as a group and as individuals respond
to and negotiate with the new context.

Inter- and Intra-gender Inequality

The Gender-related Development Index (GDI) adjusts the average achievement measured
in the HDI to reflect inequalities in the key areas of human development. Table 4 shows that
in the Tiger countries, gender development is more or less parallel to achievements in
human development; in China, the GDI is higher than the HDI, probably due to the
lingering effect of an egalitarian policy before her switch to the market economy. The
Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) focuses on women’s opportunities rather than
their capabilities as measured in the GDI using key dimensions of political and eco-
nomic participation. The available data on GEM in Table 4 suggest that GEM may vary
considerably from GDI. Compared to data from a few years ago, all the five societies
included here have improved in both their GDI and GEM, although the inter-gender
gap remains significant.

Table 4. Gender-related development index and gender empowerment measure

HDI GDI GEM Seats in Female Female Ratio of

rank parliament legislators, professional estimated
held by senior & technical female to
women (% officials & workers male
of total) managers (most recent earned
(% of total) year in 1992– income
2003)
(% of total)

Hong Kong 22 22 – – 26 39 0.56

Taiwan 23 23 20 22.2 15 43 0.55
Singapore 25 – 22 16.0 26 45 0.51
Korea 28 27 59 13.0 6 39 0.48
China 85 64 – 20.2 – – 0.66

Source: United Nations Development Programme (2005), Tables 25 & 26.

Taiwan Bureau of Statistics: 2000 figures.
348 Mak

Education
The four Asian Tigers share a similar history of expanding education sequentially to
meet the needs at different stages of development, with expansion in universal basic
education resulting in the supply of quality low-skilled workers and the spread of voca-
tional education to prepare semi-skilled workers in the early and middle stages of
labor-intensive manufacturing. There was also drastic expansion of higher education
to meet the demand for skilled personnel in economic restructuring (Kim, 2000; Yang,
1994). In China, egalitarian provision in health and education in the 1950s–1970s
prepared it for the economic take-off later (Sen, 2000). In the 1980s, China promoted
vocational education at secondary level to meet the need for large numbers of semi-
skilled workers in its manufacturing boom. Educational expansion is always articulated
with economic transformation, which takes place in urban areas. It has an economic
and instrumental function, and is not specifically gender sensitive. Large numbers of
girls enroll in courses as a preparation for employment. Ironically, these are Confucian
societies which traditionally denied women of knowledge. This shows an interesting
mitigating effect of industrialization and urbanization on culture in traditional gender
roles. In recent years, girls have surpassed boys in numbers and academic perform-
ance, again challenging the Confucian construction of women’s deficiency in intellect.
However, where provision is limited, the gender gap continues. For example, in
Taiwan women represented 50, 39, and 26% of the enrollment in bachelor’s, master’s,
and doctoral level of study in 2005 respectively (Taiwan Ministry of Education, 2005).
Comparable figures in Hong Kong were 66% (sub-degree), 54% (undergraduate),
51% (taught postgraduate), and 43% (research postgraduate) for 2004 (Hong Kong
University Grants Committee). In Korea, the comparable figure of undergraduates was
37% in 2005 (Korea Women’s Development Institute). In China, it was 44% in 2002
(China State Statistical Bureau, 2004). In Singapore, it was about 50% in 2005
(Singapore Department of Statistics). Whether in basic or higher education, increase in
women’s participation always happened at times of drastic expansion. Women’s
progress has to be placed in the context of declining value of education at a time when,
as a social opportunity, it is no longer a scarcity. This progress confirms the long-term
pattern of women as secondary and reserve in the social distribution of resources.
Also, in the public view, more education is not always better for women. A few decades
ago, a secondary education was considered good enough. Today, most urban parents
see a university education as the threshold to a good life for their sons and daughters.
But postgraduate education has a negative connotation as parents fear that “too much”
education will prevent their daughters from marriage. Such worry shows that East
Asian societies have yet to get used to the reality of large numbers of well-educated
women. In China, the uneasiness turns into blatant discrimination. Despite state policy
on gender equality, women holding postgraduate degrees encounter discrimination in
job application. Employers fear their service will be interrupted by imminent marriage
and childbearing. Women doctorates are publicly sneered at as “weird beings.” This
view is common in the mass media and in daily encounters, even from officials or aca-
demics whose work involves promoting gender equality. It is these casual instances
that expose the split between rhetoric and belief in gender equality. As long as the split
 Women in East Asian Education and Society 349

continues, improvements in women’s status originate from instrumental motives rather

than a genuine commitment to equality.
Gender gap in distribution by subject remains marked, though there are signs of nar-
rowing. Whether in secondary or higher education, school subjects are gendered. In
the latter, the arts and social sciences continue to be heavily feminine, and engineering
heavily masculine. The extrinsic value of different types of knowledge is articulated
with development strategies. For example, in China and Taiwan, the government allo-
cates more student numbers to disciplines such as engineering, which correspond
closely to manpower needs. There are fewer places in less marketable disciplines, such
as humanities and social sciences, resulting in keener competition for women for
admission to universities (Hsieh, 1997; Mak, 1997). The same bias is found in voca-
tional education. Girls tend to be enrolled in nursing, beauty care, garment making,
etc. The training has the dual impact of empowering them with waged employment,
but reinforcing their traditional gender roles. Some of the disciplines that have become
popular in recent years, such as business or communication, are more gender-neutral
and have attracted a relatively high number of female students.

Economic Participation
New employment opportunities in the cities and expansion of basic education contri-
buted to the rise in women’s economic participation rates (Table 5).
In Asia, 33% of economically active women in cities held production jobs, a much
higher rate than the rest of the world (United Nations, 1995, p. 41). Women’s total
economic participation rates ranged from 46 to 54% in the Tiger economies (Table 3).
The much higher rate (72%) in China was an outcome of combined government pol-
icy on gender equality in entry to the labor force and labor-intensive industrialization
in the current era. Viewed in terms of labor share, women constituted 64 to 71% of the
male rates in the Tiger countries and 86% in China. Urban opportunities have had a
feminizing impact on rural population. As men migrate for work in cities, rural women
are left behind to tend the land and head the household. Sometimes, both husband and
wife have left, leaving behind grandparents and children. The ripple effect of urban-
ization has caused serious social problems in China.

Table 5. Increase in women’s labor force participation rates, various years

Period Women’s LFP

rates (%)

From To

Hong Kong, China SAR 1961–1995 37 51

Taiwan 1961–2001 36 46
Singapore 1957–1997 22 51
Korea 1965–1995 36 48

Source: Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department; Taiwan Bureau of

Statistics; Singapore Department of Statistics; Lee and Cho, 1999, p. 288.
350 Mak

In the process emerged a visible new group of women workers, especially in the
1960s–1970s, who toiled in the factory during the day and attended school at night.
They bring a much needed supplementary income to their family, including support-
ing their brothers’ schooling. Traditionally, daughters, deprived of economic earning
opportunities, were viewed as a liability to parents. These women are the first genera-
tion of daughters in East Asia whose function in the family is transformed from one of
liability to asset. They are the millions of unsung heroines upon whose youth and sweat
the prosperity of East Asia was built.
Education has a positive impact on women’s labor force participation. The partici-
pation rates of Taiwanese women in 2005 with educational attainment at lower sec-
ondary or below, upper secondary, and post-secondary levels were 32, 54, and 63%
respectively (Taiwan Bureau of Statistics). A similar pattern is found in the other coun-
tries discussed here. What is interesting is that the gains in labor force participation rate
declined after a certain ceiling. In Korea, the ceiling (68%) was at junior college level;
it declined to 62% at the university level and above in 2006 (Korea National Statistical
Office). In Hong Kong, the ceiling (76%) was at the junior college level in 2001; it
declined to 72% at the university level in 2001 (Hong Kong Census and Statistics
Department). A plausible explanation is that a secondary or junior college education
leads to clerical or para-professional positions in healthcare, which favor women.
However, marriage has a negative effect on employment. In 1970 and the mid-1990s, the
labor force participation rates of unmarried university educated women were 50 and 70%,
respectively; those of their married counterparts were 20 and 30%, respectively (Lee &
Cho, 1999, p. 4). Comparable rates in Hong Kong in 1991 were 77% for unmarried women
and 69% for married women (Mak & Chung, 1997, pp. 25, 27), showing the mediating
effect of marriage on education in economic participation. Other cross national data con-
firm the tension between education and marriage on women’s economic participation.
Horizontal segregation is obvious in the labor market. Women are consistently over-
represented in assembly line jobs and services, but under-represented in manual and
mechanical jobs in industry (Table 3), showing the gendered nature of participation in
economic transformation.
Vertical segregation is a twin feature. The most recent available figures still put
women as a minority among professional and technical workers (Table 4). In this group
women are mainly found in the feminine occupations of nursing and teaching. As in
education, women are secondary recipients of new opportunities in the economy. Even
in teaching, an occupation most open to women, vertical segregation is strong. The
pattern in Taiwan is typical: women made up 98, 68, 61, and 32% of teachers at kinder-
garten, primary, secondary, and tertiary levels respectively in 2004 (Taiwan Ministry
of Education). In Korea, women made up 71, 62, and 38% of elementary, middle and
high schools (Korea Women’s Development Institute). In all these societies, the pro-
portion of women school leaders is much lower than that of teachers. The Taiwanese
data suggest a tenuous association between urban areas and openness to women
leadership – Taipei is open, but Kaohsiung, the second largest city, is not more so than
the rest of Taiwan (Table 6).
How does one explain the vertical segregation? A case study of women in Singapore
higher education management suggests that their career trajectories are shaped by the
interaction of cultural values, structures and state legislation. Rather than the Western
 Women in East Asian Education and Society 351

Table 6. Women as a proportion of school teachers and leaders, Taiwan, 2005

Women as a proportion of teachers Women as a proportion of

school principals

Primary school Secondary school Primary school Secondary school

Taiwan as a whole 68 68 25 26
Taipei 77 73 45 56
Kaohsiung 74 71 28 20

Source: Taiwan Ministry of Education.

explanation of the glass ceiling as enacted by men, the experience of these women sug-
gested women-women and culturally-specific crafted informal patronage as factors in
promotion (Luke, 1998). Much more research is needed to find out the extent of cultural-
specific explanation on the glass ceiling in Asia.
Gender discrimination in earnings is considerable. As argued earlier, urban residence
is the single most important prerequisite for a good life in developing societies. For
example, in 1999 the annual per capita income was 5,854 and 2,210 yuan in urban and
rural areas, respectively, in China (National Bureau of Statistics, 2000). This difference
places urban women among the haves. However, the earnings structure in waged employ-
ment, an urban economic activity, shows the continuing discrimination against women.
Generally, increase in education brings higher earnings to women. Thus, in absolute terms
education has a positive effect on women, but in relative terms the effect is mixed. In
Korea, more education brings a slightly higher earnings ratio, at 62% (middle school),
67% (high school), 68% (junior college) and 68% (university), respectively of what
men earned in 2004 (Korea Women’s Development Institute). In Hong Kong, the ratio
was the highest at the upper secondary level, at 0.833 (2001) (Hong Kong Census and
Statistics Department, 2002, p. 139). In Taiwan, it topped at the post-secondary non-
degree level, at 0.776 (1997) (Hsieh, 2003, p. 478). In Singapore, the comparable fig-
ure was 0.76 at the university level for women in the 25–34 age range, 0.67 in the
35–44 and 0.59 in the 45–54 age range in 1995 (Singapore Department of Statistics).
Why does the equalizing effect of education stop at the university level? And, in the
case of Singapore, why did it decline with age? Interrupted work history due to moth-
erhood and vertical segregation provide partial explanations. The other possibility is
continuing male dominance in skilled positions which tertiary education leads to.
Wages in China are calculated on a complex formula that includes basic pay, allowances
and bonuses. The weighting of bonus in the total wage has much increased today, but
women tend to receive little bonus. The intervention of state policy is limited. There is
no constitutional guarantee of gender equality in Singapore. In China, Korea, Taiwan,
and Hong Kong, where guarantee exists, it is enforced in the public sector only.
Improvements in the situation of educated urban women in part rest on the support
provided by domestic and international migrant workers. For young women with little
education from poor rural families in China, nannies, maids, or factory workers are the
jobs that, with luck, they can land (Davin, 1999). Much like the poorly educated young
women that filled the sweat shops in the early stage of industrialization, these rural
women fill the vacuum of cheap labor today. Urban women’s well-being is therefore
352 Mak

inseparable from the service, sometimes exploitation, of rural women. Migrant work
turns into remittance to rural homes, at the cost of not only manual and menial work, but
also youth, sweat and tears. Some migrant women settle down in the cities to new fam-
ily and gender relations; others bring back their savings, skills and values home to start
micro-businesses. Urban exposure enables them to become change agents in rural areas.
In societies without rural areas, for example, Hong Kong and Singapore, migrant women
are sourced from poor neighboring countries, notably the Philippines and Indonesia.
Again, urban women’s well-being is impossible without support from international
migrant workers (Ehrenreich & Hochschild, 2002). A sad destination of some of the rural
women is prostitution, through women trafficking or other means. Urban residence is not
always a plus for women. Poor women in cities are much worse off than those in rural
areas where support from the extended family and neighborhood is readily available.
With the relocation of labor-intensive industries to cheaper regions, women are the
first to be shed from the labor force. In China, unskilled urban women in their 50s suf-
fer twice. Many of them as secondary students were sent from the cities to labor farms
during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. Those who returned in the late 1970s took
up low-skill, low-pay jobs in the cities. At times of staff reshuffling, these women are
the first to be laid off.
Age discrimination is on the rise as employment becomes saturated. Women in
menial jobs are increasing young, good-looking, and well-dressed, not to say those in
clerical jobs. Such are the cleaning ladies in the posh hotels in Taipei, Hong Kong,
Shanghai, and Beijing. They are a sign of exploitation rather than one of progress.
One can then sum up that the significant improvements in education have not been
reflected in waged employment. Women are subordinate and vulnerable to layoffs.
Much of this discrimination concerns enduring demand of the family on women.

Family
Of the three obligations on the family on women, namely, marriage, maternity, and
housework, the last one is the first to be overcome where resources are available. Educated
urban working women can be relieved from household chores, although the gendered
nature of homemaking is hardly altered in that these women’s involvement has ele-
vated from menial to managing role. Where such resources are not available, women
have to cope with the double demand of the work and family. Urbanization, education
and waged employment do not necessarily liberate women from gender inequality
(Whyte & Parish, 1984, Ch. 7).
There is evidence to show that urbanization and limited evidence that tertiary
education allow women the option of non-marriage (Jones, 1997). Data on Singapore
in 1990–2000 showed that women with an upper secondary or a university education
were more likely than those with less education to be single. For men it was the opposite –
men with less than a secondary education were more likely to be single (Singapore
Department of Statistics). More education allows women the choice of non-marriage;
less education denies men the choice of marriage. Society attaches a negative conno-
tation on non-marriage and often views it as regret in one’s life, a cost women pay for
their achievements. Increasingly, women are unmarried by choice rather than due to
 Women in East Asian Education and Society 353

the lack of suitors. Many of these women enjoy the state of non-marriage. Colleagues,
friends and family are important significant others in Asia; they provide the social and
psychological support in lieu of a conjugal relationship. Non-marriage as choice,
economic independence and a sense of purpose in urban life give women autonomy
which is a departure from their traditional dependency on men. The degree of choice
of non-marriage varies with culture. Cities with a longer history of internationaliza-
tion, like Hong Kong and Singapore, allow for greater autonomy, whereas in China,
unmarried educated women are drawn into marriage by match-making efforts of those
around them. The situation is gradually changing, as Chinese cities accept new norms
and values in the process of opening up to the world.
There is substantial literature on the contribution of adding to a mother’s schooling
to fertility decline and improving her children’s health, schooling and adult productiv-
ity (United Nations, 2000, p. 89). In the context of a strong culture of achievement and
competition, urban life in East Asia is extremely stressful. Women cope with the dou-
ble burden by having few children or none. In East and Southeast Asian cities, fertility
is below the replacement level, with Hong Kong hitting the record low of 0.9 birth per
woman in 2000–2005 (Table 1). Apart from education and economic participation,
state policy on population control, with the one-child policy in China as the most
extreme form, has also reduced fertility. However, when the decline reaches an alarm-
ing level, the government in Singapore (since the 1980s) and in Hong Kong (2000s)
revert to encouraging women to have more children. These fickle population policies
illustrate the state’s instrumental view on women’s productive and reproductive capac-
ities. An interesting point of departure lies in Hong Kong and Singaporean women’s
weak response to government appeal. In the tension between society’s need for more
young population and a variety of personal factors – career fulfillment, economic con-
sideration, the stress of city life and uncertainty in economic restructuring – women
opt for the latter. The security of urban society allows them this choice. However, one
aspect of tradition stands – son preference and discrimination against daughters. In his
inspiring article, Sen (1990) suggested that millions of girls were missing at birth or
even before birth worldwide, but especially in Asia, as indicated by unnaturally high
sex ratios (number of males per 100 females) at birth. Another investigation revealed
the startling fact that across Asia, daughter discrimination in the forms of excessive
child mortality and withholding of health and education is on the increase despite
economic development, declining fertility and improved women’s status (Croll, 2000).
Moreover, in China, Taiwan, and Korea, education and urban residence have shown
little impact on reducing son preference (Croll, 2000). A study of China found that son
preference strongly affected the probability of having a second and third child, even
more so than level of education, degree of urbanization, and population policy (Li, 1995).
Son preference has actually intensified between 1990 and 2000, with the sex ratio by
birth order in 2000 as follows: first (107.1), second (151.9), third (159.4) (China State
Statistical Bureau, 2004). This trend was actually stronger in urban areas (Table 7).
A plausible explanation is the strict enforcement of the one-child policy in urban areas,
resulting in more use of gender-specific birth control technology.
In Korea, the sex ratio by birth order in 2004 was as follows: first (105.2), second
(106.2), third (132.0), fourth and subsequent born (138.4) (Korea Women’s Development
354 Mak

Table 7. Sex ratio by birth order, China, 2000

First Second Third and above

Urban areas 109.4 151.0 175.6

Rural areas 105.7 152.1 157.0

Source: China State Statistical Bureau, 2004.

Institute). Singapore and Hong Kong, however, did not exhibit strong sex preference of
children. In fact, more young parents prefer daughters. Daughters tend to care more for
their parents. Cities are not patrilocal and do not rely heavily on male physical labor
like rural areas. Urban pragmatism, at least in the cases of Singapore and Hong Kong,
suggests a turning point in son preference.
The discussion above then points to a mixed picture of women’s status in urban East
Asia. Generally, expansion in education and industrialization created new opportuni-
ties for women, resulting in greater confidence, economic independence, and choice
in marriage and childbearing. When gender is included as a salient analytical category,
an evaluation of the benefits of development yields a different answer. The trickle-
down effect has varied along class, race/ethnic, and national lines and new forms of
inequality and women’s subordination have emerged (Chow, 2002). It is also clear now
that the state’s rationale in facilitating women’s improvements rests on utilitarianism
more than an ideology of equality. One has to turn to women themselves for change
potential. The new values and behavior of a new generation of well-educated urban
women provides insight into how change is possible.

New Urban Women and Change

A new class of middle-class women has emerged alongside their male counterparts.
While there were always a select few elite women, their existence as a considerable
social force is historically significant in East Asia. This generation of women, many
from humble origins at the early stage of development, were among the baby boomers
who took advantage of the new opportunities. Urban residence and the right timing set
the stage for them. They are typically well-educated, gainfully employed, married or
unmarried, and if married, with few children or none. Their awareness of their privi-
lege is reinforced by juxtaposing it with their mother’s plight in the recent past and the
have-nots today. They are a class in themselves, and the most elite ones among them
probably have more in common with elite women from other Asian cities than poor
women from their own country.
These women interpret the gender factor differently in their social positioning.
One approach is to defend their prestige in a male-dominated society by emphasizing
femininity in appearance and external behavior. The elegant dress code of women in
senior positions and a gentle style of speech would be the strategy that is invariably
termed the “iron butterfly” or “iron fist in a velvet glove.” Some of those who are mar-
ried attribute their career success to a supporting husband and children, and declare,
 Women in East Asian Education and Society 355

sometimes in a practiced manner, that their family always comes first. The emphasis on
the family fits the Confucian norms of fulfillment of womanhood as wifehood and
motherhood. The studies that attribute women’s subordinate position in the public
sphere to “fear of success” may be valid 20 years ago. The explanation needs re-visiting
today, as women achievers by definition are not products of fear of success. Rather, they
seem to try to present their success in order to reduce men’s fear of women’s success. In
some urban occupations for women, Asian femininity is cultivated and manipulated.
Witness the advertisements of Asian airlines that portray their flight attendants to fit the
ideal form of femininity in the male gaze, or the commodification of the female face
and body in beauty contests. The second approach is to negotiate against traditional
gender role for a new one. These are feminists in different professions – creative writ-
ing, fine arts, performing arts, academia, or community organizing. Women’s voices
have emerged, asserting a feminist perspective in hitherto gender-blind fields. Although
not in the mainstream, their voices are clear and begin to be heard, at least by some.
How did these women come of age? From memoirs of unrelated individual women
emerged a collective picture of their trajectories. For example, some women professors
managed to do well in diverse fields like biochemistry, engineering or linguistics (Tie
et al., 1995). In her memoirs, Lim (1996), a professor in Hong Kong, looked back on
her identity formation in colonial Malaya. Chuang (2001), trained in both western and
traditional Chinese medicine, is actively involved in the cancer prevention campaign in
Taiwan. The latest addition to the list is the appointment of Han Myeong-sook, a fem-
inist lawmaker, as the first woman prime minister in Korea’s constitutional history.
Education is central to these women’s success. Perhaps the most dramatic example of
how education and urban residence changed one’s life is Yang Erchenamu (1997). Yang
is from the Mosuo ethnic minority, one of the few remaining matriarchal communities
that live a primitive life of subsistence farming and trade by barter, in the remote
mountains in southwest China. Her talent in singing took her to the county, provincial
capital, and then a college of performing arts in Shanghai, where as a teenager she
began to learn Chinese, the language of the Han majority. She later migrated and ran a
business in the United States and China, and is now a jetsetter. Her memoirs are full of
instances of culture shock from encounters between primitive and industrialized
societies. While not a feminist in the common sense of the word, Yang’s openness on
sexuality, a feature of her matriarchal upbringing, gave her a curious association with
feminism. However, one would say that she uses the advantage for personal gains.
A more radical group of women tried to change the male-dominated framework. These
include feminist academics who research on taboo topics in sexuality (Ho, 2004, 2006;
Ho & Tsang, 2002, 2005) and are among the trail-blazers in breaking away from
conventional sexual norms.
Of interest is also the emergence of activists in non-governmental organizations in
China whose work aims at empowerment of women, the poor, and ethnic minorities.
Based in cities, they work with rural communities and are a small, quiet force that is
beginning to contribute to the formation of civil society in China. Equipped with
education and skills, groups of women negotiate their gender roles differently. Some
conforming to them to gain acceptance by the public; others challenge them and assert
a new set of roles. These strategies signify whether these women’s gains stay at the
356 Mak

personal level or extend to the collective level. The women who extend personal action
to political action in the form of women’s movement seek to use their gains to promote
collective gains, and subsequently make their personal perspective a group one.
The approaches described above are in general terms the conservative and the radical.
There is yet a new approach which is hard to classify. These are the educated young
women who are tired of the male reference in framing their gender role. Growing up at
a time of abundance with working mothers, they find the struggles and feminist mind-
set of their mother’s generation irrelevant to their situation. Some of them deny gender
as a factor in conceptualizing their gender roles, but may at the same time accentuate
their sexiness. Sexual mores are also changing. Urban and better educated women in
China tend to be more open about premarital sex (Wang & Yang, 1996). This is a
departure from a strong traditional emphasis on female chastity in East Asia. The bold
depiction of the sex life and values of young women in Shanghai today in a recent
novel raises the eyebrows of many readers (Wei, 2001), though the interest in it is more
political to China watchers than literary. The diversity among women that try to
reconstruct their gender roles in the broad social transformation parallels the diversity
of today’s society in general. One of the visible forces is an impatience and dissocia-
tion from feminism of the old school. There is more organized effort to assert the
voices of gay, lesbian, and bisexual rights. Similarly, the women’s movement com-
prises many more types of groups and concerns than before. Apart from academic and
labor feminists, there are religious, sex workers, and other non-conventional groups,
whose activities contribute to the larger human rights movement. There are also con-
scious efforts to localize these multitudinous forms of feminisms. While comparisons
with Western feminist theories and practices continue, local feminisms appear more self-
contained than 20 years or so before, which may be seen as a coming of age of rights
defenders in East Asia. Also, there has been an increase in intra-regional networking in
Asia. Technological progress in the forms of internet and video-recording, widespread
air travel, women’s improved knowledge and economic status, and an increasing aware-
ness of their Asian identity have made active intra-regional collaborations possible.
Feminist studies have found a place, albeit a marginal one, in university programs.

Concluding Remarks
This chapter began by asking whether development benefits women and which groups
of them. The consequences of development on women have been widely debated.
From a mainstream perspective, development benefits women just as it does men.
From a gender perspective, women’s gains in education are not necessarily related to
economic development, and gains in education do not change female subordination in
the economy (Boserup, 1970). As this chapter illustrated, the outcome of an assess-
ment of urban women’s status in the context of economic transformation in Asia is
mixed. There have been significant improvements in absolute terms as well as persist-
ent inequality in structural and relative terms. The use of education is as strong as its
limitation as a change agent. Policies toward women are driven by instrumentalism,
much like the liberal view of male reformers on the outcome of education on women
as better mothers for the next generation and in turn national development. The seeds
 Women in East Asian Education and Society 357

of change have to be located in how women use the conditions generated in the policies.
Change occurs not from more of the same, but in women’s construction of new gender
roles, and when they extend their personal gains to collective gains. It occurs when
womanhood no longer equates wifehood and motherhood, but rather is autonomous
personhood. Sen (2000) argues that development goes beyond economic growth; it
should be interconnections between freedoms that include economic opportunities,
political freedom, and social facilities and security. The focus of women’s movements is
changing from the welfare approach, which identifies women as patients, to the agency
approach, with emphasis on women as active agents of change. The latter is important
in removing factors that depress women’s well-being (Sen, 2000, Ch. 8). The last 20
years witnessed the rise of diverse women groups and individuals that direct their
efforts to the agency approach. Policies provide the platform. In the end, it is women
themselves who steer their cause toward new forms of freedom.

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19

FRAMING LIVES: LONGITUDINAL RESEARCH

ON LIFE PLANNING AND PATHWAYS
IN SINGAPORE

David Hogan, Trivina Kang, and Melvin Chan

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Introduction
As children become adolescents and adolescents become adults, they learn – and they
have to learn – new roles, competencies, and identities. While contemporary researchers
recognize the importance of biological maturation in this process, the transition of mod-
ern adolescents into adulthood is understood to be just as much, if not more, a social as
a biological process (Hutson & Jenkins, 1989; Klein, 1990; Wallace & Kovatcheva,
1998). The conventional picture of modern life transitions and pathways drawn by his-
torians and sociologists is that life pathways have become increasingly standardized,
compressed, rationalized, institutionalized, and regulated by the state over the course of
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Elder, 1997; Kett, 1977; Kohli, 1986; Kohli &
Meyer, 1986; Mayer, 2005; Modell, Furstenberg, & Herschberg, 1976; Modell &
Goodman, 1990; Uhlenberg, 1969). Kohli (1986), for example, argues that the organ-
ization of public services, transfer payments and employment opportunities by age
rendered the life course more orderly and calculable. Similarly, Buchmann (1989) sug-
gests that the rationalization of the economy and the polity – for example, through
enhancing the number of rights that individuals had access to on a universal basis,
above all to education – over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
promoted the standardization and institutionalization of the life course.
Contemporary sociological accounts emphasize, however, that contemporary life
pathways appear to have assumed a distinctively “postmodern” rather than merely
“modern” character – that they are increasingly characterized by temporal decompres-
sion and de-sequencing of key life transitions and pathways, involving greater com-
pression of some pathways, and extensions of others, and that the life course as a
consequence has become increasingly de-standardized, disordered, individualized,
reversible, and fluid (Buchmann, 1989; Giddens, 1991; Kohli, 1986; Mayer, 2005). The
deregulation of the labor market, ascendancy of contract work over life-long employ-
ment, the proliferation of educational duration and levels of training, the winding back
359
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 359–380.
© 2007 Springer.
360 Hogan, Kang, and Chan

of welfare state entitlements, increased divorce and remarriage rates, the cultural rev-
olution of the 1960s and 1970s, and the dispersion, sequencing, and duration of age-
graded events (e.g., first marriage, transition from school to work, retirement) have
transformed and even scrambled the conventional modernist organization of life path-
ways. Mayer (2005), for example, suggests that the life course has been transformed
by increasing “de-standardization, differentiation and heterogeneity across the popula-
tion” (p. 10). Similarly, Wallace (1995) describes this de-structuring process in the
following terms:
Age-status transitions have been de-structured … Transitions are no longer
associated with any particular age, or with each other. Youth has become more
and more protracted with a long period of “post-adolescence” … at the upper end
which is indeterminate. The outcomes of transitional phases are uncertain or risky
– education is de-coupled from work, training is de-coupled from work, child-
bearing is de-coupled from marriage, marriage is de-coupled from work, leaving
home is decoupled from marriage and so on. People’s options and identifies are
no longer fixed or certain and their futures can take a number of directions, the
end point of which is not always clear … . Age-transitions are open-ended – they
can go on for a long or a short time. (p. 10)
Similarly, Frank Furstenberg (2000) suggests that the “transition to adulthood is now
occurring over a longer span of years than was the case during the middle of the twen-
tieth century,” and that, as a result, “youth … has become a more prominent state of
the life course” (p. 899). Importantly, Furstenberg goes on to note that “relatively little
in-depth or even survey data on the processes of identity and the establishment of goals
and commitments is available that would complement these demographic data”
(p. 899). Indeed, he suggests, “just how young people construct adult identities in a
world in which attaining the traditional markers of adult status has become more diffi-
cult (or at least considerably delayed) is an issue worth pursuing in future research”
(Furstenberg, 2000, p. 899).
The Singapore Life Pathways Project, part of a comprehensive program of research
developed at the Centre for Research and Pedagogy at the National Institute of
Education in Singapore focuses on both the institutional organization of life pathways
and the nature and social logic of the life choices that young people make, and remake,
over the course of their adolescence and early adulthood. The project is a large
(n  30,000), multi-cohort (age 10
, 13
, and 17
) accelerated longitudinal design
that commenced in 2004 and that we hope to continue until 2013, if not later.
Theoretically, the project draws upon multiple fields in contemporary social science
research: the sociology of modernity and subjectivity (particularly current controversies
about the postmodern “de-traditionalization” and “de-institutionalization” of social
organization, identity formation and the reflexive self ), the structure/agency debate in
social theory, life course research, a generalized theory of capital formation (human,
social, cultural, civic, identity, agentic), neo-institutionalist theories of social organi-
zation, and a generalized model of school effects research.
Contextually, the project is focused on Singapore, one of the most globalized cities
in the world. But it is a city state that has a strong commitment at the policy level to
 Framing Lives: Longitudinal Research 361

maintaining “traditional,” yet rationalized, cultural formations and patterns of social

identity and attachment under the careful guidance of a powerful state committed to
maintaining its successful record of rapid economic modernization and development
in a rapidly globalizing world (Wee, 2000, 2002).

Longitudinal Studies Across the World

The origins of life pathway studies can be traced back to the 1920s, when longitudinal
studies, most notably the Oakland Growth Study and the Berkeley Growth and
Guidance Studies, were launched. But whereas these studies primarily focused on
child development, contemporary studies focus on a far wider range of life outcomes.
Yet, although varying in specific objectives, scope, sampling design, and sample size,
a limited range of policy-related preoccupations are still evident. One theme focuses
on educational outcomes, including school performance, completion/non-completion
of high school or compulsory schooling, participation in post-secondary/tertiary insti-
tutions, and educational attainment. The National Educational Longitudinal Studies
(NELS) in the United States and the Longitudinal Survey of Australian Youth (LSAY)
are particularly focused on this theme. A second broad theme focuses on labor market
outcomes, encompassing school-work transition experiences as well as employment/
unemployment experiences, occupational choices, career trajectories, and pathways
to/from full-time and part-time work. The National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS) in the
United States and the Australian Longitudinal Surveys and Australian Youth Surveys
(AYS) exemplify this preoccupation. The third broad theme focuses on youth social
experience/outcomes in areas such as physical and psychological wellbeing, behavioral
problems, delinquency, suicide, teenage pregnancy, health, relationships, and marriage/
family formation. Although most recent longitudinal studies still focus on school-work
transitions, there is an increasing trend in newer studies like Canada’s Youth in Transi-
tion (YITS) and Australia’s LSAY towards obtaining information on a broader spectrum
of social experiences. However, these studies usually only begin looking at experiences
from middle/high school. Moreover, to date, no other large-scale study apart from the
British Birth Cohort Study (BCS), and more recently, the Millennium Cohort Study
(MCS), has sampled children or infants and followed them through adulthood, taking
child/youth development as their primary emphasis.
In part due to the wider scope of the projects, contemporary longitudinal datasets
have been mined by researchers from different disciplines to inform varied issues. For
example, in 2004 alone, the NELS: 88 dataset was used in analysis on a wide range of
issues that included the effect of parental involvement on school completion
(Anguiano, 2004), the effect of entrepreneurial parents on scholastic progress (Davila
& Mora, 2004), school effectiveness (Gill, Ashton, & Algina, 2004), the black-white
achievement gap (Morgan & Mehta, 2004), the relationship between volunteer partici-
pation and early voting behavior (Frisco, Muller, & Dodson, 2004), youth substance
abuse (Hollar & Moore, 2004), and the effects of athletic participation on immigrant
youth education outcomes (Kao, 2004). More broadly, over the years, researchers from var-
ious disciplines have utilized the NELS: 88 dataset to investigate the effects of streaming,
362 Hogan, Kang, and Chan

subject choice, curricula, school organization and teachers on students’ educational

outcomes (Croninger & Lee, 2001; Gamoran, 1996; Hoffer, 1997). Sociologists have
used it to investigate the effects of socioeconomic background, gender, ethnicity, geo-
graphic location, and social and cultural capital on outcomes (Dumais, 2002; Kao &
Tienda, 1995; Morgan & Sorenson, 1999) while psychologists have used it to study
issues like aspirations, academic self concept, esteem (Fan & Ping, 2003; Marsh,
Parada, Yeung, & Healey, 2001). Economists have also used the NELS: 88 to examine
the costs and benefits of schooling (Hagy & Staneic, 2002; Rice, Croninger, &
Roellke, 2002).
One reason why different disciplines have been able to pick and choose from these
longitudinal survey datasets is that they have been geared towards collecting data to
inform policy-related objectives in a range of domains. For example, the purposes
of the NLS72, HS&B[N1] and NELS: 88 studies in the United States are to examine
the educational, vocational and personal development of young people. Even though
the NELS: 88 is broader in scope than the earlier NELS surveys because it followed
students from an earlier grade, the initial aim of the NELS: 88 is to provide trend com-
parisons with earlier studies. Thus, instead of an overarching conceptual framework
that attempts to explain the linkages between domains and how they influence out-
comes, NELS: 88 is loosely categorized into broad substantive areas of secondary
education, high-school work transition, post-secondary education, career attainment
and life cycle transition after college, motivation, aspiration self-concept and psycho-
social issues. While NELS: 88 has diversified from its initial concern with education
to include a collection of data on attitudes to work, work experience and work-related
training, sexual behavior, marriage and family, leisure time and volunteer activities,
and voting behavior, there has not been a development of an explicit framework to
specify their links. Instead, the onus is often left to the users of the dataset to use the
facts as collected to generate research questions and address policy and research
issues.
The lack of conceptual frameworks and the piecemeal “add-on” nature of longitudinal
surveys is in part also a product of the policy evaluation emphasis that underlies such
projects. This is not surprising, since longitudinal survey endeavors are extremely
costly to design and implement, and often funded by government organizations and
centers that have specific agenda. For example, in Australia, this was “to examine
questions regarding the education and training pathways of young people as they move
from school to work, and their experiences in the Australian labor market” (LSAY,
1996, p. 23). It was only in the 1990s, with growing youth unemployment, that policy-
makers recognized the need to understand the factors involved in young people’s
initial labor market outcomes. This eventually resulted in revisions found in the LSAY.
In a similar vein, the initial purpose of the NLSY79 in the United States was specifi-
cally to “help policymakers and researchers evaluate the expanded employment and
training programs for youths legislated by the 1977 amendments to the Comprehensive
Employment and Training Act (CETA)” (NLSY, 2003). By replicating the NLS young
men and young women surveys of the late 1960s, the NLSY79 was meant to help
policymakers and researchers evaluate the expanded employment and training pro-
grams for youths legislated in 1977. However, over time, as the policy environment
 Framing Lives: Longitudinal Research 363

surrounding the NLSY79 changed, this survey became a much broader vehicle exam-
ining many aspects of education and the labor market. In Britain, the National Child
Developmental Study (NCDS), which began in 1958, was limited in its initial scope
“to examine the social and obstetric factors associated with stillbirth and death in early
infancy” (Plewis, Calderwood, Hawkes, & Nathan, 2004). However, by the time of the
BCS 1970, birth cohort studies were presented as multidisciplinary studies “monitor-
ing representative cohorts of young Britons on their physical, educational, social and
economic development” (Plewis, Calderwood, Hawkes, & Nathan, 2004).
The more recent Canadian YITS’ attempts to have a wide range of objectives from
the onset drew heavily from past research in the United States. The ten objectives of the
Canadian YITS study encompass transitions within and from school, educational out-
comes, pathways, labor market outcomes, attitudes and aspirations, and the outcomes
of “at-risk” sub-groups (StatsCan, 2000). However, we have not seen any documenta-
tion of a coherent conceptual framework that specifies the relationships between the
different domains or transitions.
In the next section, we turn to the Singapore Life Pathway Study. This youth pathways
longitudinal study is unique in that it is explicitly theory driven, and relationships
between key variables have been specified in a model (Table 1) that has guided the
conceptualization of the design as well as the analysis of the research questions this
study addresses.

Theoretical Framework
Some years ago the English sociologist and social theorist Anthony Giddens published
an extremely influential account of the nature of what he terms “life planning” and the
“reflexive self ” in conditions of “late modernity” or “postmodern” society. Giddens
(1991) argues that late modernity is characterized by the shrinkage of space and time
and the increasing decoupling of individuals from institutional norms and traditional
attachments and identities. He describes these processes in terms of what he calls
“de-traditionalization” and “de-institutionalization” and argues that these processes
have reshaped the character and the demands of the existential condition in the con-
temporary world. The postmodern existential condition, he argues, is characterized by
“compulsory individualization”– the progressive de-coupling of the self from tradi-
tional institutional ties and settings – and the development of life trajectories that are a
function of individual choices by “reflexive selves” and life pathways that are more
flexible, non-linear, and unpredictable. For Giddens then, identity formation is not so
much a process of discovering the self, as in romantic models of the “authentic” self,
but of choice and agency, invention and construction, in highly de-institutionalized
social contexts. “Self identity is not a distinctive trait, or even a collection of traits,
possessed by the individual,” Giddens writes. “It is the self as reflexively understood
by the person in terms of her or his biography” (Giddens, 1991, pp. 5 & 53).
For Giddens then, the great existential challenge of high modernity is to construct a
coherent sense of self and to frame and lead a meaningful life in circumstances that
increasingly weaken the access of young people to the moral, intellectual, and existential
Table 1. Comparison of major longitudinal life pathways studies
Longitudinal survey of Australian
youths (LSAY)
Administration 1996
of first survey
Description of Annual survey of 3 cohorts
sample (Y95, Y98, Y03) aged 15– 25 years;
a total of 35,000 participants
were surveyed.
General ● Studies the progress of young
description of Australians as they move from
study school into post-secondary
education and work
● Identify factors influencing
pathways and outcomes
● Educational and occupational
changes of successive cohorts
can be tracked overtime
Key survey ● Personal and family background
elements ● Schooling
❍ Achievements
❍ Experience and perceptions
● Transition to work
Youth in transition survey (YITS)
(Canada)
2000
Biennial survey of 2 cohorts
aged 15 and 18–20 years; a total
30,000 and 23,000 participants
were surveyed for each cohort
respectively.
● Examines key educational transi-
tions and the initial transition
from school to the labor market
● To better understand school to
work path ways and the factors
influencing pathways
● Identify pathways that provide a
smoother transition to the labor
market
● Understand the impact of school
effects on educational and
occupational outcomes
● Personal and family background
● School effects/resources
● School engagement
❍ Academic
❍ Social
Youth cohort study (England and
Wales, UK)
1985
Surveys an academic year-group or Annual survey of 9,000 young
“cohort” of young people (typically people born between 1980 and
16 year old) after compulsory
education annually until participants
are 19–20 years old. Survey is
currently in its 12th cycle.
Approximately 35,000 surveyed.
● Comprise 12 overlapping cohort
studies beginning in 1985
● It is main source of survey about
the education, training and work
experiences of young people after
compulsory education
● Factors associated with the
probability of staying on in
education
● Characteristics of those who
leave school joining labor market
with or without government
sponsored training
● Personal and family background
● Schooling
❍ Type of school
● Factors influencing later
progression
364
National longitudinal survey of
youth 1997 (NLSY97)
(United States)
1997
1984.
Hogan, Kang, and Chan
● Studies the newest cohort of
the NLS dataset
● Studies American youth as
they make the transition from
school to work and to
independent households (e.g.,
marriage, job mobility, and
career changes)
● Personal and family
background
● Schooling
❍ achievements
❍ institutional capacities
 ● Educational and occupational
plans and expectations
● Participation in training programs
● Financial characteristics
● Level of educational attainment
● Participation in post-school
education
● Lifestyle characteristics
● Psychological well-being
● Political socialization
Key findings Vocational pathways:
on pathways ● Those likely to choose
vocational pathways:
❍ Poor academic performance
lower parental education,
lower engagement, and
satisfaction with school
● More likely to enter labor
market than further education
Enrolment in tertiary education:
● Those with higher socio-
economic backgrounds are
higher correlatedwith tertiary
performance
● Achievement
● Transition to work
● Educational and occupational
aspirations
● Participation in training programs
● Financial characteristics
● Experiences of first
year post-secondary
program (older cohort)
● Social, cultural and civic capital
● Parental involvement/style
● Work, family and education
balance
● Career planning
● Peer relationships and deviant
behaviors
● Health and psychological
functioning
● Skills acquisition
Tertiary pathways:
● Diverse and individualized as
students moved in and out of
tertiary education
● 36% of students made at least
one transition
40% of post secondary graduates
(e.g., certificate or diploma)
returned for more education
● Those with less educated parents, ● Where academic results were
having dependents, and who
worked long hours in their
part-time jobs were less likely to
be in post secondary education
● Aspirations for education and ● Outcome expectations of
● Attitudes to education life events
● Attitudes to education ● Participation in training
● Characteristics of vocational and programs
academic pathways ● Financial characteristics
● Participation in training programs ● Social attitudes, behaviors,
and time spent
● Created variables of:
❍ Environment
❍ Event history
Vocational pathways: Effect of part-time jobs:
● Increased proportion of young ● Intensity of frequency of
people in full-time vocatinal part-time time jobs increased
education as students progressed through
● Students with better academic High School
performance tended to opt for ● Graduation rates were
general academic route (i.e., A correlated with amount of time
levels) than vocational pathways spent in part-time work
similar, females were more likely
than males to enroll in vocational
Framing Lives: Longitudinal Research
institutions
365
(Continued )
Table 1. (Continued)
Longitudinal survey of Australian
youths (LSAY)
Key findings ● Those in independent schools
on pathways have better tertiary performance
than Catholic schools, followed
by government schools
● High confidence, conducive
school environment and high
parentalaspirations contribute
strongly to tertiary performance
Effect of part-time jobs:
● Working more than 5 hours per
week reduced likelihood of
completing secondary education
● Part-time jobs helped to secure
vocational and apprenticeship
positions after secondary
education
Sources: LSAY, 1996; NLSY, 1997; StatsCan, 2000.
Youth in transition survey (YITS)
(Canada)
Labor market pathways:
● Diverse school to work
transitions; from school to
work, and back to school,
followed by full-time work
● Most common transition was
from school to full-time work,
even among those with
part-time jobs
● Those not working or
schooling at age 20 typically
returned to school at age 22
● Those who started working
at age 20 typically continued
working at age 22
366
Youth cohort study (England and National longitudinal survey of
Wales, UK) youth 1997 (NLSY97)
(United States)
Effect of part-time jobs:
● About half of all students held a
part-time job
● Characteristics of those without
jobs:
Hogan, Kang, and Chan
❍ having poor results, have one
parent unemployed or live in
region with high unemployment
❍ those from independent schools
and with highly educated parents
● Significant negative impact on
grades for those working 10–15
hours per week
 Framing Lives: Longitudinal Research 367

resources of tradition, custom, and locale. For other observers of the fate of the self in
postmodernity, this is something of a forlorn hope. Stuart Hall, for example, drawing
on a long line of postmodern and poststructuralist accounts of the “death of the subject,”
observes that “identities are never unified and, in late modernity, increasingly frag-
mented and fractured: never singular but multiply constructed across different, often
intersecting and antagonistic, discourse, practices and positions. They are subject to a
radical historization, and are constantly in the process of change and transformation”
(Hall, 1996, p. 4). He goes on:

The question of “identity” is being vigorously debated in social theory. In

essence, the argument is that the old identities which stabilized the social world for
so long are in decline, giving rise to new identities and fragmenting the modern
individual as a unified subject. This so-called “crisis of identity” is seen as part of
a wider process of change which is dislocating the central structures and processes
of modern societies and undermining the frameworks which gave individuals
stable anchorage in the social world.
For those theorists who believe that modern identities are breaking up, the
argument runs something like this. A distinctive type of structural change is trans-
forming modern societies … This is fragmenting the cultural landscapers of
class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race and nationality which give us our locations
as social individuals. These transformations are also shifting our personal identi-
ties, undermining our sense of ourselves as integrated subjects. This loss of a
sense of self … [constitutes] … the dislocation or decentering of the subject. This
set of double displacements – decentering individuals from both their place in the
social and cultural world, and from themselves – constitutes a crisis of identity for
the individual … (Hall, 1992, pp. 274–275; see also 276–277, 284, 286–287).

For Hall, then, a progressively deinstitutionalizing and decentered postmodern world

produces increasingly fragmented and decentered postmodern selves. This view of the
fate of the self in postmodernity is widely shared in broad outline by many other
observers of the postmodern existential condition.1 In an era of de-traditionalization and
de-institutionalization, the transition from adolescence to adulthood and the creation of
a coherent sense of self is rendered increasingly problematic by the decline of institu-
tional forms of traditional authority, the rejection of traditional authority by growing
numbers of adolescents, and the apparent inability of existing institutions to provide
decisive guidance to young people. Yet other observers of the postmodern existential
condition note that one increasingly common response of many individuals across the
world to de-traditionalization and de-institutionalization is not so much the individual-
ization of life planning, or the decentering of individual identities, but a defensive retreat
to “primordial” social identities. Manuel Castells (2004), for example, while agreeing
with Giddens’ overall characterization of the social organization of late modernity, insists
that “reflexive life planning” is essentially an elite minority response to the existential
demands and pressures of globalization and the rise of network society: “The search for
meaning takes place then in the reconstruction of defensive identities around communal
principle,” he writes (p. 11). Most of social action becomes organized in the opposition
368 Hogan, Kang, and Chan

between unidentified flows and secluded identities. For Castells then, unlike Giddens or
Hall, personal and group identity, as expressed for example in language and literacy
practices, are “fast becoming the main, and sometimes the only source of meaning … .
People increasingly organize their meaning not around what they do but on the basis of
who they are, or believe they are.” (Castells, 1996, p. 3).
Giddens, Hall, and Castells thus offer us quite different views of the fate of identity
and the self in high modernity. For Giddens, high modernity deepens reflexive life plan-
ning and individualizes identity; for Hall, postmodernity decenters and deconstructs
identity and the self; for Castells, globalization, de-traditionalization and the rise of the
network society prompt a retreat into defensive identities in search for meaning. Of
course, the three views are not necessarily antagonistic, since it is quite possible that the
three views simply describe different responses to postmodernity. That, indeed, is our
own view. It all depends on who we are talking about in what particular contexts and
what particular resources and opportunities they have available to them to negotiate
their life pathways. Importantly, these issues have been the subject of considerable
empirical work in the social psychology and sociology of identity formation, as well as
various efforts, some of them international in scope, to theorize the nature of the identity
“resources,” “competencies,” or “capital” that young people require in order to success-
fully “manage” or “negotiate” the institutional and existential demands of postmoder-
nity and to create a coherent sense of self. Côté and Levine (2002), for example, suggest
that de-traditionalization and compulsory individualization places a premium on the
agentic accumulation and strategic use of what they term “identity capital” in order that
social actors might successfully negotiate and manage the demands of their institutional
environment in the face of the “holes” in the social fabric resulting from the declining
importance of tradition, custom and locale in the framing and pursuit of life goals.
Of the international efforts, one of the most interesting (and relevant to our current
purposes) is The Definition and Selection of Key Competencies (OECD, 2005) – The
DeSeCo Project – being undertaken by the OECD’s Programme for International
Student Assessment (PISA). The project’s May 2005 report emphasizes, for example,
that in an era of globalization and rapid social and technological change, young people
need at least three kinds of broad competencies:
● Individuals need to be able to use a wide range of tools for interacting effectively
with the environment: both physical ones such as information technology and socio-
cultural ones such as the use of language. They need to understand such tools well
enough to adapt them for their own purposes and to use those tools interactively.
● In an increasingly interdependent world, individuals need to engage with others, and
since they will encounter people from a range of backgrounds, it is important that
they are able to interact in heterogeneous groups.
● Individuals need to be able to take responsibility for managing their own lives, situ-
ate their lives in the broader social context and act autonomously. (OECD, 2005, p. 5)
Of the three competencies identified by the DeSeCo Project, the third is of particular
relevance to our argument. OECD terms the third group of capacities as “acting
autonomously,” which they insist “does not mean functioning in social isolation” or inde-
pendent of the interests of others. Rather, “it requires an awareness of one’s environment,
of social dynamics and of the roles one plays and wants to play. It requires individuals
 Framing Lives: Longitudinal Research 369

to be empowered to manage their lives in meaningful and responsible ways by exercis-

ing control over their living and working conditions” (p. 14). The report then goes on:

Individuals must act autonomously in order to participate effectively in the devel-

opment of society and to function well in different spheres of life including the
workplace, family life and social life. This is because they need to develop an
identity independently and to make choices, rather than just follow the crowd. In
doing so, they need to reflect on their values and on their actions.
Acting autonomously is particularly important in the modern world where each
person’s position is not as well-defined as was the case traditionally. Individuals
need to create a personal identity in order to give their lives meaning, to define how
they fit in. One illustration of this is with respect to work, where there are fewer sta-
ble, lifelong occupations working for a single employer.
In general, autonomy requires an orientation towards the future and an aware-
ness of one’s environment, of social dynamics and of the roles one plays and
wants to play. It assumes the possession of a sound self-concept and the ability to
translate needs and wants into acts of will: decision, choice and action (OECD,
2005, p. 14. Italics added).

Importantly, acting autonomously also involves “the ability to form and conduct life
plans and personal projects”:

This competency applies the concept of project management to individuals. It

requires individuals to interpret life as an organized narrative and to give it mean-
ing and purpose in a changing environment, where life is often fragmented.
This competency assumes an orientation toward the future, implying both opti-
mism and potential, but also a firm grounding within the realm of the feasible.
Individuals must be able, for instance, to:
● Define a project and set a goal;
● Identify and evaluate both the resources to which they have access and the
resources they need (e.g., time and money);
● Prioritize and refine goals;
● Balance the resources needed to meet multiple goals;
● Learn from past actions, projecting future outcomes; and
● Monitor progress, making necessary adjustments as a project unfolds (OECD,
2005, p. 15).
Not the least of the objectives of the Singapore project involves identifying the kinds
of institutional and existential resources, competencies, or “capitals” that young
Singaporeans acquire, or do not acquire, as the case might be, in a rapidly changing
world and to identify the kind of educational and social experiences that are likely to
help young people develop the kinds of resources or competencies they need to frame
and successfully pursue an existentially meaningful and rewarding and socially valu-
able set of life goals. Consequently, at least in its initial phase, the Singapore Life
Pathways Project will not so much focus on changes in the social organization of the
life course – the structure of the transition from adolescence to adulthood – as on
370 Hogan, Kang, and Chan

the various institutional experiences, processes of capital formation, subjectivities and life
aspirations and goals of large representative samples of primary, secondary, and post sec-
ondary students that we began surveying at the end of 2004. As the three cohorts proceed
through school, however, we will obviously be able to map the life pathways, and changes
in the social organization of life pathways, over time.
In designing these empirical inquiries, we have been mindful of current debates
about broader changes in the social organization of postmodernity or “high modernity,”
particularly the speculation that in the West at least life pathways are increasingly char-
acterized by the progressive decoupling of individuals from traditional social structures
and norms, the “de-traditionalization” and “compulsory individualization” of identity
formation and the agentic construction of the self as a “reflexive project” rather than
as a socially-constituted bearer of traditional social norms and attachments. In princi-
ple, on this account, individual life choices and pathways are no longer a function of
ascription and socialization that allocates them into “traditional” roles and positions in
society, but agentically chosen under conditions of chronic uncertainty and constant
change. The postmodern or high modern existential condition then is radically differ-
ent from the existential condition of modernity since many of the cultural, social, and
economic certainties of the past can no longer be taken for granted as they were before.
Rather, the contemporary condition is characterized by the increasing individualiza-
tion of life choices and the emergence of a new postmodern reflexive subjectivity – the
“reflexive self ” – that is compelled by necessity to make choices in increasingly
de-institutionalized contexts where the self is no longer coupled to traditional ties and
settings that previously gave it stability and predictability. As a result of the process of
modernization and the resulting conditions, individual life trajectories have become
more flexible, less linear and less secure and predictable.
Many of these arguments are highly speculative. Very little empirical work has been
conducted to test them. While we cannot hope to test all of these arguments, the Singapore
project offers an unusual opportunity to assess key claims. The fact that the study is being
conducted in Singapore, one of the most globalized cities in the world but still very much
committed as a matter of policy to upholding “traditional” patterns of identity formation
and social organization, offers a unique opportunity to unravel some of the inner dyna-
mics of postmodernization within a Southeast Asian city state that believes itself to be as
much shaped by Confucian traditions as by computers.

Singapore: Modernization, Globalization and Tradition

For theorists like Giddens (1991) and Beck (1992), globalization is a core condition of
modernity. Hence when it is pronounced and pervasive, the multiplicity of choices
resulting from de-institutionalization and de-traditionalization progressively demand
greater individual reflexivity and agency. In fact, Giddens (1991) has suggested that
globalization can be characterized as a process of “intensified reflexivity” that creates
the conditions for “a world of clever people” because it is in effect a never ending
dialectical phenomenon where local and global situations/relationships mutually influ-
ence each other, constantly stimulating the creation of new patterns of behaviors and
 Framing Lives: Longitudinal Research 371

lifestyles. Such views (Bauman, 2001; Beck, 1992; Giddens, 1991; Hakim, 2000) of
the postmodern reflexive condition have been extremely influential in the western
world. The question for us is – how well do such theories of the “reflexive self ” and
“individualization” hold up and explain adolescent subjectivity and the life plans and
projects of young people in Singapore, a country that is acknowledged to be global,
western, and modern, but yet determinedly proud of its eastern and traditional heritage?
If we use globalization as a condition for modernity, in 2004, Singapore was rated sec-
ond in the fourth annual A.T. Kearney/Foreign Policy Magazine Globalization Index
(Foreign Policy, 2004) a composite index that considers political, economic, personal, and
technological globalization in 62 countries. This index reveals the extent of the openness
of a country’s economy and its integration with other countries, and hence, measures how
globalized the country is.
To some extent, such rankings attest to the concerted and continuing economic and
political quest since the 1990s to position Singapore as a “global city.” One of the key
themes of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s 2005 National Day Address focused on the
need to create a “vibrant global city” and that “to remake the economy and attract talent,
we have also got to remake our city” (Lee, 2005). This is not a recent awakening. In the
1990s, John Friedmann reports, “in private conversations with senior government offi-
cials, it became clear to me what the government really wanted. Singapore was embark-
ing on the ‘next lap’ (Government of Singapore, 1991), and officials hoped to hear from
me how their city state might rise to the rank of ‘world city.’ The gold phrase because a
badge of status, just as ‘growth poles’ had been in an earlier incarnation. There was little
I could say that the government didn’t already know” (Friedmann, 1995, p. 36).
But for all its global city ambitions and commitment to globalization, “competitive-
ness,” “innovation,” and “entrepreneurship,” the preservation of its multi-ethnic cultural
heritage is viewed as equally important (Koh, 2005). In political speeches, traditional
values and virtues of ethnic communities are repeatedly highlighted and positioned as
having a crucial role to play in order that we do not “end up drifting with the tide in a
borderless global village” (Lim, 2002). In schools, while young Singaporeans use
English as the medium of instruction, it is mandatory that they take a mother-tongue as
their second language. Since the bilingual policy was introduced nearly 40 years ago, its
explicit purpose of transmitting moral values and cultural traditions still remains. The
role of the mother tongue language in grounding young Singaporeans in Asian values
in the context of globalization is illustrated by Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong (2004):

In a fast-changing world and in an age of mass communications, we need a sturdy

values system to define who we are and to anchor us to a place called “home.” The
English language enables us to plug into the global grid and access the latest in
science, technology and fashion. But mother tongue helps us access what is crit-
ical in us: our roots, culture and identity. Otherwise, we will be mocked as
“bananas” – yellow on the outside but white inside.
Singapore is not an Anglo-Saxon country nor are we situated in the West. Our
neighbors are Asian. Moreover, our society will become more cosmopolitan.
Hence, it is essential that we retain our Asian core. Our Asian heritage and values
give us confidence in ourselves and provide the ballast in our society.
372 Hogan, Kang, and Chan

I believe that without deep roots in our Asian culture and without a clear identity
of our own, we will drift like a piece of flotsam in the sea of globalization, follow-
ing mindlessly the latest trends and fads. We will be less confident of ourselves. But
if we are anchored in our Asian culture, we will be like a tall tree, rooted to the earth
which nourishes us, while at the same time, reaching up for the sky.

The tension between global and local, modernity and tradition, and to some extent east
and west, is not unique to Singapore. These are issues and challenges inherent in living
lives in late modernity. However, in Singapore, because of its cultural, historical, geo-
graphical, political, and economic context and developmental history, these issues have
been magnified and intensified. Indeed, the government has devoted considerable
energy to what Wee (2002) refers to as a policy of “national culturalism” based on “the
flexible statist management of culture” dating back to the 1960s in an ongoing effort to
rationalize cultural formations in ways consistent with both rapid industrialization and
globalization on the one hand, and a stable multi-racial social order, on the other.
Initially this involved the homogenization and disciplining of local cultural “irrational-
ities” and identities that appeared inconsistent with the demands of universal modern-
izing capitalism. But from the late 1970s the government changed tack as it grew
increasingly fearful that its older cultural management policies might lead the popula-
tion to cultural de-racination and rootlessness and unable to cope with the demands of
modernization. Consequently, from the late 1970s on, it began to reject the idea of a sin-
gle, Western or universal model of modernization and to advocate and promote instead
an “Asian” (and more specifically, a “Singaporean”) modernization program that cele-
brated Asian values and reinforced ethnic identities and languages within a highly reg-
ulated and integrated Singaporean multi-racial and meritocratic social order.

Singapore Life Pathways Study: Analytics

The Singapore Life Pathways Study is a five year, multi-cohort, multi-level, repeated
measures longitudinal study of a large representative sample (N  30,000) of primary,
secondary and post-secondary students in Singapore. Round 1 of data collection for
the post-secondary (Grade 11) cohort began in 2004, while round 1 for the primary
(Grade 4) and secondary (Grade 7) cohorts began in July 2005. The key objective of
this study, which is the first of its kind in Singapore, is to measure, map and model
changes over time in the life experiences, opportunities, capacities, attainments,
choices, and pathways of the three cohorts of young people in Singapore.

Research Questions
The key research questions driving the study are as follows:
● Institutional Experiences: To what extent and in what ways do the key formative
social experiences of young people in institutional settings – families, schools,
 Framing Lives: Longitudinal Research 373

communities, friendship groups, cultural markets, labor markets, consumer mar-

kets, and political society – vary across population groups and cohorts?
● The Self /Subjectivity: How is subjectivity constituted among young people in
Singapore? Does the organization of the self change over time? If so, in what
ways? Does the “constitution” of the self vary across population groups? If so, in
what ways? How do traditional and postcolonial cultural discourses of subjectiv-
ity interact with globalization (e.g., marketization) and “the postmodern condi-
tion” (e.g., de-institutionalization, compulsory individualization) to shape the
constitution of the self in Singapore? To what extent are Singaporean adolescent
subjectivities traditional, modern, postmodern or hybrid?
● Institutional Capacities/Capitals: What kinds of institutional capacities, resources
or “capitals” – generative individual-level domain-specific skills, understandings, dis-
positions and identities – do young people acquire over time? To what extent and in
what ways are different forms of capital – educational, economic, cultural, social,
civic, existential, agentic – interrelated? To what extent and in what ways do processes
of capital formation vary across population groups? Why? To what extent do varia-
tions in processes of capital formation reflect (class-based?) differential strategic judg-
ments about the necessity of different forms of capital accumulation, or are they
primarily a direct function of the social position of social actors?
● Life Aspirations, Goals, Expectations, Plans, and Choices: What life aspirations,
goals, expectations, plans, and choices do young Singaporeans set for them-
selves? How do these change over time? To what extent, in what ways and why do
the life aspirations, goals, expectations, plans, and choices of young people in
Singapore vary across population groups, between cohorts and over time? To what
extent and in what ways, if at all, do the life goals, plans, and choices of young
people in Singapore reflect the impact of globalization and post modernity? What
constructions or narratives of their life experiences, opportunities, resources,
aspirations, goals, and choices do young people develop?
● Social Agency: Institutional Participation and Attainment: To what extent and in
what ways do young people exercise social agency to participate in the institu-
tional life of Singaporean society – in families, schools, friendship groups, com-
munity groups, labor markets, consumer markets, cultural markets, political
society? What levels of institutional attainment do young people achieve? Are
these patterns of attainment related? How and why do patterns of participation
and attainment vary across social groups? What factors explain variations in insti-
tutional participation and attainment?
● Life Transitions and Pathways: What distinctive life pathways do young people
have in Singapore? How do cohorts differ in their pathways? To what extent, in
what ways, and why do the life pathways of young people in Singapore vary across
population groups? To what extent are life pathways a function of life goals, plans
and choices rather than social structural position? To what extent has the temporal
relationship between key life events or transitions altered in recent decades?
● Postmodernity,Agency, Schooling and Policy: To what extent and in what ways are
the life experiences and biographies of young people in Singapore characteristic of
“the postmodern condition”? How should we understand human agency and the role
374 Hogan, Kang, and Chan

it plays in shaping individual lives in specific institutional contexts? What is the

relationship between academic outcomes and the (broader) social outcomes of
schooling in Singapore? Controlling for the influence of other factors, what impact
do variations in school experiences have on the constitution of the self, subjective
well-being, capital formation, social agency, and life goals, choices, and pathways?
What policy initiatives can the government take to improve the quality (and meas-
urement of) the broader social outcomes of schooling, including patterns of capital
formation; expand access to, and the range of, life pathways available to young peo-
ple; moderate the impact of social disadvantage on processes of capital formation,
institutional participation and attainment, and subjective well-being; moderate the
negative consequences, if any, of the postmodern condition on the lives and well-
being of young people in Singapore; and moderate tensions within and between
different modalities of capital accumulation and institutional participation?
Key individual-level outcome measures to be mapped and modeled in this study
include:
● Educational outcomes: Academic performance (self-reported results across all
high stakes assessments; cognitive performance in repeated measures of English
and Maths assessments for the secondary cohort); educational participation and
attainment (years of schooling by type of schooling); educational dispositions
(interest, motivation, engagement, aspirations, and expectations).
● Labor market outcomes: Human and economic capital formation (specific arrays
of work-related understandings, dispositions and skills, including acquisition of a
broad range of “new economy capacities” including attitudes to risk and uncer-
tainty, IT competencies, knowledge management, initiative, self-regulation, etc.,
and intercultural understandings necessary for successful participation in contem-
porary labor markets and workplaces; labor market participation; occupational
attainment.
● Social participation outcomes: Participation in school and community groups;
friendship (number by ethnicity) and sociability patterns; participation in com-
modity, popular and high culture markets; access to social networks and the devel-
opment of interpersonal and institutional trust and attachments; participation in
adult or risk behaviors (drinking, drugs, smoking, sex); respect for others, inter-
cultural understanding and tolerance.
● Civic outcomes: Civic dispositions; civic knowledge; civic skills; civic participa-
tion (civic agency); civic identity, and sense of membership and attachment.
● Life goals, plans, and pathways: Individual goals, plans, and choices with respect
to: Education and training; work and career; marriage and family formation; friend-
ship; religious belief and practice; community participation; national citizenship;
participation in commodity markets (consumption); participation in popular and
high culture markets; residency/emigration
● Subjective well-being: Sense of (subjective) agency (sense of efficacy, internal
locus of control, sense of confidence, positive future goal orientation, persistence,
decision making skills); identity formations: normative, social (class, gender,
ethnic, consumer); reflexivity (understanding of self and social experience); life
Table 2. Schematic model of Singapore life pathways project

Realignment of institutional opportunities & resources

4. Institutional Attainments

3. Institutional Participation Domain-specific attainments in

Performance
Resources domain-specific institutional
(socially structured, culturally settings: School, Family, Work,
embedded & temporally situ- Reinforcement Friendship, Consumption,
ated intentional social agency Community, Political Society,
1. Institutional Contexts, in specific institutional con- Religion, Cultural markets,
Resources, and Opportunities texts: schools, workplaces, The Self
friendship groups, cultural
Opportunities markets, consumer markets,
Institutional characteristics and
practices (incl. alignments, community groups, political
opportunities and resources) in society ) Outcomes
the various institutional con-
texts in which young people Social Social Learning
lead their lives: families, Agency &
schools, friendship groups, Reflexiveness
5. Life Pathways
community groups, religious
institutions, labor markets, 2. The Self /Subjectivity Biography (“narrative”) of
commodity markets, cultural choices and pathways through
markets, and political society Subjective agency
Narrative / time with respect to education,
Reflexivity Interests, Goals
reflexive work, marriage, citizenship,
and Choices Identity prac-
self-understanding religion, friendship, residence,
Social construction tices and projects Social
consumption, community
of the self Values Habitus
participation, and
Skills/Capacities/Capitals
self- formation
Framing Lives: Longitudinal Research
375
376 Hogan, Kang, and Chan

satisfaction (domain specific, global); mental health (depression, anxiety); exis-

tential aspirations and sense of well-being; trust (in persons, institutions); attach-
ment (to significant others); resiliency/adaptability
Table 2 is a formal schematic representation of the conceptual framework of the
Singapore study.

Method
In collecting our data, we rely on self-reported responses from survey instruments
administered online to students while they are at school. The sample of students is a
representative random stratified sample of students in 102 selected schools (37 primary,
38 secondary, 27 post secondary institutions) for each of the three cohorts we are sam-
pling: primary 4, secondary 1 and post-secondary 1. In the two youngest cohorts, we
administer four survey instruments on a one in four basis. For the post-secondary
cohort, we administer three survey instruments on a one in three basis. The survey
instruments are differentiated in terms of their key outcome measures (economic and
social capital, subjectivity and subjective well-being, subjectivity and life planning,
and citizenship) but share relatively common predictor modules. This arrangement is
made possible by the sample size and in turn permits the inclusion of an unusually
broad and comprehensive array of items/scales. Each instrument includes selected out-
come measures from the other instruments to facilitate linkages across instruments.
Within each form or survey instrument, key outcome measures have been and will be
included in each of the four planned administrations in order to facilitate longitudinal
growth modeling of the outcome measures. Key predictor variables will also be meas-
ured on an annualized basis where we have reason to believe that their values might
change over time. Approximately 98% of the scales were pre-tested prior to the first
administration and assessed for their psychometric properties, including variance,
skewness, unidimensionality, reliability, goodness of fit, and construct, discriminant
and predictive validity, using SPSS Descriptives and Exploratory Factor Analysis and
AMOS for Confirmatory Factor Analysis.
In addition, we are administering two assessments instruments – one in English and
one in Maths – to the secondary 1 cohort. These assessments will be calibrated and
given each year to the cohort, permitting multi-level longitudinal modeling of academic
performance as well the relationship between the various outcome measures and aca-
demic achievement. Each of the assessments have been, and will be, subject to Rasch
modeling procedures.

Conclusion
The Singapore Life Pathways Project is a unique, comprehensive, theoretically-driven,
policy-conscious, multi-cohort longitudinal study of the life experiences, opportuni-
ties, capacities, subjectivities, attainments, choices, and pathways of large representa-
tive samples of three cohorts of young people in one of the world’s most globalized
 Framing Lives: Longitudinal Research 377

cities, Singapore. As far as we know, no other study like it has been undertaken else-
where, or is currently being undertaken elsewhere. It therefore promises to generate
important theoretical insights into the sociology of adolescence and the sociology of
postmodernity in one of the world’s great cities.

Note
1. See, for example, Gergen (1991) and Woodward (1997). Woodward, for example, suggests that post-
modernity is characterized by a “crisis of identity, where old certainties no longer obtain and social, polit-
ical and economic changes both globally and locally have led to the breakdown of previously stable group
membership. Identities in the contemporary world derive from a multiplicity of sources – from national-
ity, ethnicity, social class, community, gender, sexuality – sources that may conflict in the construction of
identity positions and lead to contradictory fragmented identities” (Woodward, 1997, p. 1).

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20

NEW URBAN TERRAINS: LITERACIES,

WORLD KIDS, AND TEACHERS

Karen Dooley*, Cushla Kapitzke*, and Carmen Luke†

*
Queensland University of Technology, Australia;
†
University of Queensland, Australia

Literacy is a long-established focus of urban education. Given the populations of

migrants, refugees and transient populations of industrialized Western cities, it is a tar-
get that has been understood historically in terms of linguistic and cultural difference,
as well as poverty. In Australian educational research and policy over the last three
decades, there been an ongoing recognition not only of links between poverty and edu-
cational outcomes, but also of schools’ failure to serve aspirations of migrant and refugee
families of non-English-speaking background concentrated in industrialized cities
such as Sydney, Melbourne, Wollongong and Newcastle (Cahill, 1996; see Blackmore,
2007). Today, literacy achievement of urban populations is again a focal point of con-
siderable public and media debate, which although appearing to focus on issues of cur-
riculum and instruction, readily turns to debates over declining morality, deterioration
of cultural values and national traditions. Yet, questions about the impact of new media
technologies on youth culture, and implications for conceptualizations of school liter-
acy education are at the core of contention in Australian educational development and
public debate. These questions have generated increasing research activity in the last
decade, with several major federally funded projects into youth literacies, new tech-
nologies, social identity and educational issues (Alloway, Freebody, Gilbert, &
Muspratt, 2002; Department of Science, Education and Training, 2002a, 2002b; Hill,
Louden, & Reid, 2002; Louden et al., 2000; Luke et al., 2002). However, ongoing work
is required because the rapid development and dissemination of new communication
and information technologies into communities has serious ramifications for social
relations, work, and youth cultures.
Historically, measures to address inequitable language and literacy outcomes in urban
Australia included funding for disadvantaged schools that was often directed to literacy
intervention, a national English as a second language (ESL) program, and a succession of
policies of multicultural, inclusive, and antiracist education directed at both mainstream
and non-English-speaking background students (Cahill, 1996). These measures were con-
structed primarily within various liberal discourses of compensation and tolerance of
381
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 381–394.
© 2007 Springer.
382 Dooley, Kapitzke, and Luke

social diversity, moving from assimilatory and transformative social ethos in the early
and latter parts of the period respectively. The general aim was to address lower achieve-
ment outcomes and higher marginalization of students living in poor and ethnolinguis-
tic minority communities. These students, concentrated in urban schools, were amongst
those who benefited least from literacy education in the modern industrial nation-state –
an education designed to train and homogenize socially diverse peoples through inculca-
tion of basic print skills and selected print literary heritage, in the standard written variant
of the national language (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000).
In this first decade of the twenty-first century, developments in media technologies,
and the economic, political and cultural shifts now commonly defined as part of the phe-
nomenon of “globalization,” coupled with concerns about literacy education in urban
schools, inequality and marginalization, have come together to form a new configura-
tion of educational problems and possibilities. A new order in the places and wired
spaces of the urban is emerging, one of social difference and poverty/affluence, of life-
world experiences and literate practices that are at once converging in new media and
diverging in access to traditional print competence. In Australia, as in other advanced
capitalist democracies, literacy education in urban schools is a site of anxiety – if not
moral panic – and struggle over social change and the emergence of new cosmopolitan
and multicultural youth identities.
For more than a decade, research findings and test results that indicate relatively low
literacy levels of ESL students and students living in poverty have been cited regularly
by politicians and public commentators as evidence of a “literacy crisis” (Donnelly,
2004; Howard, 2006). Neoliberal discourses of fiscal austerity, global competition and
national economic crisis are set against compensatory logics, even as new compensa-
tory measures have proliferated (e.g., phonics training vouchers for students not reach-
ing national literacy benchmarks). Low literacy levels are attributed to deficits of
individual or group ability, motivation, and work ethic on the part of students and fam-
ilies, and to failures of pedagogic will and method on the part of self-interested, inad-
equately trained, and ideologically suspect teachers, teacher unions, education
academics, and state education department bureaucrats (Editor, 2005b; Turtel, 2005).
Adopting an antidote from US and UK policy, mandatory phonics programs, a national
regime of high stakes testing of print literacy basics, and publication of league tables
of literacy test results are on the table.
At the same time, liberal multicultural and transformative social logics are in tension
with resurgent conservatism around race and immigration and, following 9/11, national
security. Furthermore, fear of the eclipse of Western high culture (a fear ramped up by
the “clash of civilizations” mentality) is evident in national media campaigns for the
excision of popular and digital literacies, non-canonical texts, and critical literacies,
from syllabii and external examinations. As this text goes to press, the Prime Minister
has publicly condemned critical literacy and the national newspaper, The Australian,
has adopted the strategy of labeling an array of educational reforms, some not at all con-
nected, as the product of postmodernism and “political correctness” (Editor, 2006).
Newspaper editors and columnists, non-Education academics, politicians and others
weigh in on discussions of what teachers are, what they are capable of, and how they
should do their work (Editor, 2005a).
 Literacies, World Kids, and Teachers 383

Alternative visions of literacy education have been developed in Australia – from the
various curriculum projects around critical literacy to foci on new digital literacies (Luke,
Freebody, Land, Booth, & Kronk, 2000). The international multiliteracies project is one
high profile example (New London Group, 2000), and the Learning by Designs project
conducted in Australia and Malaysia (Kalantzis, Cope, & the Learning by Design Project
Group, 2005) is another. These projects argue for literacy curricula and pedagogy that
engage with literate practices and identities constructed by school youth in popular and
digital cultures ignored or dismissed by practitioners and proponents of historically
venerated forms of literacy education. For teachers, alternatives such as these entail new
identities, literacies, and work practices. But even while the majority of Australian states
now have components of critical literacy and multiliteracies built into their state curricu-
lum documents – and Australian teacher education will routinely engage students with
debates over critical literacy and multiliteracies – this is a field that is not yet well charted.
Our aim in this chapter is to suggest some potentially productive research directions to
support the imagining and enactment of forms of literacy education alternative to arrange-
ments that only ever served part of the population well, and are of reduced benefit in
futures entailing new media technologies, literacies, and urban cultures.
Although written from Australia, this chapter is directed at a wider audience. One of
the marks of this historical moment is that social conditions of educational practices
and discourses bear some significant similarities and synergies across national borders.
For example, diversification of urban school populations is a fact of globalization that
is construed in Western nations – in socially and historically contingent ways – across
variants of similar discourses on race, immigration and national identity. Likewise, in
the Anglo-American democracies, the shift to skills-based training in, and high stakes
testing of standard English language print basics, has emerged in some common struc-
tural conditions and discourses of neoliberal economic rationality. For instance, in
Chicago’s metroregion, Lipman (1998, 2004) reports that, increasingly, community
and teacher resistance to bilingual education is taking a hold – schools have become a
new nodal point where racial, ethnic, class, linguistic, cultural, and economic diversity
are pitting communities against each other, struggling with new relations of power and
privilege. In the shifting sociodemographics of inner cities, edge cities, and metroregional
suburban “cities,” “schools are being reconstituted as multiracial, multilingual, multieth-
nic, multiclassed spaces with a new set of social and cultural dynamics” (Lipman, 2004,
p. 158) which require new and different pedagogic and curricular approaches, research
questions and analytic lenses than those formulated under the 1980s’ liberal “multiculti-
culturalism” or current neoliberal agendas.
In the first section of the chapter, we look at shifts of the urban terrain. Here we
identify what counts as “urban” in contemporary times, highlighting aspects of urban
worlds that are becoming increasingly critical for research on youth culture and litera-
cies. In the second section, we look at some research on everyday popular and digital
literacy practices of urban youth. The purpose is to map trajectories of investigation
that may enable alternatives to nostalgic conceptualizations of school literacy educa-
tion. The chapter concludes with suggestions for future research to support forms of
literacy education commensurate with shifting economic conditions, social worlds,
and individual lives in urban futures.
384 Dooley, Kapitzke, and Luke

Shifting Terrains of the Urban

We begin by offering three arguments for why research on urban youth literacies does
not take the “urban” as co-terminous with inner city places. These constitute, literally,
a reshaping of the social geographic space of the city and its communities, a “virtual-
ization” of urban youth culture, and the expansion of these cultures into what were
hitherto “non-urban” sites and places.
First, as is evident from debate over notions of “edge cities” and “global cities” (e.g.,
Clark, 2003; Smith, 2001), the relatively self-contained monocentric industrial city of
the West has given way to more complexly-linked polycentric urban agglomerations. As
a consequence, social problems of poverty and inequality historically associated with
inner cities have not only deepened with global economic restructuring, but also spread
across sprawling urban and suburban regions (Castells, 2004). De-industrialization and
gentrification of inner cities have led to a diaspora of poverty in the rural hinterlands
and edge cities of Australian urban areas. Mismatches of cultural resources required for
school success, disengagement with historically venerated forms of pedagogy and cur-
ricula, and “unruly” behavior are some of the problems encountered in schools of these
new communities of disadvantage (Luke & Carrington, 2002). Meanwhile, in the
schools of gentrifying inner cities, “nurturing giftedness” now competes for priority
with “remediation” and “compensation” (Jacobson, 2002).
When one of us (Karen) moved from teaching in edge city to inner city schools
during the 1990s, there was a certain continuity of urban concerns. The remedial
teacher, the speech pathologist, the guidance officer, the special education teacher, and
the ESL teacher remained frequent visitors to my classroom. But the territory was unfa-
miliar too. This was a school where children of Asian restaurateurs and yuppies living
in renovated queenslander homes enrolled alongside kids from rental flats and rundown
houses, and children of the unemployed, kitchen hands, and prostitutes. In this school,
there was the cultural stress of students driven to outperform others and themselves
constantly, and demands for more and more difficult work from successful students
attending after-school coaching academies.
Meanwhile, there was that group of boys (ranging from “gifted” to “dyslexic”) that
rushed through print work to get to the computer to do what, precisely, at every chance?
These were the same students that invented elaborate subterfuges to hide gameboys
which would have had to be confiscated had a teacher seen them. The literacy practices
and preferences of these urban and suburban boys point to a second characteristic of
contemporary urban terrains of literacy: the urban is as much a virtual, representational
and imaginary space as it is a physical site. Contrary to some 1960s predictions with
origins in myths that have been in circulation during more than a century of technolog-
ical innovation, intensifying use of new media technologies did not undermine the exis-
tence of urban areas. Rather, ICTs have become integral to accelerated and global
processes of urbanization (Castells, 2004; Florida, 2005; Graham, 2004). One conse-
quence is the colonization of urban youth and culture by digital representation.
Furthermore, with the virtualization of urban cultures, youths’ lifeworlds have
become infinitely expandable across space and time. New media technologies and con-
temporary means of travel have resulted in the wider circulation of cosmopolitan ideas,
images, technologies and sociocultural practices historically associated with the city.
 Literacies, World Kids, and Teachers 385

As a consequence, it cannot be assumed that the lifeworlds of youth in Chinese factory

towns for example (Smith, 2001), or in the places of remote, rural and provincial
Australia, are outside circuits of the cosmopolitan, nor that they do not overlap in vir-
tual spaces. Youth who hang out in the shopping malls, on the basketball courts and the
Internet in these urban places and spaces have been described as “world kids.” Yet, as
before, the worlds of these kids are stratified by wealth: poverty positions some more
as consumers than producers of youth culture (Luke & Carrington, 2002).
In addition to changes to what counts as “urban,” it seems that the urban is becom-
ing at once more and less heterogeneous. Unprecedented global flows of people and
culture are, for example, multiplying languages in urban places and virtual spaces even
as linguistic diversity per se seems threatened by English qua global lingua franca. At
the same time, intralingual diversity is expanding. In the case of English, the lingua
franca functions of the language are leading to increasingly specialized technical, pro-
fessional and lifeworld registers. In this context, it is almost axiomatic for youth to
note the incomprehensibility of registers of their digital literate practices to teachers
(Sefton-Green, 2005). Furthermore, interlingual contact, between English and other
languages in particular, is likewise creating intralingual diversity, whether in standard
“world Englishes” of Nigeria, Singapore and so forth, or in online hybrids of local
languages and English (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000).
Paradoxically, individuals’ experience of linguistic and cultural difference is not
necessarily commensurate with the degree of social plurality in urban areas. Historically,
the city was notable as the place of encounter with difference (Soja, 1996). But there
seems to be a new order of class and racial segregation in at least some urban places of
the West. As evidence of a re-making of urban problems of social discrimination and
exclusion (Gilroy, 2002; Stevenson, 2003), urbanists point to gated communities,
privatization of public spaces of leisure such as parks and playgrounds, shopping mega-
malls as sites of consumption, entertainment, healthcare and daycare, family time, dating
and so forth, surveillance and profiling of demographic “others” feared by the affluent
and powerful (e.g., poor, young, male, ethnolinguistic minority).
Student identities, for example, were bounded strongly by race in Karen’s inner city
school in the period leading up to so-called national debates on race, Asian immigra-
tion, and indigenous affairs. When money went missing from the classroom, a group
of Asian students suggested that “a black person” was the thief. Meanwhile, two south-
ern European immigrants refused to ever paste anything bearing Chinese characters
into their scrapbooks. And during a whole class discussion, some of the white boys
asked the color of the person sought by police after the arson attack on the classroom,
provoking some of the white middle-class girls to declare that color “doesn’t matter
and talking about it isn’t nice,” a position not shared by the girl who asked why the
Aboriginal flag was not flown for her uncles at the school’s Anzac Day ceremony.
Coupled with the eclipse of mass media by niche communications, fragmentation of
populations by race and wealth is implicated in the emergence of myriad segregated
subcultures in contemporary urban areas (Gilroy, 2002; Stevenson, 2003).
It has been suggested that reconstruction of the Western city, or at least some Western
cities, as well as mega cities in the south and east (e.g., Sao Paolo, Rio de Janeiro,
Bangkok, Shanghai or Jakarta) is underway after the fallout of economic restructuring
and technological change (Caldeira, 1996; Hutton & Giddens, 2001). Growing valorization
386 Dooley, Kapitzke, and Luke

of urbanity, street life, civic culture, and symbolic architectural forms are all cited as
evidence of a new culture of cities in urban regions. Connectivity, shared meaning, and
public places are key themes for planners, architects and designers of the physical
spaces of the urban (Castells, 2004). Others are less sanguine, seeing these same phe-
nomena as manifestations and causes of urban segmentation, noting for example, that
gentrification forces the poor from inner cities (Jacobson, 2002; Watson, 2006). In the
vernacular, as sprayed on a wall above an inner Brisbane city (Australia) building site:
“Yuppies kill ghettos.”
And yet, the urban cultural and linguistic mix which is widely argued to have eroded
modernist nation-state affiliations, “citizenship” and sense of belonging (Harvey, 1996;
Holton, 1998), also creates new allegiances and alliances, new political commonalities
based on shared local(ized) resistance rather than monocultural national identifica-
tions. Caldeira (1996), for instance, argues that local political participation among
groups of diverse cultural origin may be increasingly necessary “to make those cities
liveable and to improve the quality of life of the impoverished population, increasingly
consisting of immigrants” (p. 326). In light of what Sennett (2000) calls the urban
elite’s “abandonment” of the public realm to the culturally diverse middle and lower
class urban goods and service workers, “people contest each other for places in schools,
use of street space, the imprint on leisure spaces like parks and pubs. These are the
city’s raw social edges, but they have a defined class character” (p. 181). In other words,
what Sennett argues is that the engine of gentrification powered by the “new money”
global elite living and working in the inner city of London or New York, pushes out
inhabitants of decayed inner city precincts, reclaims and renames warehouses and ten-
ements, and reconstructs an inner city economy of restaurants, lofts, galleries, private
schools and childcare centres, which are serviced and cleaned by the working class
poor – service workers that have either been left behind, new migrants just arrived in
the inner city, or else evacuees displaced from the city to cheaper edge cities from
which they commute to the centres where they once lived. Sennett argues that “new
money uses the city but makes little effort to run it … [it] reigns over restaurants and
flats [but] has shown little desire to govern those hospitals, schools, libraries and other
public aspects of the city” (p. 181).
It is among the mass of people at the “bottom,” not ruled by but servicing a privatized
elite “above,” that struggles over social and economic goods and privileges in the pub-
lic realm (e.g., education, healthcare, housing, etc.) are waged. This, we would argue,
requires a new kind of literacy education – one that is both cultural and political – that
makes transparent the workings of capitalism and globalization in the places of every-
day life; and the spatial and textual shaping of identities, whether through spatial
segregations or homogeneity in neighborhoods or shopping malls (Davis, 2006), or in
“old” and “new” media texts. It would include a critical literacy of the texts (e.g.,
bureaucratic forms and procedures) and processes of democratic governance, commu-
nity building, rights and responsibilities, and what we might call “intercultural” com-
munication in order to achieve the possibilities of Caldeira’s (1996) or Freire’s (1972)
“resistance” as common ground among difference, as shared resources and building
blocks to contest the city hall, to reclaim edge or inner cityscapes, the public spaces
and services abandoned by the new Brahmin army of the cosmopolitan urban elite.
 Literacies, World Kids, and Teachers 387

It is a literacy of public culture and citizenship in the broadest sense, engaging with
print and visual texts of old and new media, with “old” established texts and rules of
community governance, municipal bi-laws or procedures for submissions to district
hospital, parks, or school boards, and with creating “new” texts in various media with
which to generate change and reform, to garner diverse community support for a shared
goal, or to “take on city hall.”
Literacy education has historically been a national project, invested with political
interests of assimilation, forcing homogeneity on heterogeneous diversity, and depo-
larizing the co-optive agendas of public schooling, all the while enacting an ideology
of erasing and subjugating difference; or else recasting difference as deficit in need of
special and remedial education guaranteed to lead to exit certification that would
provide fodder for working class jobs, and re-entry into the social class habitus and
constraints that students’ parents hoped their children could escape.
In a controversial theory that raises doubts about the ultimate sustainability of the con-
temporary compact of economic radicalism and social conservatism, Florida (2005) sug-
gests that tolerance, diversity and inclusion characterize cities that flourish in the
“creative economy” (described by others as “the knowledge society,” “information soci-
ety” or “high-tech economy”). The claim is that it is their cultures of “cool” (urbanity,
street life and so forth) that enable such cities to attract talent integral to economic suc-
cess. From this perspective, it is suggested that economic and social fissures that are
deepening in general, and in leading creative regions in particular, might be reduced by
bringing vastly more people into the technologically new and creative economy as pro-
ducers, a move that requires careful nurturing of talent and intercultural understanding.
Florida’s (2005, p. 176) claims about Australia being one of the “smaller, more nimble
countries that have well-established mechanisms for social cohesion and are able both to
mobilize their own creative energy from all segments of society, and to compete effec-
tively for global talent,” might be considered overstatements by many Australian urban
theorists (cf. Gleeson, 2006; Peel, 2003; Thomson, 2002). Nonetheless, we contend that
visions of Australian urban reconstruction prompt some interesting questions for educa-
tional systems: What kind of teacher of literacy can be envisioned for world kids? Which
pedagogical practices do they enact? How does such a teacher engage with technologi-
cally and socially heterogeneous literacies among world kids in schools located on
socially fractured urban terrains? What sorts of post-national education systems are
needed as contexts for new teacher identities and work? What sort of teacher preparation
is required to shape teacher knowledge, professionalism, social inclusion and social jus-
tice commitments? In the next section of this chapter, we review research investigating
youth literacies at the core of these questions about the future of urban education.

English as a Second Language Literacies

in Popular and Digital Youth Cultures
Australian researchers have investigated digital and popular culture practices of urban
Australian adolescents from migrant and second language speaking families. These
students now constitute approximately a quarter of all Australian school-aged children.
388 Dooley, Kapitzke, and Luke

Their work describes and de-mythologizes technologically and linguistically diverse

literacies of second language users and learners. In this sense, it is part of wider efforts
to map global flows of language and culture in online and popular cultures, including
those of ethnolinguistic diaspora (e.g., see the collections edited by Karim, 2003, and
Snyder & Beavis, 2004), and also to describe everyday literacy practices of digital
youth (e.g., Alexander, 2006; Snyder & Beavis, 2004).
This work marks a more general turning away in the ESL field from long-held
assumptions about difference as fixed, pre-existing factors contributing to language
outcomes, addressing instead ways that learners become diverse through engagement
with second languages (e.g., Benson & Nunan, 2004). But it is distinctive in the
second language field in its theorization of: (1) language as symbolic capital and site
of identity construction; (2) language acquisition as situated learning or socialization
into communities of practice; and (3) multiplicity and fluidity of identities of second
language users as agents investing in linguistic and cultural capital (see Pavlenko,
2002 for a comprehensive review of this emerging body of research). Two projects of
particular interest for urban education are described in some detail below.
An interesting set of ethnographic studies with immigrant Cantonese-speaking
students in a west-coast US city (Kramsch & Lam, 1999; Lam, 2004a, 2004b, 2006;
Lam & Kramsch, 2003) compared and contrasted school literacy education with every-
day language, literacies, and identities constructed in popular and online cultures,
including:
● English language homepages, chat and email of an online Japanese pop music
community of Asian youth from the US, Malaysia, Japan, Hong Kong and Canada;
● a Cantonese/English bilingual chat room frequented by youth from Hong Kong,
North America, the UK, the Netherlands and Australia;
● a website in an English/Japanese/Cantonese trilingual anime community of youth
from North America, Australia, Asia, Europe and Latin America; and
● transnational Cantonese/Japanese/English subcultures of readers of comic books
from Hong Kong, Japan and the US.
The studies described new forms of language, identity, language learning, and literate
practice created by urban youth. Chatroom language, for example, was a distinctive mix
of the visual code of emoticons with the linguistic code of English studded with
romanized Cantonese terms of address and particles. Identities constructed through
this language differed from those of monolingual speakers of either Cantonese or
English, offering possibilities for opposition to the hegemonic power exerted by the
nation-state on its heterogeneous population through homogenizing English language
education. Moreover, identities of esteem as friend or webmaster, and success as lan-
guage learner, were created in contrast with low achiever, low status identities ascribed
in remedial, ESL and mainstream placements at school with its regime of print basics
and standard/ized English literacy tests. There was evidence too of young people con-
structing portfolios of web-page literacy practices, and capabilities in creative think-
ing, project management, collaborative work, and autonomous learning in tune with
the demands of new economy workplaces (Kramsch & Lam, 1999; Lam, 2004a,
2004b, 2006; Lam & Kramsch, 2003).
 Literacies, World Kids, and Teachers 389

In research on Japan, Malay and Australian youth, Pennycook (2003a, 2003b, 2005)
documented new forms of language, identity, language learning, and literate practice
in urban rap/hip-hop music and culture. The basic premise of this research was that
rap/hip-hop is a global urban youth subculture, not an essentially African-American
cultural form imposed upon or appropriated only parodically by others. As in Lam’s
research, there was interest in creative agency, resistance, and appropriation, at the
local level in the face of the structural power of global English. The focus was on ways
that language use constitutes identity through performativity of culture, specifically,
through identification with English, and mixing of English with other languages in sit-
uations of transcultural contact. Playful or mock uses of language were of interest,
especially in relation to transcultural flows of mass media and youth marketing styling
“the other.”
Pennycook (2003a, 2005) concluded that English is not a foreign language in Japanese
rap music and hip-hop culture, but part of Japanese language and culture. In one of the
study songs, for example, (ethnically Japanese) rappers identify as Japanese through
references to places in Tokyo written in kanji, and as culturally mixed through use of
romaji/English script alongside kanji, katakana and hiragana. At the same time, the
English of the songs sometimes echoes African-American English lexically and phono-
logically (e.g., the iconic “yo”), while at other times, the phonology and syntax of the
English are distinctively Japanese. Through this mixing of Japanese and English, the
rappers create a language – a non-standard English or “raplish” – which they speak as
native users. And by using this language, they constitute identity; they perform, invent
and re-fashion a transnational Japanese identity through selective investment in
English. Different, but related dynamics of the Japanese rappers’ hybrid, cosmopolitan
experience of postindustrial signifying practices are evident in Anglo-American youth
subcultures, and, through complex flows, in hip-hop cultures in urban and inner city
centers of Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific.
Lam and Pennycook valorize emergent Asian youth cultures, and turn a more critical
eye to the implications of these new practices for current approaches to school literacy
education. They raise a series of both research and development questions: How might
schooling take ESL students seriously as creators and successful teachers and learners
of forms of the global lingua franca? How might culturally affirmative models of lit-
eracy education disrupt (or contribute to) reproduction of racially stratified urban eco-
nomic and social orders in different cultural and political economic contexts? How
might they promote ways of being and doing necessary for populations of urban
schools to participate powerfully in global economic and social conditions? How
might they engage with young immigrants’ racial identifications, encouraging critique
of material conditions, and creating literate practices that enable meaning and connec-
tion across difference?
On a theoretical and methodological level, poststructuralist linguistic and sociological
approaches yield very different findings from conventional psycholinguistic and cog-
nitive developmental approaches to second language literacy research and develop-
ment. The latter, historically, have tended to position multilingual urban, minority and
migrant youth as in need of ameliorative, augmentative or specialized educational treat-
ment in order to “catch up” with or “compete” with dominant, monolingual academic
390 Dooley, Kapitzke, and Luke

and school cultures. And yet we need much more methodologically and paradigmati-
cally diverse research on urban and edge city sociodemographics. Lipman’s Chicago
research (2004) is a case in point. The new multilingual educational scapes of urban
education requires critical blends of social and cultural geography, political economy,
labor market studies, urban studies, and current interdisciplinary research on cos-
mopolitanism, globalization, creative industries, and so forth. Frameworks capable of
mapping language and literacy investments, and struggles for identity, will remain
necessary as popular and online urban youth cultures continue to evolve in transna-
tional flows of language and culture enabled by new media technologies on the one
hand, and forced by labor migration flows and mass-scale community displacements
on the other.
In the face of demographic and cultural change of this magnitude and, indeed,
uncertainty, the response of Australian education systems has been notable. Over the
last decade, there have been general attempts to streamline curriculum organization,
focusing on assessment models built around “outcomes-based” education. In overall
systems rhetoric, Australian state and federal policies have gradually embraced the
common discourses of OECD and East Asian education, resetting the production of
skilled human capital on the ostensible requisites of “knowledge economies.” These
have led to tertiary content emphases on the new biosciences, information technolo-
gies, and business, accountancy models. More recently, especially post-9/11, curricu-
lum debates have returned to issues of values, national history, and intercultural
understandings. The generic skills in such models beyond the basics are those of criti-
cal thinking, independent problem-solving, group work, life-long learning, and entre-
preneurship. Yet the substantive educational reforms have principally followed American
and UK Neoliberalism, with marketization of schools, commodification of curriculum,
and increased standardized achievement measures put in place. With the exception of
Queensland’s 1999–2005 “New Basics” curriculum reforms (Luke, 2004), there have
been few attempts to envision contemporary models of curriculum and pedagogy that
capture the realities and capital resources of new urban youth.

Catching up with New Youth Literacies

What kind of literacy educator and literacy education do we envision in the range of
new community fusions, spaces and places we have outlined above? A critical literacy
pedagogy insists that educators engage students in a critical dialogue with capitalism,
globalization, commodity culture, cultural difference and diversity, patriarchy and gen-
der politics, geographies of power and privilege, and new material conditions (e.g.,
Cope & Kalantzis, 2000). While some more fundamentalist approaches to education
will continue to stress traditional print literacy basics, a return to national values, and
a reconnoitering of industrial-era secular values around family, work and community,
our view is that these are, at best, “holding actions,” and at worst, act as deliberate ide-
ological misrecognitions of the very profound educational issues at hand. The very
idea that core, simple and literal truths are the best cognitive, developmental and
 Literacies, World Kids, and Teachers 391

epistemic tools for navigating the dynamic, volatile and unpredictable landscape of
educational change seems to us at best naïve. What the emergent work on new youth
cultures in Australia and Asia tells us is that education systems that take this holding
pattern response risk becoming progressively less relevant, other than mere official
credentialing “routes.” The creative energies of many urban youth today are focused
upon the generation of new texts, from messaging and blogs and webpages, to the
embodied face-to-face performance of music, rap and dance.
In the debates over teacher education, there has been a strong concentration on
“filling up” teacher gaps in traditional disciplinary knowledge, and in refining behav-
ior management strategies and techniques for teaching the “basics” of print literacy.
Our view is that the baseline requisites of teaching in new conditions will require
teachers who:
● fluently engage in the lingua franca of youth culture, possessing a familiar range
of cultural forms and modalities, both old and new, residual and emergent;
● exercise everyday access to the new creative commons of the digital archive
(Kapitzke & Bruce, 2005), and are as resourceful with these as their predecessors
might have been with the encyclopedia, dictionary and print canon;
● build intercultural and global connections, virtual and material, with teachers,
researchers and educators across borders;
● develop a critical “take” on the complex push/pull effects of cultural and economic
globalization as these impact the life pathways, experiences, motivation structures
and values of their students and colleagues.
A critical literacy education built around concepts of multiliteracies has the capacity to
enable students to look at themselves, others and their everyday lifeworlds in self-
reflexive and critical ways. This can entail understanding how text and image create
preferred and counter “reading” positions; how they broadcast and narrowcast lessons
about others (e.g., the global roll-out of a virulent “them” and “us” discourse follow-
ing the 9/11 terrorist attacks); while simultaneously exploring and expanding students’
repertoires at using text/image, but spatiality to position others (e.g., bullying; class-
room and teacher seating arrangements), to represent ourselves, to get things done,
and so forth. This is already occurring online, in study and chat rooms, in videogam-
ing environments, and in homes – where many youth act as “go-betweens” not just
between migrant or indigenous and dominant cultures, but between print and virtual
cultures, between the industrial lifeworlds of their parents and those digital worlds
where they and others will work and play.
It is in this context – of the virtual urban – that educators cannot afford to carry on
with business as usual, hammering away at content without attending to the local-
global interconnections that inform students’ engagement with their local lifeworld.
Rather, educators “need to take account of emerging synergies among cultural forma-
tions and practices, new technological initiatives, and emerging populations and
markets” (Green, Reid, & Bigum, 1998, p. 22). That is to say, we cannot look at liter-
acy, pedagogy, or curriculum independent of issues around the politics of globalization,
rapid ICT development, new synergies among culturally and linguistically diverse
392 Dooley, Kapitzke, and Luke

populations, new topographies of poverty, and new economic and social networks.
Students may well be globally connected in fusion rap talk with friends across the
globe whether through email, internet, satellite, digital video or other cultural flows,
yet live in family and community circumstances of poverty and neighborhood crime.
Yet these same (migrant) families may well be “upwardly mobile” breadwinners of
a much larger family network which relies on transnational remittances from Sydney
to Jakarta or from the Ethiopian taxi driver in Chicago to much poorer extended fam-
ily back home. In that sense, we can see different possibilities “for new forms of
agency “from below” (Smith, 2001, p. 109) and different kinds of local-to-local links
via transnational flows of globalization. What this suggests to us is that the kind of lit-
eracy we would advocate engages students in more fine-grained analysis of cosmo-
politan identity, community, the social, the political, the complexities of experience of
global citizenship (on- or off-line), the contradictions of power, poverty, privilege. The
educational stakes are become clearer, the rough parameters for a reconceptualist
curriculum contract that constructs the new human subject for these contexts are
being negotiated – but most important, youth are busying themselves with reinventing
teaching/learning relations, textual practices and their life pathways in virtual and real
spaces other than the urban school. It may be an unprecedented historical moment:
where the technological capacity, cultural understandings and critical engagements
with new economies and societies of youth sit in advance of those designing, develop-
ing and teaching curriculum.

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Section 3

WESTERN EUROPE
21

URBAN EDUCATION IN EUROPE:

SECTION EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION

Elisabet Öhrn* and Gaby Weiner†

*
University College of Borås (School of Education and Behavioural Sciences), Sweden
†
Umeå University, Sweden/Centre for Educational Sociology, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

Urban education is not a familiar term in Western Europe. It is a recognizable phenom-

enon but used in different ways based on geography, history, and political perspective.
For example, the Spanish consider urban education as largely associated with com-
pensatory education, and the integration of immigrants (Rambla & Bonal, 2007;
Zufiaurre & Peñalva, 2007), while in Finland, urban education is a multiple discourse
associated with inner-city, poverty and disadvantage but also silencing the problems of
rural communities (Gordon, 2007). It may refer to the cultural demands of the sophis-
ticated and rich, associated with the arts and business, or as a signifier of school fail-
ure and problems of social class. It is also used in theoretical discussion involving
bodies and spaces, as in understandings of how urban citizenship is constructed and
supported or restricted by education. Another meaning put forward by Gobbo (2007)
is as a way of learning civil manners, desirable or necessary in urban contexts.
The aim of this section introduction is to provide a rationale and overview for the
contributions that follow. In reflecting on the wider Western European context and as
an introduction to the section chapters, our aim is to dismantle or deconstruct the phrase
“urban education” to show its complexity and multiple usage. In particular, we draw on
our own work related to this topic, for example, Öhrn’s empirical work on gender,
ethnicity and class in urban classrooms and Weiner’s exploration of concepts involving
Europeanness, gender, “race” and ethnicity (e.g., Öhrn, 1998, 2005; Weiner, 2000,
2002). We begin with a consideration of what being European means in the current
context followed by a discussion of European urban education, including teacher edu-
cation. We then explore common themes ascribed to education in urban contexts such
as gender, ethnicity, and racism; disaffection and identity, social class, democracy, and
intervention. The introduction ends with an overview of the individual articles that
make up the Western European section of the Handbook.

397
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 397–412.
© 2007 Springer.
398 Öhrn and Weiner

Urban Education
Western or “Old” Europe
What does it mean to be a European? According to various dictionary definitions, a
European may be someone who belongs to Europe as an inhabitant or who is born
within the boundaries of the continent of Europe. It has also been used to refer to a
“person of European extraction who lives outside Europe; hence a white person, espe-
cially in a country with a predominantly non-white population” (Simpson & Weiner,
1972, quoted in Coulby & Jones, 1995, p. 50). The assumption in this definition (later
removed) is that “Europeanness” and “whiteness” is synonymous. As Coulby and
Jones point out, however, rather more flexible concepts of Europeanness are needed.

The trouble is that if a European is seen as a long fixed, rather than constantly
changing category, significant groups of the European population are excluded,
being seen in some way, as non-European. It therefore should come as no surprise
that the European-born descendants of more recent groups of immigrants into
Europe in the post-war period are seen as some sort of non-European “invasive”
group of people by sections of the population. (Coulby & Jones, 1995, p. 51)

Moreover having the right to identify as a European, and actually doing so, are different
matters. As the 1980s British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher so frequently pointed
out, for many people living within the boundaries of the UK, being English, Welsh,
Scottish, Irish or British may have far more meaning than any association with “conti-
nental” or “mainland” Europe. The “imagined community” as Anderson (1983) put it,
of the British state in the 1980s was constructed by Thatcherism as anti-European.
Perhaps this weak sense of European identity is one reason why, in the early 1990s, the
EU actively constructed its own “imagined community” with its creation of a flag,
anthem, passport, and citizenship (Brine, 1999).
The concept of imaginary in relation to Europe is useful in that it acknowledges
emotion and identity as well as social reality. It can be employed, for example, in
defining the European Union itself or in terms of the “old” Europe, represented by the
traditional European states. Alternatively, imaginary might be conceived in relation to
the wider Europe incorporating “new” Europe (i.e., countries of Eastern Europe which
in 2004 entered the European Union); or as a means of holding the line against the
encroachment of the USA.
Braidotti uses the concept of imaginary to envision a hopeful future for Europe. She
argues for a post-nationalist imaginary of European identity and flexible citizenship,
drawing on the feminist politics of location as a method and strategy.

My question therefore becomes: how do you develop such a new European imag-
inary? I think that such a notion is a project, not a given; nonetheless, this does
not make it Utopian in the sense of over-idealistic. It is even the contrary: It is a
virtual social reality which can be actualised by a joint endeavour on the part of
active, conscious and desiring citizens. (Braidotti, 2004, pp. 139–140)
 Urban Education in Europe 399

Less and more optimistic notions of Europeanness are echoed in several of the articles
in this section; notably, by the Hip Hoppers of Gothenburg who view Europe as an
oppressive, false or excluding reality (Sernhede) or by the Spanish emerging from the
Franco era, who see it as a modernizing force or entity (Zufiaurre & Peñalva, 2007).
Nevertheless, Delanty (2005) argues that Europe has a social (and economic) reality
that cannot be denied. Thus Europeanization has a form which is more than just a vision
or combination of states working together. It is a supernational entity in tension with
the nation entity. “It is possible” Delanty (2005, p. 410) argues, “to speak of the rise of
a Europe cultural model, in which social realities emerge out of discursive frame-
works.” Therefore perhaps at the present time, it is useful to envision Europe as an idea
(or imaginary) which has multiple and often contradictory meanings and also a social
and economic entity with a GNP approximating to that of the USA.

What is the Urban in Urban Education?

As we have seen, European urbanities and suburbanities are differently constructed
and realized. In France and the Nordic countries, for instance, ethnicity and class are
suburbanized, whereas in Germany and Spain minorities and working class cohabit
more within the city – although sometimes residing in different parts. For example,
van Zanten (2005) notes an ongoing differentiation in France, especially in Paris,
where the bourgeoisie have been found to consolidate its presence in a number of loca-
tions. She also points to a general tendency for lower-class groups to be driven out of
big European cities by rising housing market prices and the development of business
districts. This is enhanced by a process of “gentrification” which transformed old
lower class and industrial areas into settings adapted to middle-class interests and
tastes. Similar tendencies are seen in the USA. For example, Nolan and Anyon (2004,
p. 136) note the “new economic and spatial arrangements found in urban areas as a
result of globalization” with interconnectedness between concentrations of poverty
and “glamour zones” (Sassen, 1998, quoted in Nolan & Anyon, 2004, p. 137). Gordon
reminds us that those most likely to operate as global or “glamour” flaneurs are white,
middle-class men. Moreover, social exclusion relating to deprived (sub/urban) areas in
European countries differs in some respect from the USA. Building on the work of the
French sociologist Wacquant, Sernhede (2002, p. 58) stresses that European ghettos
are not related to “race” in the same way; “race” in Europe is less decisive in marking
social divisions, but rather arises from a marginalized position in the labor (and we
would add, housing) markets.
European cities and urban areas have become especially important due to migration
in the course of the globalization process with excluded groups moving west- and
northwards. Also migration has different meanings in contemporary Europe compared
with earlier times. Whereas earlier post-war immigration policies aimed at develop-
ment and growth and were relatively permissive, immigration is now viewed as a prob-
lem and to be tightly controlled (Zufiaurre & Peñalva, 2007). As also shown by Gobbo
(2007), each country has specific “internal minorities” or indigenous peoples, whose
situation needs to be addressed alongside other minority groups. She highlights the sit-
uation of the children of fairground people who have a weakened position within for-
400 Öhrn and Weiner

mal education with their right to formal schooling diminished by a school system
insensitive to the occupational nomadism of their parents.

What does Urban Plus Education Mean?

As already mentioned, urban education is an under-explored phenomenon in Western
European research, though more common in the United States. Where it is perceived
of as relevant, it refers to the interrelationship of poverty, immigration, bad schooling
etc. in inner-city areas. Location and space are important to Europe. For example,
cities need not necessarily be segregated; lower-class workers are needed to service
industry across the city resulting, to some extent at least in a social and ethnic mix. Van
Zanten (2005, p. 166) suggests that for the lower-class groups, such a mix might bring
about educational and other opportunities.

Although research shows that some schools are more effective and more equalising
than others, the factors leading to a reduction in the gap between lower-class and
middle- and upper-class children are much more frequently present in schools
where the majority of the student body is of middle- or upper-class background.

The social and ethnic composition of urban schools is thus crucially important.
Similarly, studies suggest that parental school choices are related not only to their indi-
vidual (educational) background, but also to the area in which they live. The “area
effect” concerns parental tendency to make the kind of choices of the majority in the
same area and thus, “Middle-class parents living in working-class neighborhoods choose
private pre-schools significantly less often than on average. Working-class parents
in middle-class neighbourhoods do the opposite.” (Pérez Prieto, Sahlström, Calander,
Karlsson, & Heikkilä, 2002, p. 57). Within mainstream education, location also struc-
tures pupil expectations and is thus used as an individual “marker” of economic capital
and status (in Britain, known as post-code selection). When accounting for patterns of
pupil behavior and achievement in school, the location of neighborhood remains con-
nected to social and cultural background. This multiple source can, it is argued, identify
a “certain kind of child,” mostly deprived (Gitz-Johansen, 2003, p. 70).
Location however is also sometimes romanticized, symbolizing the longing for an
order or local culture long gone, as we see also from Gordon (2007). Stories largely
draw on the presumed advantages of a culturally homogenous population (as opposed
to the present ethnic diversity). Problems from earlier days might well be acknowl-
edged, but are portrayed as more manageable or acceptable than those of today
(Arnesen, 2002).
In addition, it is important to address the silences of the non-urban within urban
education. As argued throughout this section, “urban” and “urban education” are com-
plex concepts, difficult to apply across national settings. Authors in the section high-
light non-urban or rural areas which experience problems similar to or greater than
those in urban areas (e.g., lack of teaching resources, low academic achievement).
Thus, to focus exclusively on the urban leads to the neglect of problems not visible
in cities, such as the need for distance education due to the scarcity of close-at-hand
 Urban Education in Europe 401

educational provision. In some cases, access to education for children in rural areas
means having to leave home, family and neighborhood, at least for part of the week.
The rural here is a neglected silence at the heart of urban education, which tends to
normalize rural settings as invariably safe, uncomplicated, and monocultural.
Urban teacher education constitutes another silence. Garm and Karlsen (2004)
maintain, rightly in our view, that discourses of teacher education tend to be national
rather than local or urban/rural. Moreover as we see from the contribution by Bastien
et al. in this section, the field is beset by regulations, and therefore tends to be respon-
sive rather than generative, descriptive rather than analytical. Also, whilst the new edu-
cational reforms and rhetoric of the last decades have a clear national mission and
agenda in many countries, the reforms may also be seen as an example of globalization
with an emphasis on professional and political efforts, say within the European Union,
towards greater homogeneity or harmonization. In the early 1970s, for example, the
EU began to develop a common policy on education by means of “formal decisions
about aims in the field of education and training, and use of intended means to achieve
these aims” (Garm & Karlsen, 2004, p. 733). Other “harmonizing” elements involved
EU mobility and exchange programs such as Erasmus, Soctrates, and Lingua, and the
Bologna process involving the standardization of undergraduate and postgraduate
courses and qualifications.

Current Themes in West European Research

We attempt, in this section, to capture the wide variety of research which addresses
urban education in Europe at the beginning of the twenty-first century. This is grouped
in themes which also emerge in the articles of this section.

Gender
A recent overview of the field of gender and education highlights a number of changes
and emphases over the last decade and a half; in particular, in relation to gender identi-
ties, theory, and method, and more recently, educational policy, and management. The
authors also note the relative over-representation of contributions from the UK,
Australia, New Zealand and Canada (Skelton & Frances, 2005). European urban set-
tings more often provide a backdrop to gender studies, as associated with low achieve-
ment, poverty, immigrants, minorities etc. Problematizing both the urban and youth
cultures has led to a greater research focus on boys and young men, also evident in this
section. Thus, interest in formal and informal urban education mainly concerns (post-
industrial) fears about out-of-control males running wild in inner cities, and the role that
schools have in civilizing them. Young “immigrant” men continue to be demonized in
Western Europe, as in the USA, where “Dominant media representations … depict urban
youth of color as dangerous criminals and the source of urban chaos” (Nolan & Anyon,
2004, p. 134). In Europe, the media likewise constructs young, non-European men as
more violent than others, particularly with respect to sexualized violence and violence
against women. This has coincided with the so-called “moral panic” in many countries
402 Öhrn and Weiner

surrounding boys’ underachievement in schools (Epstein, Ellwood, Hey, & Maw, 1998;
Lahelma, Hakala, Hynninen, & Lappalainen, 2000; Weiner, Arnot, & David, 1997).
There have however been criticisms of youth researchers for not exploring the positions
and activities of young women – nor indeed, taking a gender perspective on young
men’s constructions of masculinity (Phoenix, 1997). Gordon (2007) likewise affirms
that the concept of citizenship is strongly gendered in terms of its historical
underpinning as associated with white men (and property).
Thus, following the early work within gender and education that focused mainly on
girls, the position reversed in the 1990s with more research on boys and masculinities
which emphasized the various constraints related to their present situation. Young
men are pictured as deprived of the options available to earlier male generations
which has had an impact on their identity formation (see Lois Weis, 1990). The situ-
ation for young working-class girls has not nearly been as much discussed. Indeed,
Trondman (1995) suggests that girls are advantaged in the sense that they might well
expect a brighter future due to their better response to “market” demands for higher
education. Öhrn (2000) notes the different ways from the 1990s onwards, in which
girls and boys have been treated in gender studies. The focus for boys has been on
poor achievement, poor behavior, and lack of work opportunities while, for girls,
research has prioritized agency rather than subject positioning and different forms of
femininity and subjectivity.

Ethnicity, Racism and Immigration

The presence of racism and various forms of discrimination have been a longstanding
feature of European culture, and indeed, it is rightly argued that “racism” was invented
in Europe (MacMaster, 2001). Certainly its manipulation by political elites has
extended over several centuries with often horrifying consequences, most recently, in
the post-communist Balkan civil wars of the 1990s (Glenny, 1992). Thus, one of EU’s
express aims is to eliminate as much as possible, the overt and destructive racisms
which have laid Europe so low in the past, and to use education as a means of so doing.

Europe has become a novel experiment in multiple, tiered, mediated multicultur-

alisms, a supranational community of cultures, subcultures and transcultures
inserted differentially into radically different political and cultural traditions.
The consequences of this re-imagining and re-making of a new Europe are seen
variously to be threatening or utopian. (Modood & Werbner, 1997, p. vii)

A contradiction currently facing Europe is the twin policy pursued; on the one hand of
legislating against anti-Semitism, racism, and other forms of discrimination, and on the
other, of restricting immigration, tolerating explicitly racist parties, and barely taking
any action at all against everyday racism. Thus, as Van Dijk shows, racism is a political
object to be exploited and fought over.

In Italy, Austria, Denmark and Holland more or less explicitly racist parties may
win up to 30% of the vote and even become partners in government coalitions.
 Urban Education in Europe 403

On the one hand, such developments are at first officially condemned and decried,
on the basis of the prevalent non-racist norm, as happened with Haider in Austria.
But on the other hand liberal principles or Realpolitik usually get the upper hand,
and tolerate racist parties as part of the “democratic” consensus – as one opinion
among others, as is the case in Denmark, France and Italy. (Van Dijk, 2005, p. 13)

This twin approach – condemnation and tolerance of racism – makes discourses of

democracy and antiracism difficult to defend in schools, in particular, when racist
messages are visible and to some extent approved in political speeches, pamphlets, on
the Internet, and in everyday speech and interaction. So, it will come as no surprise,
that most (though not all) teachers across Europe, when confronted with the necessity
dealing with overt racism, tend to do very little – preferring to concentrate more on
what they consider to be their core work as subject teachers. Teachers thus generally
offer a range of arguments for non-engagement: for example, not part of teachers’ job
description, no problem of racism in their school or classroom, not enough time avail-
able, too complex an area, lack of training to deal with issues, and so on (Gaine, 2005).
However, it needs also to be reiterated that some teachers have in the past and continue
to, take these issues very seriously indeed.
Structural factors are certainly important. For example, one shared concern across
Europe is that initial and in-service teacher education offers neither a sufficiently com-
prehensive introduction to student–teachers to the field of multicultural/intercultural/
antiracist education nor strategies to deal with racial conflicts and disputes when they
arise in the classroom. Another concerns the failure of politicians and policy-makers
to recognize the importance of allowing the establishment of faith (or religious)
schools for religious groups other than Judo–Christian. The argument is that this fail-
ure creates feelings of grievance, unfair treatment and victimization, will sharply
impacts on other areas of social life (Modood, 1997). The general failure also to recruit
minority ethnic teachers, another structural factor, has also been difficult to resolve;
possibly due to the traditional role of the teacher (and school) as transmitter of a
nation’s culture and traditions. Controversies over the curriculum, and its cultural base
have occurred in some countries, with the preference among educational policy-
makers for choosing Greece, Rome, and in western European Christianity as the main
influences on the European curriculum rather than seeking for a more plural, inclusive
curriculum model (Shah, 2000).
Moreover, the existence of different forms of racism has added to the complexity of
schooling. Modood (1997) identifies three predominant European racisms: anti-
Semitism, Islamophobia, and white supremacy, although more locally targeted racism,
say against Roma, can be equally dangerous. These different forms have emerged in
different countries at different times with varying degrees of force and danger, to some
extent the consequence of national histories and political cultures.

If, as in Scandinavia, it is possible to identify related but different forms of racism

(anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, white supremacy), these are … related to national
histories and national political cultures. The Nazi invasions of Denmark and
Norway in the 1940s make it close to impossible to be a Nazi nationalist in these
404 Öhrn and Weiner

countries today in the way that is possible in Sweden. So, similarly, there are dif-
ferent forms of anti-racism, different conceptions of racial equality and different
forms of multiculturalism across Europe. (Modood, 1997, p. 4)

Thus Modood suggests that as the forms of racism and history of racism differ across
Europe, so too will the strategies and educational policies needed, if they are seriously
to challenge or eliminate racism where it exists and flourishes in schools. So, one-size-
fits-all policy-making is clearly not an option here.
Terminology is of a considerable importance in this context. Central to the Western
European situation is the co-habitation of people from different ethnic backgrounds in
marginalized urban settings. While a highly diverse group, they are frequently homog-
enized as not belonging to the majority, mainly through skin color and language of ori-
gin. In many European countries, minorities are referred to as “immigrant,” however
long their period of residence. As shown by some of the contributions in this section,
this labeling is conceptualized differently. Newly immigrant youngsters in northern
Spain, interviewed by Zufiaurre and Peñalva, say they dislike being called “immi-
grants,” feel that their identities are lost in the word’s negative implications, and prefer
rather to be called “foreign.” In contrast, those interviewed by Sernhede in Sweden
claim a positive meaning of “immigrant” as a unifying concept. This latter group is well
established and considers itself to be tight clique which shares a criticism of mainstream
society and its position within it. For this group, claiming the concept of “immigrant” is
a political act and practice.

Identity, Disaffection and Critique

Aesthetic practices are central to the lives of youth today (McCarthy, 2004). Music,
dance, and clothes are used by youth to define themselves, to develop a sense of com-
munity, and also as for instance in rap and Hip Hop music, to develop and voice social
critique (Nolan & Anyon, 2004). Through this, they connect to other urban areas
across the globe. Sernhede (2007) discusses the “glocal” consciousness of
Hip Hop where north European youth relates to, and identifies with, Afro-American
culture especially in urban US settings. Such global belonging indicates the political
potential of youth cultures such as Hip Hop; and their importance for expressing social
criticism by ethnically differentiated sub-proletariats in European urbanities such as
London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Stockholm (Sernhede, 2002). However, we also sug-
gest that in drawing heavily on Afro-American experiences and struggles, young peo-
ple bring about a form of globalised “Americanisation.” Sernhede discusses the
influence of American “gangster-rap” which is critical of racism yet also articulates
contempt for women and romanticizes violence. Thus, identity and understandings are
“exported” to areas with different materialities and social problems, where they cru-
cially affect perceptions of neighborhood, gang conflict, peer and gender relations etc.
Following Willis (1977), recent research also shows urban working-class boys, both
“black” and “white,” as continuing to reject the intellectual ideals of schooling, as
largely “feminine” and middle class ( Kryger, 1990). However, we can also see infor-
mal learning taking place in the sense of identity work which challenges hegemonic
 Urban Education in Europe 405

understandings related to class, “race,” and gender. More systematic attempts to foster
non-hegemonic understandings can be seen in the work, for example, of Reay and Mirza,
(1997) who studied Saturday or evening schools run locally by groups in the commu-
nity. Sernhede (2007) likewise shows informal teaching and learning where young
urban men teach the younger ones about “black” or native Latin American history and
religion. By so doing, this informal teaching develops understandings of the present
and the past, about nations and the global, that challenge those presented in formal
schooling.

Social Class
Analyses of social class have largely disappeared from the mainstream agenda, with
criticism of grand theories that “championed” social class over other research issues
(Archer & Leathwood, 2003, p. 228). However, there has recently been a renewed focus
on theoretical analyses of social class to address prevailing social and economic
inequalities. For instance, Walkerdine (2003, p. 239) argues for the application of class
in relation to subjectivities “because the exploitation and oppression which class poli-
tics signals, though changed, has not ceased and no other political discourse has
emerged to explain or mobilise around these issues … .” Skeggs (2004) claims a
retreat from directly speaking about class within academic spaces, but while arguing
for the need to “reinvigorate class analysis” (p. 186), also notes “more recently … a
resurgence of interest in class in feminist theory, queer theory, geography, media stud-
ies, history, and in some parts of sociology” (p. 47). Ball (2003, p. 5) suggests that con-
temporary work on social class takes various forms one of which is: “class theory, the
attempt to define classes theoretically, and recently to incorporate race and gender within
such definitions … .” The latter is evident in recent research on gender, which theoreti-
cally emphasizes issues of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1995). It is argued that social
class needs to be understood in relation to ethnicity and “race,” as these become increas-
ingly relevant to contemporary Europe:

Within this new principle of urban organization, the forms of socio-economic

integration can no longer be understood solely in terms of class. More and more,
class tends to be combined with ethnicity. This can be seen in France where
debates over the poor suburbs and the efficacy of urban policy are systematically
linked to the presence of immigrants of North African origin and their social and
economic problems. (Cesari, 2005, p. 1016)

Ball (2003, p. 6) also notes a recent upsurge of empirical interest in the middle classes
but also that there is relatively little empirical or conceptual work on middle-class
practices. An exception is Agnes van Zanten (2005, 2007) who identifies different
meanings of globalization (in terms of greater international interdependence and
supranational integration) in education which affect different sections of the middle
class; for example, internationally-oriented entrepreneurs, managers, and professions
have wider opportunities than those whose training, activity and networks are more
nation-dependent, as in the case of public sector teachers and nurses.
406 Öhrn and Weiner

The employment of categories of class also differs between European countries

(Weiner, 2001). In Sweden, for instance, it has been noted that social class is not a con-
cept widely used in everyday life, as workers do not see themselves as belong to a spe-
cific class (Ahrne, Ekerwald, & Leiulfsrud, 1985). The situation shifted in the 1990s
with a dramatic rise in working class identity (Cigéhn, Johansson, & Karlsson, 2001,
p. 126) parallel to a period of economic restructuring involving reductions to the
welfare state, a rise in unemployment and a widening gap between rich and poor
(Bunar & Trondman, 2001). It is not evident, however, whether this trend is widely
shared in Europe and/or whether class identity inevitably sharpens at times of
economic retrenchment.

Democracy and Intervention

Democracy has been a leitmotif for the European Union, for example, in demands for
evidence of democratic governance before countries (such as Turkey) are allowed to
join. On the other hand, calls to democracy are not evident in many European school
or urban settings. Much European educational research has focused rather on the
restructuring of educational systems, in particular, taking account of decentralization,
deregulation, changes in governance, and advocacy of life-long learning. Studies have
also revealed discourses of creativity, choice, flexibility and initiative as well as
achievement and performance measurement, all seen as central to the development of
individualized, market-oriented education forms (Beach & Dovemark, 2005).
The emphasis on the individual is also visible in citizenship education, with a clear
shift in focus from collective democracy to emphasis on the uniqueness of the individ-
ual and the freedom of individual choice (Englund, 2003). In contemporary education,
issues of citizenship focus strongly on individual rights vis-à-vis the state and the
teaching of factual knowledge rather than, on a more critical political literacy
approach. Where democracy is consciously taught and practiced, it tends to focus sim-
ilarly on how individual students can self-monitor their own school performance
(Dovemark, 2004). While largely marginalized, more collective democratic forms are
evident which, for example, call attention to the lack of equal rights among school stu-
dents, the difficult situation of subordinated groups in schools and/or the existence of
and struggles against, racist practices (Öhrn, 2001).
A feature of the two Spanish articles in this section is the attempts at intervention
and compensation made by different, mainly socialist and left-leaning governments, to
equalize the educational opportunities and outcomes available. These forms of inter-
vention have a strong historical precedent in the Headstart program in the USA in the
1960s which sought to provide compensatory educational activities for young children
with families living below the poverty line, so that they had a better chance when
entering formal schooling. More recent European compensatory initiatives, often tar-
geted at urban schools, have likewise sought to help children benefit from conven-
tional education. However, what has seemed most effective is the economic support
given to low income families, rather than educational initiatives per se. However, most
influential of all, according to Rambla and Bonal (2007), are general features such as
the educational level of the region, public resources put into the local school system
and availability of youth employment.
 Urban Education in Europe 407

Introducing the Section Articles

The eight articles which constitute the basis of this section, come from seven coun-
tries in Western European; Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, and
Germany Most are based on empirical work at least to some extent, both qualitative
and quantitative, though come from different research traditions. Most also contain a
theoretical or explanatory element, though again this varies in degree between the dif-
ferent papers. All focus on urban education, but as we have tried to show in this intro-
duction, this is differently interpreted and labeled depending on national context but
also crossing national and continental boundaries as a consequence of globalization
and “travelling” policy-making.
The collection opens with Benjamin Zufiaurre and Alicia Peñalva’s article entitled
Globalisation and Glocalisation in Northern Spain: Ethnicity and Multicultural Edu-
cation which explores the impact of globalization on cities and the urban educational
consequences. “Glocalisation,” it is argued, is evident in the creation of a product or
service intended for the global market but customized to suit local cultures. The arti-
cle explores how glocal/urban educational approaches may be organized in order to
improve the experiences of newcomers, how citizenship can be achieved in global
world, and the role of schools in achieving this.
This is followed by Agnes van Zanten’s examination of the functioning of urban
schools in France entitled Educational Policies, Local Dynamics, and Segregation in
the Schools of the Parisian Periphery. She first presents a general model for analyzing
urban schools, developed after extensive research in the Paris area, which examines the
interplay between government policy, local education authorities, local political bod-
ies, and environmental configuration. This is followed by an analysis of how urban
schools respond to these various external and internal pressures. van Zanten identifies
five ideal types of “logics of action,” from monopolistic, entrepreneurial, and polar-
ized to anomic and engaged. The article ends with a discussion of the consequences for
schools of these logics of action on school segregation, ending with an expressed hope
for the future of “engaged” schools but also indicating concern about the lack of con-
ditions generally for sustainable improvement.
The third article in this section, by Tuula Gordon from Finland, is entitled Urban
Citizenship. Cities are examined here as political spaces where rights and duties of cit-
izenship can be enacted. Drawing on a range of empirical studies, both from Finland
and cross-nationally plus an extended research review, Gordon argues that the central
aim of schooling is the production of educated citizens capable of exercising such
rights, duties, and responsibilities. However, teaching about rights is often limited to
parliamentary democracy and the opportunity to vote, rather than addressing what is
most important to young people in the urban context and in relation to urban citizen-
ship. In particular, focus is placed on the ways in which the agency of young people in
urban settings can be fostered and facilitated.
The next two articles draw on substantial ethnographical and anthropological
research studies which examine the relationship of specific groups of excluded young
people, and their response to this exclusion. Ove Sernhede’s evocatively entitled article
Urbanization of Injustice, Immigrant Youth and Informal Schooling, with the subtitle
of The Global Tribe of Hip Hop and Immigrant Youth in “The New Sweden” examines
408 Öhrn and Weiner

how young people, seemingly marginalized by mainstream society and education,

fight back to reassert a positive identity for themselves. Using as a backdrop the wider
discussion of structural changes which have further exacerbated the living and working
conditions of immigrant families and workers in modern European cities, Sernhede
draws on his study of young males in a segregated, immigrant-dominated, Swedish city
suburb to reveal a politically articulate group who see themselves as soldiers, repre-
sentatives, and spokespersons for the “new underclass.” Sernhede notes further that
this group of Hip Hoppers provides for itself, a form of alternative informal education
involving a “critical theory of street” referring to their own situation in relation to the
history of colonialism as well as to contemporary discrimination and inequalities in
Swedish society.
The excluded group that Francesca Gobbo explores in her study are the children of
fairground people, in particular, “travelling attractionists,” that is, those responsible for
presenting the entertainments at travelling fairs. Gobbo’s article Between the Road and
the Town: the Education of Travelling Attractionists. An ethnographic study is included
in this Handbook, because it shows that urban environments are not static but rather
are ever-changing not only in historical terms but regularly throughout the yearly cycle
of human activity. Based on a recent three-year ethnographic research study among
fairground and circus families of the town and villages of the Veneto region of North
Italy, Gobbo discusses the changing impact on urban life that traveling attractions have
had since the end of World War II, the learning and teaching that a nomadic life entails,
and the schooling experiences of nomadic children as problematic in terms of equality
of opportunity. Gobbo concludes that the lives such families lead between the road and
town reveal behaviors, attitudes, values, and skills that intertwine nomadic and urban
cultures in an interesting way. Attractionists and their children develop a “double cul-
tural framework” that enables them to accept aspects of the sedentary culture at the
same time as holding on to their own style of life. The manner in which parents pass
on their knowledge to their children through informal education, Gobbo suggests,
helps researchers and teachers alike to question current educational givens and what
needs to be included in the future.
There is a change of direction at this stage, to the specific implications of educational
policy, pedagogical practice and teacher education. In an article entitled The Limits of
Compensatory Education In Spain: A Comparative Analysis of Some Autonomous
Governments, Xavier Rambla and Xavier Bonar offer an analysis of educational sys-
tems, policies and their implications for inequalities in the Spanish context. The main
focus is a comparative analysis of compensatory education programs implemented by
autonomous governments. What is revealed is that the most decisive factor in terms of
completion of secondary education is family education level and educational aspirations,
followed by regional development and policy implementation. It is these general factors
rather than specially designed intervention strategies that seem most influential. However,
Rambla and Bonar argue that educational interventions have their uses, in particular, in
terms of stimulating the pedagogic imagination and opening new channels of communi-
cation.
This is followed by a chapter entitled Dutch Urban Schools and Teachers’ Profes-
sionalism by Yvonne Leaman from the Netherlands which focuses on the professional
 Urban Education in Europe 409

identity of teachers in urban schools. It begins with an overview of urban schooling in the
Netherlands which emphasizes diversity and segregation, school success and the polit-
ical context, and then examines two research projects relating to urban schooling; first,
on the development of ethnically mixed schools, and second, regarding the promotion
of respect and trust among pupils. The article concludes with a discussion of the pro-
fessional skills needed for teachers in urban settings, namely the ability to learn on-
the-job and combine teaching and care for pupils alongside a necessary professional
detachment.
The final article in this section is entitled Urban Regions and their Potential for Teacher
Education: the example of Hamburg, written by Eva Arnold, Johannes Bastian, and
Wilfried Kossen. In the article the authors argue that urban regions can be a fruitful
ground for innovative teacher education for two reasons. First, in urban regions the
organisation of teacher education can benefit from the proximity of institutions that
contribute to the academic education and the in-service training of teachers. This
closeness provides an opportunity for regular contacts between institutions and thus
facilitates the development of innovative solutions. Second, in urban regions the con-
tent of teacher education can benefit from the challenges provided by the daily life of
city schools. Social problems such as poverty, unemployment, or migration are more
prominent in urban areas and therefore more challenging to schools and teacher edu-
cation. Schools attempt to address these challenges through developing innovative
pedagogical concepts and also seek to involve lecturers, students, and teacher-trainees
in various ways. Collaboration between schools and universities, it is argued, are par-
ticularly helpful in the development of innovative solutions that can be generalized to,
and utilized in, other educational settings. Examples are provided from a recent period
of change in teacher education in Hamburg.
It is our hope, from our introduction and the articles that make up the main part of
this section, that readers gain a sense of the range of issues pertaining to urban educa-
tion that are currently attracting the attention of educational researchers and practi-
tioners in Western Europe. While clearly not a coherent field as perhaps in the USA,
European urban education is potentially dynamic and productive and will, perhaps as
a response to material and social changes within Europe, become a more conscious
and coherent body of knowledge and research for the future.

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22

GLOBALISATION AND GLOCALISATION

IN NORTHERN SPAIN: URBAN EDUCATION,
ETHNICITY AND MULTICULTURAL ISSUES

Benjamín Zufiaurre and Alicia Peñalva

Public University of Navarra, Spain

Introduction: Global and Glocal Order of Development

The long period of economic development from the end of World War II until the 1973
oil crisis, left the three decades that followed dependent not only on new technological
development but also on the reconstruction of what had been destroyed. Political factors
relating to world-wide liberalisation, international exchange and commerce also played
a role. Until the 1970s, the Keynesian move (Trinidad, 2005) helped to push forward
social welfare security systems, the most important of which were education, health,
housing, and social policies. This happened in a scenario of almost full employment,
where people had the purchasing power to become consumers.
Across Europe, this model was applied in different ways according to the dominant
political tendencies of each country. Scandinavian countries (e.g., the Swedish model)
of social welfare however (Greve, 1996), offered a contrast with Italy or Spain. For
example, the economic and political situation in southern European countries was not
so optimal for investment in welfare, but just on pushing forward. But the move was also
the result of a general political climate that favoured State supervision of market and pro-
duction issues, and revealed a lack of confidence in free capitalism (Moreno, 2003).
A conservative political revolution during early 1980s followed this “welfare turn” in
Europe. At that time (1980), progressive internal policies aimed at pushing European
prosperity forward were held to blame. The new move to the right affected both pro-
gressive and conservative positions (Mishra, 1989). One of the first consequences was
that full employment was no longer considered a priority. At the same time, high
salaries and a good standard of social security were considered a threat to the success
of a globalized economy.
The internationalisation of the economy, mass migration, and the very process
involved in the construction of Europe transcending State politics, are all linked to this
later move. In later years, citizens became disillusioned with politics during a time of
energy crisis, political failures, and environmental chaos. This was the context for
413
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© 2007 Springer.
414 Zufiaurre and Peñalva

the non-stop war against “so called” international terrorism (witness on one side the
consequences of September 11 in the USA, or March 11 in Madrid, but also the start of
the long-term crisis in the British concept of multiculturalism after July 7, in London,
and the crisis of the French Republican intercultural model (Aparicio, 2000) after 2005
autumn and winter revolts mainly in their cities).
In the European context, discussion is now gathering apace over what is best for the
future: liberal, or social market models. While the fall of the Berlin wall opened up the
future for capitalism, with benefits for multinational enterprises, nearly a hundred
countries across the world saw their economic situation actually deteriorate from 1999
onwards (Rifkin, 2004). Instead of reducing disparities, globalisation increased them.
The consequence is that the poor do not benefit from the technologically advanced
areas of global space (Estefanía, 1996). Many of them have no access either to the tele-
phone or to electricity. Meanwhile, sustainable development and environmental pro-
tection have not found their proper space. Some countries and people waste and pollute,
while others die of starvation. Capitalist-controlled globalisation, once justified as a
way towards a peaceful and stable world, has left one that is less secure and gripped by
fear, as disparities between countries and between people widen.
A wide open market left to function on its own is an illusion; it does not evolve for the
better but simply helps to concentrate power and money in fewer hands and widen wel-
fare gaps. As a consequence, the rich get richer, while the rest of the world gets poorer,
the environment is polluted, vast numbers of people migrate and whole territories are
deserted.
It is at this point that capitalism in need of new ways forward (Rifkin, 2004) entered
debates already opened by anti-globalisation groups and various international
organisations such as UNESCO, United Nations, Organisation for Cooperation and
Development, etc. The argument here is that, in an interconnected world, we are all
dependent on each other, all of us are vulnerable and need others in order to survive
(Chomsky & Dieterich, 1997). The way out, or humankind’s hope, to use the words
of Rifkin (2004), depends on finding a new balance between market enterprise and
democratic development.
It also means adjusting social programs and the social network to achieve an equitable
redistribution of market benefits. It is at this point that the need arises for policies to
favour the integration of immigrants (a consequence of global movement) into society.
While from a conservative point of view this may be seen as the crushing of market
incentives, from a progressive perspective, it represents a move towards managing devel-
opment and/or improvement without jeopardising market incentives. This is the debate
underlying the restructuring of the European Union and Europe’s Constitutional debate.
From our point of view (Peñalva & Zufiaurre, 2007), the outcome of this debate
should be the adoption of strategies to deal with immigration at the social and educa-
tional levels, as a necessary condition for the future social integration and social
mobility of ethnically mixed European citizens of the world.
Migrations are a consequence of movement in the global capitalist order. The world’s
excluded move northwards (mainly from Africa and South America) and westwards
(mainly from Eastern Europe or Eastern Asia), and the less developed towards more
developed spaces in the world (Coppel, Dumont, & Visco, 2001). Movement is also
 Globalisation and Glocalisation in Northern Spain 415

occurring within countries, between regions. The concentration of capital and uneven
development world-wide, leads the world’s population to come together in more devel-
oped areas, which results in a variety of consequences for civil society and the reorgan-
isation of development (De Lucas & Naïr, 1999). This raises new challenges: how to deal
with environmental problems, how to find a balance in the organisation of urban areas or
urbanities (which includes cities and their areas of influence), how to mix different peo-
ple with different life-styles, cultural values and religions, and how to organise populated
areas to be both open and secure. The central question here and now is how to build inte-
grated glocal urbanities in a global open world.
Globalisation and glocalization theories and practices can help us to focus this move.
Some authors insist that this represents a new postcolonial move (McCarthy, 1994,
2004), others, that it is about thinking globally and acting glocally (Forrest, 2005). The
point, is that the tides of growth in a cosmopolitan world, influence and transform the
way in which the education of youth is considered. At a glocal/urban level, national
and global considerations come together. Glocalisation takes on its meaning, say in the
creation of a product or service, intended for the global market but custo-mised to suit
local cultures (Roberts, 1997). The demand for more competent citizens to navigate in
global, social, economic, political and educational arenas, and the varying contextual
behaviours and experiences, can marginalise individuals or citizens from developing
nations, either in their countries of origin or at the point of migration.
Across the world, migration raises new demands. That is why issues of cultural and
linguistic diversity need to be addressed while civil rights movements demand demo-
cratic equality (Forrest, 2005). The challenge of glocalisation is that it reveals knowl-
edge of life experiences and cultures involved in a conception of “urban education” in
a global context within which humans move. At local, national, and global levels, there
is a web of interdependency in discourses, practices and services. Citizens in a global
society need to be prepared for the wider world, once human options transcend con-
ventional geopolitical and cultural boundaries. The identity of the individual, however,
is shaped by local forces: knowing, acting, and caring, to use the words of Forrest
(2005). That is why, in education, we need to focus on conditions for glocalization,
equal participation in learning in society, interdependence and mobility of cultures,
negotiation of space, time and resources, flexibility, and the mastery of generic but
also transferable and trans-national skills.

The Co-existence of Multiple Cultures in Modernity

As a consequence of globalisation and the internationalisation of economic development,
modern States are changing, and new patterns of growth evolving. This calls for a new
definition of world-wide citizenship which frames “urban education,” once immi-
grants assume a role in global construction. That is why the United Nations calls for
actions,1 and proposes to double the admission of immigrants to Europe by the year
2050 in order to balance the ageing of the European population and low birth rate, and
at the same time, includes protection of the diversity of cultural identities, and promotion
of the political representation of ethnic and religious minorities. This represents the
416 Zufiaurre and Peñalva

opening borders to new cultures, ideas and people, while also preparing a response to
linguistic, religious, cultural and ethnic conflict, in order to balance the so-called,
“clash among civilisations” (UNPD, 2004).
However, according to the U.N., while measures are being demanded for the positive
discrimination of disadvantaged groups in order to make the necessary changes in soci-
ety (UNPD, 2004), little progress has been made towards progressive immigration
policies in the developed world (Zufiaurre, 2006). On the contrary, the European
Community Resolutions, for instance, have developed more restrictive policies to deal
with the wave of migration that began with the economic crisis of the 1970s. As a result,
the immigration issue is viewed largely with fear (Fernández, 2002, p. 535).
This is taking place at a time when the European Union is in the process of prioritis-
ing a range of measures: for example, to promote fertility (France, Italy, and other coun-
tries have plans in place for this), legalise illegal workers (Germany has advanced in this
direction), reform social services by promoting more generous social assistance within
the framework of a more flexible labour market (the Scandinavian model), postpone the
retirement age (currently under discussion in the UK and other countries), and open dif-
ferent countries to immigrants (there are no clear policies on this so far, De la Dehesa,
2004), but Spain2 has recently initiated a process.
Paradoxically, while tolerance, social cohesion, peaceful coexistence, and pluralism,
can be considered European ideals (Malgesini, 1988), immigration policies in Europe
result in precarious job situations and poor living conditions for immigrants. As a con-
sequence, while the numbers of illegal immigrants are growing, racism and xenopho-
bia are also on the increase, and human rights undermined (Kymlicka, 1995) to protect
Europeans in the name of security (Zufiaurre, Albertin, & Baquero, 2005, p. 35). In
this process, we return to the idea of national states, plural but homogeneous, pro-
posed by Heller (1993, p. 14) within the framework of a closed, essentialist culture that
generates wariness towards foreigners.
For the European nation-state, the trend with regard to immigration is for policies
with common guidelines (Fernández, 2002, p. 535). Migration is restricted by laws
aimed at integrating immigrants in a reflection of the familiar immigrants needed but
not wanted paradox in so-called open Europe (Abad, 2002, p. 460). Immigrants can-
not be considered full citizens while immigration policies are based on control, secu-
rity, restricted entry, repatriation, job precariousness, etc. Thus, despite evidence that
immigration contributes to activating the economy and promoting development, we
are still a long way from implementing global reception strategies for the guarantee
of entry and residence, integration, and the defence of common rights (Naïr, 2002,
pp. 17–18).

The Formation of Nation States

Western countries have been defined, not only historically, but also culturally, socially,
politically and economically. Their very definition as countries is barely, if at all, prob-
lematic, unlike Eastern territories, according to Hillmann (2001) and Wallerstein (1999).
A state in the western context is the joint political, legal and administrative institution,
 Globalisation and Glocalisation in Northern Spain 417

that manages, influences and controls a bounded territory and its population. States are
defined as nation states when they involve one nation and the views of one people, and
as pluri-nation states, when their dominion and influence extends over several nations
or peoples. This means that pre-modern models of community cease to exist under the
authority of modern nation states. However, to face a world global order, we should take
account of past community organisations, and reference to urban contexts and medieval
city states (Venice, for example) help us to frame our arguments from glocalisation
perspectives.
Nations, as historic phenomena, emerged, properly speaking, after the French revo-
lution, as a combination of cultural, historic and economic characteristics. However,
not every community is considered to be a nation; it first needs to be defined as a state
and recognised and accepted by its citizens. The idea of nation appears linked to the
socio-cultural reality of a group of people joined together by their cultural, ethnic, lin-
guistic and historic characteristics, and habits (Touraine, 1997), while states, as legal
and political realities, are the result of supreme power over the population inhabiting a
territory. In a different sense, while states are not been framed with homogeneous pop-
ulations but are identified and differentiated with specific national identities, for
Habermas (1991) multicultural societies emerge from nation states as new social
models were forged based on different groups of population with diverse cultures in
imperial Europe of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Hillmann, 2001, p. 848).
They became organised under the framework of nation states, and/or multi-ethnic and
multinational states (Kymlicka, 1995; Lamo de Espinosa, 1995), and developed fol-
lowing further migrations. In this sense, national diversity becomes a condition of mul-
ticultural nation states, even before recent migratory movements were characterised as
post-modern.
Modernity, as a cultural and ideological form, expanded beyond western borders
during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Its political, economic,
social, cultural, geographic, productive and scientific ideas spread and colonized the
world (Hillmann, 2001) with the development of communications, trade and economic
power (Wallerstein, 1999; Warnier, 1999). As a universal model, modernity restricted
other cultural and evolutionary options (Gray, 1995; Habermas, 1989) and evolved fur-
ther into a model that reinterpreted other cultural bodies in its own image (Dumont,
1987, p. 42). Thus this modern project gave rise to a new universal order of production
and distribution based on new urban organisations, which replaced former community
spaces.
During the nineteenth century, both cultural and economic modern forms became
the most perfect expression of what it is to be a human being (Clifford, 1995) with
political institutions created to safeguard humans, while economic institutions perpet-
uated modern civilisation in the form of national liberal democracies and under the
framework of nation states. Cultural pluralism thus merged within unique national cul-
tures. Now globalisation has changed this modern order with clear demands for
change (see the debates around the new European Constitution, similar in a way to the
debates concerning the new Statutes of Autonomy in Spain). New democratic models
are needed to transform the order of modernity, and joint agreements or settlements
need to be renewed. Democracy affects humans, and so far, issues of identity and the
418 Zufiaurre and Peñalva

right to decide have been exercised mainly by the colonisers, not the colonised. The
rights and duties in a democracy belong to humans, not to territories or whichever
political power happens to be in control.

The Complexity of the Nation Building Process in Spain

The transformation of Europe into a social and economic model (Vidal Villa, 1998, p. 15)
has helped to bolster the world wide capitalist economic system. European societies
became historically and culturally defined through a modern western cultural project,
while economic and political development became redefined as the modernisation of
societies based on social and productive development. What started as the economic
change from agriculture-based capitalism to industrial capitalism was framed as world-
wide modernisation based on technical and scientific progress.
However, while the economic order in Europe is quite clearly defined, political
organisation is in a state of flux. Similarly, in Spain, the political order which followed
the decentralisation of the State in the form of the creation of Autonomous Com-
munities is now in trouble, in particular, with the redefinition of the new Statutes of
Autonomy started after 2005, and with the acknowledged demands of historic nations or
nationalities such as the Basque Country and Catalonia. While modern nations, tied to
their historic deficits, resist the changes of a global world that is no longer in need of
the nation state but of newly developed, well-communicated, technologically equipped
urbanities ready to produce and compete and ready to be educated and urbanized
together, nation states are also resistant to the internal changes arising in the
global–glocal move. European states resist European integration, while Spain also
resists the necessary internal changes, another example of modernity resisting further
evolution.
The nation state building process in Spain was shaped in a different way from other
European countries. While most European countries completed their national integra-
tion processes more or less successfully, the ruling class in Spain failed to lead the
population towards a national identity (Brenan, 1962), or a common consciousness
(Ortega, 1922). In this context, the organisation of the state into Autonomous
Communities (1978, Constitutional Law) is simply an attempt to find a solution to his-
toric deficits in the organisation of Spain as a nation state, an attempt to redefine the
nation state building process dating back to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.3 The
question here, however, is whether there exists a common inclusive and democratic
project in Europe, or Spain. Are the already diverse societies of Europe ready to open up
to diverse cultures, multiple realities of life, and multiple languages? Can immigrants
come to an already diverse Europe and/or an already diverse Spain, and be allowed to
be diverse while at the same time become integrated in society?
This drives us to further questioning from the point of view of the influence of civil
societies in a multi-national building of Europe as a political entity, or of Spain as a
multi national state. Is Europe becoming a collection of nation states, or national iden-
tities? And under this frame, where is space for a multi-national Spain? Will it be sim-
ilar to a Europe of nation states, or a diverse Europe of citizens, or of people, as it is
 Globalisation and Glocalisation in Northern Spain 419

usually known? Are we just talking about an economic European Union based on state
policies alongside trans-national moves? And what about the multiethnic, multicul-
tural, plurilinguistic reality and development of the different Spains (Barrenechea,
1982; Brenan, 1962; Fernández Santos, 1982)?
Certainly, to seek answers to these questions nation-state suggests different implica-
tions. Once modern nation-state building is characterised as a historically – determined
body of construction in modernity, what is there to change through globalisation? And
here we have to take account of the process of this body construction (Baumann, 2005;
Bourdieu, 1990). For example, Anglo-American societies were built out of civil soci-
eties, through a liberal revolution (US), or middle class revolution (UK). Other
European countries have been established by means of state bureaucracy (France,
Germany, Spain and others). In the case of the latter, the nation-building process is a
kind of political religion (or feeling of patriotism towards the nation state), which is
resistant to change and outside influences (Gil Calvo, 2005). When we face a new
global move all this is to be taken into account. We see that there are multiple implica-
tions. And it is at this point where urbanities or urban social contexts, based on common
development and joint construction of interrelated and integrated areas and population,
could develop a meaning. And it is here that “urban education” makes a sense.

Migratory Movements Shaping Cultural Life

Migratory movements occur as a result of the search for somewhere to work and earn
a living by people unable to work in their countries of origin as a consequence of
globalisation and colonisation. Migratory movements, therefore, have clear economic,
political, social and cultural implications (Naïr, 2001, 2002, 2003). However, while
goods are produced and sold in one or other nation, school systems are built to prepare
students to interact. Whatever that means in a borderless global market, it becomes
important to build a multileveled community involving the blurring of political bound-
aries and the creation of collective identities.
The factual global world with its migratory flows, cannot be represented merely as a
clash of cultures set one against another. There exists an explosive mixture of scarcely
integrated civilisations that present themselves not as homogeneous blocks but as com-
plex and unwieldy. The world appears unified at technological, economic and, to some
extent, cultural levels (Baumann, 2005), but the world becomes less unified when seen
glocally. Globalisation spreads from the world of economy and finance to other
perceptions of reality, but leaves aside important features of human organisations.
While consumer market mechanisms exclude people and their human needs, the
global context forces changes in human lifestyles. In the process, people struggle to
break out of this vicious circle searching for a new definition of personal space and
private life (Maalouf, 1999). It is here that “urban education” makes a sense while
local and glocal references gain importance.
In this context, it is no wonder that developed societies are indifferent towards the
well being of immigrants, or how they should be treated. How can people who are
themselves lost in the global move be expected to care for newcomers? The eternal
420 Zufiaurre and Peñalva

enemy is the economic situation. When it is favourable, immigrants become mobile,

find opportunities and spaces. When the time is less propitious, people turn against new-
comers (De Lucas & Naïr, 1999). This is the current situation in Spain and in Europe,
with a not unexpected negative effect on the process of European convergence.
How, then, does the settlement of immigrants fit into the process of reconstructing
national identities in Spain, with its pluri-national, multilingual environment? In
Spain, this is particularly significant in Catalonia and the Basque Country, and to a
certain extent, in Galicia and Navarra, although it may also affect other territories
(Barrenechea, 1982; Fernández Santos, 1982; Ortega, 1922). Spain has rarely taken
into consideration the perspectives or positions of national identities in its approach to
the settlement of immigrants. While immigrants come in search of a place to work and
live, resources are allocated only to control the tide of immigrants, not to provide bet-
ter experiences for those who succeed in entering, or to help them integrate into a
framework of different languages, and cultural and contextual priorities. As a result,
the feelings and practices of national identities turn on ethnic debates and problems of
violence (Zapata Barrero, 2004, 2005). These discourses neglect the conditions for
successful integration, thus creating ghettos and lack of communication in pluri-
national global societies.
In the Basque Country and in Navarra, two northern Autonomous Communities in
Spain, cultural and linguistic values are now reaching a point of recovery. There is a long
history relating to how Basque schools, the Ikastolas, contribute to defining a cultural
identity. Their educational approach, based on the idea of solidarity and cooperation, is
aimed at preventing the loss of the Basque national identity and culture while building a
new framework of pluralism, coeducation and democratic values. Their sense of cultural
recovery is based on the idea of dynamic identity factors (López Goñi & Aldaz, 2005)
and on processes of linguistic acquisition, academic motivation, and effective active
educational strategies for immersion in the Basque culture and language. In this cultural
context, the as yet limited experience of the Basque schools with immigrant students,
can be positively assessed for the level of care, attention and motivation.
Minor nations, or Autonomous Communities as they are called in Spain, have rights,
and should have the option to identify themselves as multicultural and be recognised. The
immigration policies of nation states make things difficult for minor nations unless they
have the resources to organise their own immigration processes. Immigration affects
communal development processes in the different cultural communities, and unless the
process is tied to the contextual reality of the territory concerned, it may fail and lead to
racism, exclusion and undemocratic attitudes.4 Immigrants tend to adapt to the major
cultures, that is, the universal and/or the mass media culture, and also to the basic
dominant national cultural expressions. But since immigration has a kind of a mirror
effect, both at the individual and social level, immigration policies needs new govern-
ing principles which should be locally adjusted, and autonomously settled, under a
common framework in order to open the way for a political expression of national iden-
tity. This means, giving the initiative to citizens, rather than delegating it to modern
state-based politics of representation, in order to solve the distances between citizens
and politics, and also the tension between bureaucracy and citizenship.
 Globalisation and Glocalisation in Northern Spain 421

Immigration a Problematic Issue Changing Within Time

Spain, a former exporter of immigrants to Europe and South America as a consequence
of the Civil War (1936–1939), has experienced two separate migratory processes with
different influences. On the one side, there have been internal migration from Southern,
Central and Western parts of Spain, to the North and Northeast, where industry devel-
oped in mid twentieth century, which has been followed by later moves from rural to
urban areas. Both processes have had their impact on North and East Spanish historic
communities, or nationalities, such as Catalonia, the Basque Country, and Navarra.
More recently, however, since the late 1990s, Spain has experienced a wave of an
external first generation immigration from other parts of the world for various economic
and political reasons, reaching the point at which a country that was a past exporter of
migrants to other European countries, and to North and South America, is now a receiver.
In 2002, for example, the immigrant population in Spain totalled 2,672,596, or 6.3%
(rounded up to one decimal point of the total population, an increase of nearly 40% since
2001, no less than 1% of the total population per year). In December, 2005, the figure
stood at nearly 4 million, not including illegal immigrants (INE, 2005). The country’s total
population was just over to 44 million, and of these, 9% were legal immigrants.5 This
means that the number of immigrants multiplied seven fold since 1995 (by 2007 over 10%
of the population), the birth rate having risen from 1.1 to 1.3%, while the proportion of
inter-country adoptions also increased by around 40% these last years (Sandell, 2005).
Immigration in Spain exhibits similar characteristics to various European coun-
tries which require special attention and special measures, not only at central state
level and/or in Autonomous Communities, but also at urban and/or glocal levels.
However, while the different migratory groups share some similarities in Spain, they
are also diverse (Zufiaurre, 2006). South-Americans share the same language, poli-
tics and social relations; East-Europeans share some cultural values and a new proj-
ect, that of Europe; North-Africans share a common neighbourhood. They all move,
like others, such as the Asians, because of their own specific needs. They contribute
to the development of the country while the framework for the provision of immi-
grants is influenced by different approaches to multiculturalism based on different
European models: (1) cultural assimilation aimed at a common citizenship; (2) a
form of liberal, social diversity, framed by labour market needs; (3) the needs of the
labour force but not as equal citizens (Aparicio, 2000); (4) targeted towards common
citizens.
It is in this context that Spain has to deal with issues such as co-existence, tolerance,
national identity, social cohesion, etc., within a common framework of nation state, but
also in relation to national identities and cultural pluralism. And now that there has
been a break from Europe’s former permissive immigration policies aimed at develop-
ment and growth, that is the “colonial model” that fitted the situation in the Europe of
the 1950s (Abad, 2002), or in Jones (1983) words: “at the time of post war consensus,”
immigration is currently viewed as a problem that affects Spain like other developed
countries, as a result of the Third World’s inability to support its adverse economic sit-
uation (quoted in Ghosh, 1988, pp. 25–27).
422 Zufiaurre and Peñalva

Spain thus faces an urgent need to address the consequences of immigration in a

positive way (Zufiaurre, 2006). In other words, the moment has come to create an inte-
grative intercultural model based on democratic principles and a participatory dynamic
of socialisation and educational inclusion. Social and educational measures are
necessary to aid immigrants, since by doing so, they help Europeans to maintain the
crucial balance between an active population and the elderly (Moreno, 2003).
At this point, if we consider the problematic of immigration from the point of view of
workers needed but not wanted (Abad, 2002, p. 460), it should be noted that the esti-
mated working population of Europe (or those available for work) will have fallen by
about 40 million by 2050 and, by that time, there will be 40 million more pensioners
(De la Dehesa, 2004, p. 6). The clear consequence, therefore, is that Europe needs immi-
grants and that we should care about how they arrive and what kind of life awaits them
once they are here (Zufiaurre et al., 2005, p. 38).

The Integration of Immigrant Students:

Trying to Find Explanations
Our enquiry into immigration and schooling is a part of a wider research project aimed
at analysing and assessing the educational, social and labour situation of immigrants in
Spain. In this overall process, we have investigated the conditions in different schools,
social settings, and families, both in urban and rural areas, which has produced some
interesting results with respect to how Spain is approaching the issue of the inclusion
and exclusion of immigrants at the beginning of the twenty-first century (Peñalva &
Zufiaurre, 2007a, 2007b; Zufiaurre et al., 2005; Zufiaurre, 2006). This includes reflec-
tions on issues such as school attainment, the social expectations of immigrants, options
for socialisation, the integration of cultural diversity, the influence of immigrants’
family backgrounds, the importance of school partnership, the problematic of school
languages, the influence of school course content and behaviour, and so on.
In this paper, we report on surveys conducted during 2002 and 2003 in four Secondary
schools in the city of Pamplona and its outskirts, in the Autonomous Community of
Navarra, a relatively wealthy region in northern Spain. In each school we surveyed a
total of 12 students in two groups, a 12–14 year-old group and a 14–16 year-old group,
with equal numbers of boys and girls at each level, and three students from each school
grade. The four schools concerned were selected for two reasons: firstly, because they
were in the city of Pamplona or its outskirts and had the highest immigrant populations
in the whole city; and, secondly, because the teachers in these secondary schools were
willing to co-operate. In July 2004, we tried to re-interview the same students, but
nearly half of them were no longer at the same school. They had either left school for
work, or moved school due to changed housing availabilities. In these cases, we
exchanged impressions with school supervisors about attendance and expectations
among immigrants in the school.
For the surveys in the schools mentioned, detailed questionnaires were followed up by
group interviews, round table debates with the eight groups (two in each school), inter-
views with head-teachers and supervisors, exchange of impressions with immigrant
 Globalisation and Glocalisation in Northern Spain 423

families and with various associations involved in assisting the needs of immigrants.
Further surveys in 2003, 2004 and 2005, were also conducted in a primary school with
about 80% immigrants in the city of Pamplona, working in a form of urban–rural com-
munality with just over 30% immigrants and where the school and social environment
combined to provide conditions conducive to immigrants. We also surveyed a secon-
dary school in the Basque Country, in an area near the city of San Sebastian, where an
innovative immigrant student reception programme had been devised and implemented.
From all these experiences, we have been able to make overall comparisons and
draw conclusions about how young immigrants develop at school, among their class-
mates, in different social and cultural settings, and with different global and glocal
customs and languages. In addition, we conducted parallel studies into how immi-
grants and their cultures and countries of origin are treated in secondary schools social
science textbooks (Peñalva & Zufiaurre, 2007a). Thus the conclusions presented here
are drawn from research into the roles of immigrants in a global–glocal society where
they move in search of work and the chance to make a new life. We are particularly
interested in how they behave, how they are treated, how they cope with social net-
works, what options immigrants have at school, and how they improve their chances
for the future. It is our belief that an explicit understanding of these issues will enable
us to make comparisons with the conditions of immigrants in other parts of Spain and
other European countries.
The social and educational realities are as follow: young people’s migratory process
had generally been planned by their parents, one arriving first, and followed later by
children and other members of the family. The geographical and cultural origin of the
students concerned varied: 20 are from Ecuador, 6 from Colombia, 3 from Argentina,
2 from Brazil, 1 from Peru, 1 from Chile, 1 from Honduras, 1 from Dominican Republic,
3 from Bulgaria, 2 from Romania, 2 from Ukraine, 3 from Morocco and 1 from Senegal
(in other surveys, these have been more Eastern Europeans’ and Africans’). Sixty percent
of these students had been in Pamplona for one year, 32% between one and two years,
and 8% between two and three years. Sixty-one percent live in Pamplona with both par-
ents, brothers, sisters and other members of an often large family, while 29% live only
with their mothers. Only 10% live with both parents, brothers and sisters.
In all circumstances, we report on recent immigration, mostly between 2000 and
2005. However, when we tried to revisit the research settings a year and a half later,
we found that we could not exchange impressions with the same students, since more
than half had left the school, and we could have easily inferred that cohabitation
between the native population and immigrants occurs on a regular basis while integra-
tion policies and practices do not have much support. Fourteen and fifteen year-old
youngsters are mature enough and cognitively developed to have their own ideas about
the social, cultural and educational reality they live, and also their future possibilities.
These students, have indeed had previous school, social and cultural experiences. They
have been uprooted and compelled to leave their friends and relations behind.
Consequently, they have a provisional view of their circumstances of life. They must
move house and school if their family circumstances and labour situations demand it,
and they also have to change their linguistic, cultural and personal values if they wish
to adapt to their new migratory situation.
424 Zufiaurre and Peñalva

These students dislike being called “immigrants,” preferring to be considered

“foreign students.” Many are at the adolescent stage when they are suffering major
physical and psychological changes, which make them insecure, emotionally disori-
ented, and low in self-esteem. In relation to this, the questions in the survey focused on
issues such as the differences they noticed at the educational, social, and cultural level,
between their previous and current surroundings. These included different ways of
working at school and interacting with teachers, difficulties in school subjects, the
expressions they use, rough behaviour, rough speech or swearwords used by their class-
mates, different cultural values, differences in social behaviour, different meals and
types of food, different ways of conducting interpersonal relationships, lack of neigh-
bourliness, and so on.
These youngsters report experiencing the loss of their personal environment and
former friends, and the effects of changes on their frames of reference, cultural mod-
els, cultural customs, social settings, family structure, academic and social references,
daily habits and customs, etc. They are forced to make a double or even triple adapta-
tion: new friends, a new way of life, new school and social norms, new spaces and new
people to get used to. They need to find their identity in their global context, but also
in the new glocal context. Different cultural values, and different cultural identities are
thrown together as a consequence of their migratory movements, while different indi-
vidual identities form a fragmented crossbred cultural framework. They are faced with
the difficult task of acknowledging and integrating such diversity. Barbadillo, (1997)
calls this the “collective imaginary,” where young immigrants are viewed as different,
and are socially perceived as different, and unequal. At least this is what youngsters
report.
Immigrant students report feeling segregated throughout the whole process of
social, cultural and school integration, and in their new glocal space, feel relegated to
a lower status. Most of them have transferred from private to state schools, where they
are required to behave differently, change the way they live, dress, eat, and behave, to
be accepted. But they feel lost and insecure because they are not familiar with the
dominant socio-cultural patterns. It is hard for them to establish new relationships in
new geographical surroundings with a different culture and urban environment, and,
although they are reluctant to see themselves as part of a ghetto, or separate group,
they are aware of being considered different, not fully accepted.
While still at school, it is easy for them to become friends with their schoolmates.
They mostly trust school staff and feel close to them. However, it becomes more diffi-
cult, especially with non-immigrant friends, once they leave. They feel quite lonely,
with no one to confide their secrets to. They feel that their relationships are cold,
although they get by with one or two close friendships. Their relationships with their
teachers, however, is closer than in their countries of origin, while mentorship and
school guidance schemes help to draw them into the school community. The security
they find at school stems mostly from this professional attention, as a first condition in
the organisation of proper “urban education” practices.
Their worries for the future are related to their family, their friends, how their lives
will evolve in Pamplona and Spain, and whether they will be able to attain a better life
in future employment after leaving school. They all want to study before seeking work,
 Globalisation and Glocalisation in Northern Spain 425

in order to improve their living conditions. Their family, job and health concerns can
be addressed in these new surroundings. They feel odd but determined to progress
while trying not to think too much about returning to their countries of origin. They
belong to a global culture, but they have to cope in a glocal context with its different
norms and customs, and they claim always to be ready to integrate into the new cultural
values, Basque, Spanish, or whatever, if they are offered opportunities to do so.
Their references for integrating are those of the dominant culture, despite their
different identities. They feel fragmented, but the uncertainty of the future pushes them
to do their best in order to prosper. How long will they accept this situation? This is not
at all clear, since society is not willing to give them the same opportunities as other cit-
izens. Immigrants notice, for example, that their fathers (90% of the cases), or mothers
(95% of the cases), or other relatives in the labour market, are in second class jobs with
little chance of promotion. So, they lack confidence in the future, and feel socially mar-
ginalised, though less so at school. This shows the seeds for problems which arise later.
They do not feel represented in textbooks, newspapers or the mass media in general.
Ninety percent of them describe this as exclusion, while over 70% maintain that their
friends, or classmates, do not know about their countries of origin, or cultural values.
While 64% of classmates appear interested, they know very little. The media offer lit-
tle news about their countries, and what is offered is often quite negative. Social prej-
udices and stereotypes cause their true identities to be lost in one overall negative
characteristic: being an immigrant. Furthermore, they feel marginalised (Peñalva &
Zufiaurre, 2007a), while not knowing the real reasons why. They are nostalgic for what
they have left behind, are worried about the future, but anxious to do their best to
improve their situation.

Intercultural Education: How it is Approached in Spain

From the research, it has become clear to us, that when universalism and multicultur-
alism work simultaneously, ethnic cohabitation and peaceful cultural contexts can be
normalised. If, on the other hand, cultural diversity in a multicultural context, or the
affirmation of multiple, separate cultures (Coelho, 1998), result in polarisation and
confrontation, each group moves in search of its own place in the public sphere. From
this, it is easy to appreciate that there are clear reasons why the identity of immigrants
and that of the receiving societies have to fit into a common mixed cultural identity in
the public sphere. This is so, despite the fact that the demands and requirements (national
identities and the demands of immigrants) are contradictory and difficult to reconcile. In
this paper we report on examples in Navarra and the Basque Country in Spain, but we
could cite situations in other areas of Spain, such as Catalonia (McNair, 1980).
The integration of immigrants in the Spanish education system is largely viewed
from a “special needs” perspective. The practice is, therefore, to attend to individual
needs (Warnock, 1989) in compulsory schooling, and create streaming mechanisms
for socially disadvantaged pupils.6 Other approaches based on inclusive principles and
practices, and geared to integrating all types of pupils (e.g., the disabled, or members
of minority groups), are rarely considered, so far at least.
426 Zufiaurre and Peñalva

Obviously, further action is required to develop optimal educational provision for

cultural minorities. Hence, it becomes clear that modern-day western school systems
need to think about how to adapt school structures, educational content, teaching
methods, school organisation, attitudes, working strategies, educational priorities, and
institutional implications. They also need to introduce major changes in areas such as
initial and continuing teacher training, democratic school participation, community
development, research in action, etc. An integrative school system requires new soli-
darity among citizens, and co-operation and social consensus, since migrants move
from one country to another principally because of the North–South development gap.
The arrival of other groups, cultures, and people, leads to changes in the social reality.
That is why, by thinking about how to intervene, or how to plan school action in order
to provide a way towards an “inclusive education” for cultural minorities, we want to
construct an inclusive school system in which cultural minorities may be absorbed. To
do this, it is important to bear in mind and respect the different cultural backgrounds,
languages, ways of life and social attitudes, which are also linked to the skills and abil-
ities immigrants are able to develop, if allowed (Zufiaurre et al., 2005, p. 39). On the
other hand, all these demands involve a degree of political participation, religious free-
dom, legal pluralism and equity, which also fit into the Spanish model of regional
autonomy.
Education could be a great equaliser and it is here that “urban education” makes
sense. To move beyond merely reproducing hierarchies (Kemmis, 1990, 1993) means
that, as people increase their levels of knowledge and skills, they increase their scope
of access and marketability, and are able to use their cultural capital far beyond the
local community reaching global interests. Although further research is required on
the meaning of cultural actions (Wertsch, 1998), cultural and human capital (Bourdieu,
1990) gain importance and meaning in glocalization moves, in which the links
between human actions and the culture can be located in the historical and institutional
contexts in which they occur. Glocalized education can be said to occur when global
educational opportunities adapt to local educational interests (Forrest, 2005). Global
trends which influence instructional practices are a bonus when students have achieved
the necessary competencies by means of quality and equity features on the “urban
education” agenda.
That is why, since an inclusive educational model defends a good education for all, it
must be geared to overcoming social and individual deficits and drawbacks. Inclusive
schooling can potentially overcome the historic subordination of excluded minorities
(Peñalva & Zufiaurre, 2007b) that persist in modern times, while defending social jus-
tice and equal rights for all, together with participatory democratic development. A key
question here is: what is the best way to deal with diversity, to develop a good flow of
cultural interaction, and to provide a better guarantee of social participation and fulfil-
ment of expectations? How should we address the socialisation and integration of new-
comers? And also, how much awareness of cultural codes is needed to create a glocally
cohesive society, ready for integration at the broad, global, worldwide level?
In a complex reality, effective research strategies are essential when planning the
political agenda for education. To the best of our knowledge, intercultural school project
appear to provide a good school atmosphere based on teamwork (or at least this is the
 Globalisation and Glocalisation in Northern Spain 427

conclusion we draw from our experience in analysing how immigrants “integrate” into
different schools). This can be achieved in the type of school that is open to collabora-
tion and co-operation, and where values such as freedom, diversity, empathy, and trust
are promoted to prepare students to share social rules, social customs, and social
behaviour. Such conditions are conducive to teaching and learning in an atmos-
phere adapted to diverse social and individual circumstances.

Notes
1. A recent Report (UNPD, 2004), shows between 1980 and 2000, that immigration to developed countries
grew by 75%, while about 900 million of the world’s population in Asia, Africa, and Europe, suffer reli-
gious, ethnic, racial and other forms of discrimination. Minorities, which comprise about 5,000 differ-
ent ethnic groups in about 200 countries, represent 10% of the world population.
2. On January 1, 2005, the socialist Government implemented a plan for the regulation of immigrants
under the initiative of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, starting with work inspection. The aim
was to push forward a plan to legalise the situation of illegal immigrants. The process of Regulation
included all Autonomous Communities. At that time, 2,357,056 immigrants aged 16–64 were registered
with the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. Of these, 1,197,383 were legally employed, while
1,159,671 were assumed illegally employed. From these figures, it was estimated that no less than 70%,
that is, 811,771 were of working age. When the regulation process began, 690,676 applications were
presented (58.76% men and 41.24% women). The only requirement was confirmation by an employer.
As a result, 607,898 were admitted, 61,111 were still in need of new certificates, 21,670 were rejected
for one reason or another, and 121,092 were declared ineligible, (Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs,
Immigration Report, VV. AA., 2005). The result is that over 8.7% of those enrolled in the social security
system, are immigrants.
3. Under the 1978 Constitutional Law, Spain was organised into 17 Autonomous Communities that
include regions and historic nationalities such as Catalonia, Galicia, Navarra and the Basque Country.
These 17 Autonomous Communities are recognised, by their Statutes of Autonomy, as having the right
to organise their own policy making and their own political and managerial structures, but always within
the framework laid down by central State Government policy and regulations.
The first two Communities to present their Statutes of Autonomy, were the Basque Country and
Catalonia in 1979. They were followed, a few years later, by Galicia, Andalusia, Valencia, Canary Is. and
Navarra. By 1995, all the Autonomous Communities were reorganised under this new decentralised
strategy and all were recognised as having the rights for decentralised political management under State
regulations. Thus they have full control over education and health, but less control over social services
or labour, areas where the State enforces egalitarian norms throughout the whole country. In 2005, a
new process to negotiate the Statutes of Autonomy has started and become clearly controversial.
4. With globalisation, the interrelationship between State and Nation is losing significance. There are
Nations without States as a consequence of colonisation processes, while the imposition of the modern
Nation State principles can lead to fragmentation and conflicts, as in former Yugoslavia (Razpotnik,
2005, pp. 69–87; Stankovik, 2005, pp. 53–68). In contrast to this, situations in centralised States, such
as Spain, with Catalonia, the Basque Country, perhaps Galicia and others, and other European
countries, such as Belgium, the UK, or France, require a different solution. Faced to this, there are inter-
esting examples to be observed in Europe, with its 61 Euroregions and over 150 transnational programs
and multilateral agreements Colomer (2005).
5. See Note 2 above.
6. In Spain, school organisation and practices with respect to immigrant students are similar to those used
with disabled students. This means that students needing special help are not involved in a framework
of multilateral school strategies to deal with minorities. The consequence is that the success of the inte-
gration of immigrant students depends on the school atmosphere and the school’s style of teamwork.
The only specific educational provision made for them, if any, is in the form of Spanish language
428 Zufiaurre and Peñalva

courses, compensatory resources and support teachers for disciplinary subjects (after the new
Educational Law – LOE-MEC 2005/2006, this is going to improve).
School strategies are based on models of cultural assimilation for the whole immigrant population,
whatever their origin. This is the case in all Autonomous Communities. School provision and decision-
making and policies with regard to textbooks (Peñalva & Zufiaurre, 2007a, 2007b), are defined by
Central State regulations, at least until the new Statutes of Autonomy bring about some changes.
Diversity is a problem, and it is viewed as the inability standard class levels. The ability of school
teams to assist immigrant students, their families and improve their social environment depends on
school size, numbers of ordinary and support teachers, and measures of school guidance and supervi-
sion. Referring to this, we have argued elsewhere that the use of such measures creates a positive atti-
tude among the students (Zufiaurre, 2006; Zufiaurre et al., 2005).

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23

SCHOOL DIFFERENTIATION AND SEGREGATION

IN THE PARISIAN PERIPHERY: AN ANALYSIS OF
URBAN SCHOOLS’ LOGICS OF ACTION AND
THEIR EFFECTS

Agnes van Zanten

Observatoire Sociologique du Changement, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique,
Institut d’Etudes politiques de Paris, France

Introduction
This chapter aims to provide a comprehensive view of the functioning of urban schools
in the Parisian urban periphery with two main purposes. The first is to argue on a the-
oretical and empirical basis that, in order to understand urban schools and urban edu-
cational systems, it is necessary to take into account both external and internal factors
and, especially, schools’ interactions with their social and institutional environment.
The second is to analyze the two-way relationship between the logic of action of each
school, that is, its leading orientation as it can be reconstructed from the analysis of
discourses and practices, and academic, social and ethnic segregation of pupils. In order
to do that, I use empirical material collected in a large study of the Parisian periphery,
covering three different research projects; on the interaction between urban and school
segregation, on competition between schools and on parental choice of schools. This
study was conducted in four different urban areas (two predominantly white and mid-
dle class and two socially and ethnically mixed) and 25 secondary middle schools
(22 state and 3 private). The first section of the chapter presents a general model for
analyzing urban schools, which examines the interplay between policies, local dynam-
ics, and the perspectives of educational professionals in schools. The second section
discusses in some detail six ideal types of logics of action representing different
responses to different constraints and opportunities resulting from policies, environ-
mental factors, or internal dynamics. The final section of the paper is concerned with
the interactive relationship between schools’ logics of action and segregation.

431
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 431–446.
© 2007 Springer.
432 van Zanten

A Model for the Analysis of Urban Schools: The Interplay of

Policies, Local Configurations and Professional Perspectives
Urban schools, as most schools, have frequently been analyzed in French research in
education, from two main perspectives. The first one is “top down” and focuses on the
impact of specific policies, such as educational priority areas, on school dynamics and
results. The second is more of a “bottom only” perspective that focuses on internal rela-
tionships between managers and teachers and between teachers, and pupils in relation
with individual and group aims, expectations, and practices (Bidwell, 2000). Both per-
spectives are fundamental, but not sufficient to understand school processes. In order to
develop a global comprehension of schools as specific institutions and organizations, it is
also important to take into account two specific kinds of local dynamics. The first has to
do with community and parental perspectives and practices. The second concerns organi-
zational interdependencies between schools catering for the same age group or for other
age groups (Meyer & Rowan, 1978). These local dynamics are important to understand
schools in general but also to observe subtler differences between schools unaccounted
for in studies of policy impact or in research on schools’ internal configurations.
It is indeed important that work on urban schools focuses not only on deprived schools
but on other kinds of schools both to get a comprehensive view on the diversity of urban
schools and to analyze urban educational systems as configurations where each school
must be understood as being dependant on the functioning of other schools. In my own
work, I first tried to integrate the four dimensions just mentioned (educational policies,
internal configurations, community organization, and institutional interdependencies)
in a model of analysis of deprived schools in the Parisian urban periphery (van Zanten,
2001). I have since tried to extend it to other kinds of schools in the same metropolitan
area, that is to socially and ethnically mixed and to selective schools (Delvaux & van
Zanten, 2006), and, more recently, in work in progress, to elite schools. This perspective
has allowed me to gain better understanding of different school and urban processes and
especially of school segregation, which is by definition a relational process between
urban areas and between schools.

Policies
Educational policies, understood both as normative orientations and as specific arrange-
ments that render some actions more desirable and easier than others, are an essential
element in understanding how schools function. It is important however not to conceive
of policy as being only a clearly designed set of targets, objectives, arrangements, and
resources and to move from the formal analysis of official prescriptions to the ethnographic
study of policy-in-action at local levels of decision-making and schools (Ball, 1994).
Contrary to a common view, this may be as important – and perhaps even more important –
in still quite centralized systems like the French one as in decentralized systems because
in the former the gap between national goals and procedures and specific situations
produces a lot of “deviations,” which are either ignored or tolerated by educational
officials. In addition, the French educational system, which has always been much
more complex than it seemed, having for instance different modes of controlling state
and private schools and each of the educational levels and types of schools, has
 School Differentiation and Segregation 433

become an intricate mix of centralized and decentralized processes of decision-mak-

ing because of the growing intervention of political authorities at different levels
(regions, departments, municipalities) and of limited but higher school autonomy than
in the past (van Zanten, 2004).
As concerns the impact of educational policy on segregation between schools, two
domains can be briefly described. The first is pupil recruitment. Officially, while private
schools operate under a system of free choice, state schools do not have any autonomy
concerning selection as pupils are assigned to schools according to place of residence,
each school having a clearly defined catchment area. This has had a profound impact on
school segregation, as the social, ethnic, and academic composition of the schools
is strongly dependant on that of catchment areas, which are, in metropolitan areas,
strongly differentiated especially at the top and the bottom of the social scale. However,
many studies conducted since the 1980s have shown that there does not exist a perfect
correspondence between residential and educational segregation: Schools that are con-
sidered “good” have real catchment areas that are wider than official ones and their
pupil intake makes them frequently more advantaged than their already advantaged sur-
roundings while the opposite is true for many schools with bad reputations located in
disadvantaged areas. These processes result from the interaction of professional and
parental strategies that I analyze in more detail below but also from the attitudes of edu-
cational and political authorities frequently more receptive to the advantaged schools’
desire to attract good pupils and to middle-class families’ wishes to move out of disad-
vantaged schools and integrate into “better” schools than relate to the needs of disad-
vantaged schools and parents.
A second domain where policies play an important role in school segregation is
educational provision. While France still has a centralized common curriculum, which
applies equally at an official level, to state and private schools, similar processes of
differentiation as the ones described in the domain of recruitment are at work. State
and private elite and “good” schools prepare their pupils to be always ahead of others
either by providing extensions and enrichments to the core curriculum or by having
pupils work on notions and exercises for the following academic year. In strong con-
trast to this, many professionals working in disadvantaged schools adapt the official
programs in unofficial, sometimes even unconscious ways, by lowering their expecta-
tions or by focusing on elements of the curriculum that they think are appropriate and
interesting for their pupils (Grospiron & van Zanten, 2001). In addition, there is more
differentiation than is officially recognized in middle secondary schools due to the
very unequal distribution of optional subjects (foreign languages, music, sports).
Again, while differences between schools concerning the core curriculum and options
result from the combination of professional and parental strategies, they are also the
consequences of actions taken or not taken by local educational authorities in this area.

Local Configurations
If policies play a central role, their effects are nevertheless mediated by specific local
configurations. Many different local aspects could be considered here, for instance, urban
geography, urbanism, or transportation. I will leave them aside in this chapter for pur-
poses of economy and simplicity although they must be considered in more ambitious
434 van Zanten

efforts to understand segregation processes, to focus only on the social and institu-
tional dimensions. By “social dimension,” I refer to the social characteristics of the
population in terms of social class, ethnic origin and academic level but also to local
social dynamics such as demographic trends, living patterns, and community social and
political organization. Although in France schools are less perceived as local institu-
tions than in other countries both because they are not financed directly by local taxes
and because they were clearly designed as instruments for political integration by the
central state, local social configurations do play a role in their functioning. This is not
only the case because the social characteristics of the surrounding population are
reflected in schools, but also because concentration of specific social groups produces
different social norms and different kinds of social and political action in communities
and in their schools. In some of my recent research I have for instance shown that
private schooling appears as the “good thing” for parents who live in middle-class
communes around Paris, even for those who send their children to State schools and
that these parents tend to organize in independent, unaffiliated parents associations to
control schools. In contrast, in socially mixed communes, especially in those with a
long political history of control by the Communist party, going to the local school is
the norm and middle-class parents belong to parent associations that have strong links
with local and national federations or political parties (van Zanten, Ball, Raveaud, 2005).
The “institutional dimension” refers to the fact that schools are not only embedded
in social contexts but in institutional contexts as well. Although many local religious,
political, or cultural institutions catering for the same age groups may have an impact
on schools, the most direct influence comes from other educational institutions. In pre-
vious and present research, I have been interested mainly in two kinds of two-way
influence between schools. The first has to do with the relationships that exist among
schools catering for the same age group, that is, in this case, between middle second-
ary schools located in the same local area. In France, the central, top–down control of
schools has until recently made it officially unnecessary for schools to relate to each
other in their daily functioning and the most current pattern is still that to each school
working in isolation and developing individual relations with the community and with
local educational and political authorities. This however has not prevented the devel-
opment in metropolitan areas of processes of competition between schools mostly cen-
tered on pupils but also on educational provision of options (Yair, 1996). The second
process I am interested in are linkages between schools catering for different age
groups, that is between primary schools, middle and high secondary schools. While
these relationships are again not supposed to exist as pupils are assigned to schools
according to place of residence and schools are expected to focus on their own objec-
tives without any coordination with lower or upper level schools, in fact there are priv-
ileged linkages between schools resulting from professional and parents pressures to
build specific routes, especially those leading to elite institutions.

Professional Perspectives
A third important element to consider in order to understand urban schools and differ-
ences between them has to do with the perspectives of professionals. These perspectives
are influenced by their structural and generic role but also by the specific policy and
 School Differentiation and Segregation 435

local context in which they work. I will briefly analyze here the perspectives of two
main kinds of professionals (head teachers and teachers) although I have argued else-
where that in deprived schools in particular it is also important to take into account what
other professionals (teaching assistants, persons in charge of pastoral care, counselors,
school social workers) do and think (Kherroubi & van Zanten, 2002). Head teachers
are particularly concerned with the interaction with policy-makers and with members of
the local community as their position puts them at the interface between the school and
its environment. Their efforts to interpret and adapt policies and to modify either their
social or their institutional environment vary however strongly depending on their drive
to act, which is linked to their past trajectory and desires for future career, to their vision
of a “good school” and their analysis of the situation of the school and to external and
internal pressures. It also depends on their capacity to act, that is whether they have
access to external resources (money, information, networks) and internal ones (reputa-
tion, human resources, social consensus within the school). Both set of factors are
strongly linked to local situations. Head teachers in elite or good schools feel less pulled
or pushed to act but, if necessary, they have enough external and internal resources in
order to do so. The opposite is true of disadvantaged schools where head teachers are
more frequently convinced that they must act and are urged to do so but where lack of
external networks, bad reputation, teacher turnover, or lack of consensus on what to do,
hamper his or her attempts to change internal practices and external images.
Teachers tend to be much more concerned about the internal functioning of the
school than about policy changes, especially at the organizational level, or about com-
munity or institutional pressures on schools although they are very sensitive about par-
ents’ interference in their professional activities. This can be explained by several
factors. One is the “egg-crated” structure of schools with teachers working separately
from each other and insulated from control by policy-makers and from pressures from
external forces (Lortie, 1975). Another has to do with motivations for choosing teach-
ing as a profession, training and work orientation. In many countries, young people who
choose to become secondary school teachers are generally interested either in a specific
subject or working with adolescents; their training does not focus on understanding
policies or local dynamics and the prevailing conception of work, its constraints and
rewards, is strongly related to interaction with pupils in classrooms (Tardiff & Lessard,
1999). Another reason has to do with the dominant ethic in the teaching profession
which focuses on the child and is concerned with progress and caring much more than
with policies and environments although the importance given to these factors varies
across countries (Gilly, Broadfoot, Brücher, & Osborn, 1993). However, there is also
considerable variation in teachers’ perspectives according both to pupils’ characteristics
and to parental pressures (or lack of pressure) leading them to be more demanding and
responsive in academically selective schools and less so in disadvantaged schools.

Schools’ Logics of Action: Responding to Policy,

Market and Internal Pressures
The specific combination of all these elements makes each school unique but also capa-
ble of changing over time in relation to external changes in policy or in the environment
436 van Zanten

or to internal changes concerning school personnel and their perspectives. This however
is not an obstacle to generalization. Although an infinite number of combinations is
possible in theory, empirical observation leads to the conclusion that some combina-
tions are much more frequent than others allowing for the construction of ideal types,
that is, of typifications of schools according to the dominant logic that underlines their
daily functioning. In my research, I found six main ideal types of schools. These types
are strongly related to local configurations which determine the situation of each school
in a local scale of reputation, which either protect schools from external competitive
pressures or expose them to these pressures (van Zanten, 2006a). These types also
reflect the way each school is perceived and acted upon by policy-makers and the way it
responds to policy. Finally, these types also reflect the internal degree of consensus
among head teachers and teachers concerning guiding ideals and practices for recruit-
ment, provision and promotion as well as the internal organization of classes, pedagogy
and discipline.

Traditional vs. Entrepreneurial Schools

In schools located at the top or near the top of the local scale of reputation, both in
terms of results and of the academic and social characteristics of pupils, two ideal ori-
entations were observed. “Traditional” schools belong to a first type. These schools
are usually perceived as the best schools in terms of results. Because they enjoy and
frequently have enjoyed for a long time a very good reputation that is one of their main
symbolic resources, they do not have to make any efforts to retain and attract good
pupils and do not feel in competition with other schools. For the same reason, they are
not under great pressure from parents or from educational and political authorities. In
contrast, as concerns the latter, they frequently benefit, as schools which best fit the
ideal of a “good” school, of additional resources such as more qualified teachers
or more attractive facilities. The schools we observed which follow this category
(the three private schools and five state schools all but one located in the two white
middle-class communes) were not very innovative. They kept a high level of internal
pressure on all pupils for good results and paid little attention to pupils with special
needs. They also enforced a strict discipline through established rules, this being par-
ticularly the case of private schools whose good reputation depended more than that of
public schools on this dimension. Their curriculum remained very classical, centered on
Latin, Greek, and mathematics and pedagogy very much content- and teacher-centered,
which appealed strongly to the “old” middle class they mainly catered for (Bernstein,
1975). The configuration of a traditional head teacher, former teachers with a long career
in the same school and conservative parents, helped maintain an implicitly consen-
sual orientation and a strong sense of purpose. It is important to note however that,
while these schools have not had for a long time to promote themselves given their
reputation, the social groups they orient their activities to constitute a smaller fraction
of the middle class today than in the past. Therefore, although some parents from the
“new” middle class are still very much attracted by tradition (Edwards & Whitty,
1997), they might be losing their monopoly. Moreover, the new generation of teach-
ers, both in the public and in the private schools, does not support to the same extent
 School Differentiation and Segregation 437

as their elders the pedagogical ideals and practices of these schools. This may
strongly erode the coherence and consensual character of their internal organization
(Rayou & van Zanten, 2004).
“Entrepreneurial” schools correspond to a second type of schools that behave very
differently from traditional schools. Although benefiting from a good reputation based
on good results at examinations and on the social and ethnic characteristics of their
pupils, mostly white and middle class, these schools develop much more active
strategies. The explanation for this logic of action can be found in the fact that the posi-
tion of these schools, frequently “second best” in comparison to the local traditional
school, can still improve. The development of entrepreneurial strategies can also be
linked to perceived threats or opportunities in the surrounding social environment
(either what are perceived as negative processes of urban impoverishment or as positive
processes of “gentrification” of the population) or institutional environment (changes in
the strategies of other schools) and to pressures or new offers from local educational
and political authorities. The predominant means of action of entrepreneurial schools is
provision of new options such as bilingual or “European” classes or musical classes.
This supposes the agreement of local educational authorities and, in some cases, specific
funding from local political authorities too, but the initiative, in the two state secondary
schools that corresponded to this ideal type (both located in each of the two middle-
class communes), was clearly on the side of the head teacher. In general, because the
activities of these schools were oriented toward the external environment, head teachers
played a central role. However, entrepreneurial strategies were successful because a
group of teachers shared the head teacher’s orientation, were willing to teach in the new
optional classes and participated in formal and informal ways to their promotion. Many
other teachers in the two schools were nonetheless critical of the head’s attitude. Some
were critical on the grounds that the real explanation for “entrepreneurship” was to be
found in the head’s career strategies. He (both were men) would be doing more than was
necessary to improve the position and attractiveness of the school to be favorably eval-
uated by local educational authorities in order to get additional responsibilities and
move upwards towards more attractive positions. Others were critical on pedagogical
grounds and pointed to the fact that the external engagement of the head in financial
negotiations and promotional activities was detrimental to his internal engagement
towards pupils and that, in order to maintain a good image and attract more middle-
class pupils, much more attention was given to the best and average students than to
students with special needs.

Polarized vs. Integrated Schools

Mixed schools are the most common kind of schools in the Parisian periphery in
direct relation to specific forms of distribution of the urban population. The Parisian
periphery and French cities in general do not correspond to the dual model of global
cities (Sassen, 1991). There is certainly strong segregation at both ends, that is very
high levels of concentration of members of the bourgeoisie and of some fractions of
the middle classes, especially managers and engineers, and also very high (although
not as high) levels of concentration of unskilled French and immigrant workers and
438 van Zanten

employees. Nevertheless, this concerns a minority of the population and a small number
of urban areas. There is a much larger number of communes and neighborhoods
where there is considerable social and ethnic mix between middle-class professionals
working in the public sector and skilled employees and workers both French and
immigrant (Oberti & Preteceille, 2003). These various social groups are thus “mixed”
in state middle schools because, while a large minority (up to a third in certain areas)
chooses to send their children to private schools and a substantial minority (up to 20%
according to certain studies) to use whatever strategy they can (asking for specific
options, pleading on specific child or family problems, giving false addresses) at least
50% of middle-class parents choose at this level to send their children to the local
school (Barthon, 1997; Broccolichi & van Zanten, 1997). An important fraction of
these parents is however afraid of the consequences of this mix and puts individual or
collective pressure on teachers and head teachers to ensure that their children’s aca-
demic progress and socialization are not harmed by the less academic orientation and
different cultural and social behaviors of other pupils, and even ask for some kind of
special treatment. They feel morally entitled to do so given the fact that, in their view,
they have partly sacrificed their personal interests about a successful school career
for their children in the benefit of social integration, and reasonably confident that they
will get satisfaction given the fact that they can always use “exit” to other public or
to private schools as a threat in negotiations with the head and with teachers (van
Zanten, 2003, 2006b).
The direct pressure from these parents but also the indirect pressure created by the
presence of a large number of French and immigrant pupils with learning difficulties,
gives way to “polarization” within many mixed schools (seven out of the nine analyzed
in the study), that is to efforts to cater differently for two different kinds of clients.
Because they are aware of these pressures, although they rarely acknowledge it offi-
cially, local educational authorities generally give a lot of leeway to these schools by
not exerting close control in respect of official regulations and norms. These schools
are nevertheless less likely to obtain prestigious options than traditional or entrepre-
neurial schools unless there is a head teacher or educational and political authorities
especially keen in developing them in these kinds of schools, which was the case in
two out of the seven schools. They thus rely more frequently on student tracking
(which is officially forbidden but frequently tolerated) both as an externally oriented
strategy to retain middle-class parents uncertain about whether to stay and as an inter-
nally oriented strategy to deal with an academically, socially and ethnically heteroge-
neous student body. The only private school studied that was in this category also
relied on selection on a behavioral basis to limit social mix. It did not aim for the best
students in terms of academic profile, but for those with a good attitude towards learn-
ing and schools norms, and with supportive parents. All of these schools also focused
on discipline, using exclusions but also assignation to special classes, compensatory
devices and therapeutic procedures to reject or cater for “problematic” students in
order to reduce their impact on the functioning of the school. These tactics worked to
some extent in schools where there was an ambitious and dynamic head teacher, where
teachers’ and other school personnel’s turnover was not very high and a significant part
 School Differentiation and Segregation 439

of them agreed to develop a differentiated curriculum and where there were active
middle-class parents who supported the choices of school professionals and few pro-
testers among lower-class parents. In many cases, however, these defensive tactics were
not powerful enough to retain middle-class parents and to counter the more sophisti-
cated strategies of entrepreneurial schools or the long-standing attraction of traditional
schools.
Less frequently (two in our sample) mixed schools develop a logic of action that can
be called “integrated.” This logic is strongly dependant on the presence among parents
of a more confident vision of their children’s schooling and of attitudes in favor of
heterogeneous classrooms and equal treatment for all children. These parental per-
spectives result from the interaction of several factors. First, in the two schools, these
highly educated parents felt they could trust their, until then, successful children to
resist local negative influences, and their own cultural capital to compensate for the
eventual deficiencies of the local school at home. Second, these parents attached a lot
of importance to interactions among social and ethnic groups in public spaces as a way
to build solidarity and integration in society while being more reserved about private
interactions at home or friendship networks. Finally, these parents were willing to and
capable of building collective forms of “social capital” in local schools through actions
aiming at convincing other middle-class parents to leave the children in the school and
at increasing the financial and cultural resources of the schools (including their own
involvement in individual tutoring of students with learning difficulties) and through
close collective control of the school through participation in school activities and
administrative bodies (van Zanten, 2006b). This was made possible because a large
group of teachers and other school personnel and the head teacher shared a similar
perspective. They were willing to set up heterogeneous classes by limiting all forms of
tracking and to provide various forms of aid to pupils with learning difficulties (tutoring
in small groups, specific projects) without neglecting the others. They were also
willing to discuss pedagogical choices and arrangements collectively, including all
professionals in the schools and parents.

Anomic vs. Committed Schools

Mixed schools, whether polarized or integrated, are perceived by those who work in
them and by actual or potential clients as “normal” schools. This is so because, if they
are not the best schools in terms of results, they still seem to accomplish their social
function of melting pot. This is not the case of middle secondary schools where there
is a strong concentration of working-class and immigrant pupils. These schools have
not been abandoned by the State. They get extra resources on a “positive discrimina-
tion” basis from the central government through various programs, the main one being
that of Educational Priority Zones, and in many cases from local political bodies as well.
Nonetheless, in addition to the fact that these extra resources do not generally com-
pensate for the resources that other schools have accumulated over many years in terms
of reputation, pupil intake and teacher qualification and seniority, these schools get lit-
tle support from local educational or political authorities in terms of advice, follow-up
440 van Zanten

of activities and evaluation. They also lack in many cases parental support as working-
class and immigrant families frequently adopt a position of retreat either because they
trust educational professionals to do what is best for their children or because they feel
unable to help their children and fearful of teachers or because they are too worried by
problems of unemployment, living conditions or family break-up to become strongly
involved in their children’s education. Moreover, these schools also suffer from the
turnover of educational professionals who frequently start their careers there and then,
after 2–5 years move to “better” schools. For all these reasons, but also because it is
extremely hard for schools catering for less academic pupils to develop a competing
educational ideal to that of excellence and to design their curriculum and organization
in accordance with that ideal, many of these schools become “anomic” in the sense
that Durkheim (1930) gave to this term, that is they progressively sink into a state of
disorganization and confusion. These processes were accentuated in the six schools
studied that fell under this category, by their local bad reputation, the low morale of
school professionals, their incapacity to set up a clear division of labor and their ten-
dency to transform other professionals into scapegoats: head teachers criticized the
lack of involvement of teachers and other school personnel, teachers, the lack of lead-
ership from head teachers and the lack of collaboration of other personnel and so on.
Not all schools where there is a large concentration of disadvantaged pupils are
anomic however. Some of them are “committed” but this commitment can take two
dominant orientations. In some schools, a common ideal emerges that can be called
“humanitarian” because most of the educational professionals’ actions are based on a
principle of compassion towards disadvantaged pupils rather than on a belief on their
capacity to learn. Two schools of the present sample fell into this ideal type, which I
have studied in detail in previous work (van Zanten, 2001). In these schools, that also
lack support from local educational authorities and parents, there is frequently a group
of teachers who have been there for several years and have developed good relations
between themselves based on “resistance in hard times,” and who like children from
these social groups do not want to move to other schools but who have developed pow-
erful social and cultural stereotypes and negative academic expectations which are dif-
ficult to change. These teachers adapt teaching contents, methods and evaluation to fit
what they think these children can do and develop “therapeutic” modes of control of
pupils’ behavior. There are however other schools, also studied extensively in previous
work (van Zanten, Grospiron, Kherroubi, & Robert, 2002), which, more exceptionally
(only one in our sample), develop a perspective centered on pupils’ academic progress
and are successful in improving pupils’ results. Corroborating findings from advocates
of “effective schools,” these schools are frequently characterized by the presence of a
head teacher who is able to play a leading role among teachers and other school per-
sonnel because he or she has a pedagogical legitimacy as innovator based on his or her
previous work and accomplishments, and a clear commitment towards working-class
and immigrant education. They are also characterized by a teacher turnover much lower
than in anomic schools but higher than in humanitarian schools where stability leads to
inaction. These schools also benefit from support from at least a small group of parents
and from local educational authorities resulting from deliberate efforts to involve
external groups in the activities of the school and get recognition from them.
 School Differentiation and Segregation 441

Schools’ Logics of Action and Social an Ethnic Segregation

I believe that schools’ logics of action and the model I have developed to study them
are interesting per se in that they allow a better understanding of the diversity of urban
systems and of how different factors interact in complex ways in school organizations.
What goes on in these schools acquires nevertheless higher scientific, political and
pedagogical relevance if it is possible to show that they have effects both on individual
children’s academic progress and socialization and on global dynamics concerning
segregation and inequality. Unfortunately, there is not yet enough evidence concerning
all these effects in French urban schools. This is due, on the one hand, to lack of qual-
itative studies on schools, especially on schools other than disadvantaged ones, and,
even more, of studies combining top down, local and internal perspectives and, on the
other hand, to lack of research combining a qualitative focus on processes and actors
and a quantitative focus on determinants and results. In spite of this, I will briefly
develop a set of hypotheses in this section concerning the two-way relationship between
school segregation and logics of action, some of which are more consistent than others
because they rely on a convergent bulk of evidence and some that call for more research
in order to be accepted, modified, or rejected.

Selection, Excellence and Segregation

Traditional and entrepreneurial schools are generally perceived as the best schools, in
the first case as a sort of natural heritage and in the second because they are making
efforts to remain or become so. This positive image is due to the fact that these schools
have monopolized or try to monopolize material and symbolic resources: better prem-
ises, a more qualified and stable teacher body, a more diversified and sought-after
choice of options and a good reputation. These factors have direct but also indirect
effects on pupils’ results. Combined with the characteristics of the student body, they
make it possible to have a clear regulating ideal, that is excellence, high expectations
for students, good educational leadership from the head teacher and strong commitment
from teachers as well as positive attitudes and behavior from students and support from
parents. In short, these are the schools that are really “armed” to be effective schools
and set themselves and be set by others, especially by educational authorities, as mod-
els while blaming other schools for not being able to obtain similar results (Thrupp,
1999).
The ideal of excellence pursued by these schools can nevertheless be questioned in
many ways. In traditional schools, there is little place for innovation, creativity and
self-development while in entrepreneurial schools there is a tendency to instrumentalize
knowledge, new options being developed mainly to attract middle-class pupils and not
to lead to valued forms of intellectual development. In both, students with learning
difficulties receive little help and are either expected to benefit from extra-tutoring
by parents or private specialists or rejected toward less demanding schools. Much
more important still is the cost of excellence for society as a whole. Excellence in these
two types of schools is built through selection and separation of the “wheat” from the
“chaff ” and has thus a clear impact for academic and social and ethnic segregation.
442 van Zanten

Comparative international research shows however that the most effective educational
systems are not those where pupils are sorted into different tracks and schools at an early
age. In fact, it is rather the opposite that is true: while very good pupils may gain a little
more from being set apart from others, less able pupils but also society as a whole bene-
fit from comprehensive educational systems (Duru-Bellat, 2002). And although evi-
dence on other domains is less conclusive because of the general and qualitative
dimension of the questions involved, there are also indications that separate socialization
of children leads to problems of management and cooperation in the workplace, to ten-
sions in neighborhoods and local institutions, and to violent social behavior and political
withdrawal of those who have suffered from exclusion since early schooling.

Tensions and Losses Related to Polarization

If selection and its impact on the functioning of the schools are considered to have
mostly negative effects in the existing scientific literature, it is also important to exam-
ine what happens in more mixed schools. Mix at the level of the school, combined with
internal segregation within classes, is the most common model in the Parisian periph-
ery for reasons explored above. It is thus particularly important to understand its
effects, which seem, on the whole, more negative than positive. These negative effects
are partly due to tensions and conflicts between educational professionals, which
result from lack of agreement on a common goal, a common curriculum, and a com-
mon school organization. As opposed to selective, especially selective traditional
schools, excellence in mixed, polarized schools is not conceived as being a realistic
goal for all. Teachers and heads do not believe that all students can assimilate the same
contents and benefit from the same teaching methods and this leads them to create dif-
ferent tracks. These tracks create in turn tensions and conflicts between pupils. While
pupils attending mixed schools are quite insensitive to the privileges – when they are
aware of them they do not always perceive them as real privileges – of students in
selective schools, they are particularly sensitive to close-to-home hierarchies, reputa-
tions, differences in treatment between classes of the same school, especially when
there is, which is most often the case, strong overlapping between academic, social,
and ethnic forms of differentiation. A clear example of this is the fact that in several of
the mixed polarized schools included in the study there were recurring incidents such
as insults and fights between students placed in the “good” classes and the others and
in all many parents and students from the “bad” classes thought such a separation as
being unfair.
Moreover, research shows that in the area of academic progress the classroom level,
where the essential processes of teaching and learning take place everyday, is much
more important than the level of the school. Imposing global mix in state schools
might be good for the image of public schools and for favoring the development of a
social and ethnic melting pot, although much internal work has to be done to move
from formal to actual mix. Nevertheless, separation of pupils into tracks according to
their academic profile does not only foster feelings of injustice and violent behavior
but is unproductive and even counterproductive in terms of the improvement of the
general education level. The progress of the best pupils might in that way be protected
 School Differentiation and Segregation 443

and their interest in learning carry along that of just-above-average pupils. While these
factors alone seem sufficient to justify separation for a not-so-small group of parents
and educational professionals, it is important to underline that research shows at the
same time that average and below average pupils are not likely to make progress in
“bad” classes and may even “unlearn” what they had previously acquired (Dupriez &
Draelants, 2004; Duru-Bellat & Mingat, 1997). As they constitute a large majority of
pupils this means a general loss in the capacity of schools to foster intellectual devel-
opment and access to qualifications for the great mass of students.

Mixed and Segregated Integration

The debate as to whether it is better to have a mixed or a segregated model of integration
is a complex one. In France, public opinion and most researchers are in favor of a mixed
model or perhaps, more distinctively, against all forms of communatarism that could
be fostered by a segregated model of integration. It is of course easy to argue that social
and ethnic mix in schools and classes will favor an integrated, open, cosmopolitan
society as well as help raise the general education level of all pupils. Indeed observa-
tions and interviews conducted in the two schools of this type in our sample suggested
very neatly that social and ethnic mix in the school and in all classrooms favored the
development of a collective social capital both expressive and instrumental, that is close
and trustful relationships between adults, and between adults and children, and better
learning. Nevertheless, two caveats are important here. The first is that the good climate
that exists in these schools is fragile. It depends on the strong commitment of a small
group of individuals who may move away, tire or retire. It is also a matter of propor-
tion. Middle-class parents will trust the school as long as there are enough middle-
class parents like them but if even a small proportion leaves they will become much
more cautious and end up by preferring exit to voice and loyalty (Hirschman, 1970).
Teachers’ commitment also depends on the existence of a small group of teachers who
is committed to comprehensive classrooms, who is able to develop a collaborative cul-
ture in the school and to communicate frequently with parents and other members of
the local community. If members of this group leave or become less committed then
trust will dissolve too.
Segregated integration may compensate some of the problems that have been pointed
out in studies of social and ethnic mix, that is unfavorable comparisons between chil-
dren and subtle forms of separation for instance in extracurricular activities and social
life out of schools (Shimahara, 1983). However, even if we consider only schools
very much committed to success in learning, far away from the counter-examples of
“anomic” segregated schools, a second caveat is that there are important problems in
these schools concerning the transition from “good climate” to “good results,” which is
in fact not at all automatic. A main reason is of course the educational background of
most children and the poor teaching they frequently were exposed to in segregated pri-
mary schools. The gap between their knowledge and what is expected in the official
programs but also, and perhaps more important, between their perspectives on learn-
ing and their relation to school work and that of the ideal pupil referred to in teacher
training and textbooks, influence teachers’ expectations and how they conduct their
444 van Zanten

classrooms in ways that lead frequently to a lowering of standards for attainment and
regular work. A second not less important reason is that because of the difficult family sit-
uation of these children, of their behavioral and social problems, teachers, especially
female teachers are more likely to try to comfort them than to push them to make
efforts to learn. Only very strong collaborative cultures among teachers and among all
educational professionals can counteract these effects (Lieberman, 1990). However
these collaborative cultures – implying not only collegial support but collegial work,
evaluation and advice – are not easy to develop because of very high turnover rates, of
the very large and diverse number of professionals in the school and because of lack of
a common realistic ideal to look up to. In addition to this, although some of the schools
will help children make real progress in learning, because they set local standards that
are different from those of other schools, they may not be able to help them move up
in the system and succeed in more demanding schools. This also results from lack of
support, follow up, and evaluation from educational authorities.

Conclusion
Studies of school segregation have either focused on the impact of external factors
(urban and educational policies and residential and educational choices) on levels of seg-
regation or on the qualitative effects of segregation between schools on students’ aspira-
tions, self-esteem, interaction with other students and academic progress (Hallinan &
Williams, 1989; MacLeod, 1987). These studies have mostly considered social and
ethnic segregation in disadvantaged schools. While very useful to understanding deter-
minants, processes, and effects in the schools that have been typified in this article as
“anomic,” or “committed,” these studies are not always useful to understanding the inter-
action between logics of action and segregation in advantaged schools, those that have been
typified in this article as “traditional” and “entrepreneurial.” Above all, these studies tell
us little about influences and processes in mixed schools. This study, on the contrary,
has tried to approach that reality, which is central to understanding a large number of
urban schools in the Parisian periphery and French educational metropolitan systems
in general. It is nevertheless extremely important to go beyond the analysis provided
here through qualitative and quantitative studies that explore in more depth and more
extensively influences and developments on choices made in “polarized” and in “inte-
grated” schools and their effects on pupils’ socialization and academic progress.

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24

URBAN CITIZENSHIP

Tuula Gordon
Department of Sociology, University of Helsinki, Finland

Introduction
A central aim of schooling is the production of educated citizens capable of exercising
their rights, duties, and responsibilities. However, often teaching about such rights may
focus mostly on parliamentary democracy with an emphasis on voting. In such a con-
text children and young people are implicitly thought of as citizens-to-be in the future.
In this chapter the implications of this approach are considered, and the significance of
rights, duties, and responsibilities of school students here and now are emphasized.
Ways in which agency of young people can be fostered and facilitated are discussed.
The concept “urban citizenship” is central in the analysis.
Cities here are examined as political spaces where rights and duties of citizenship
can be enacted. Pluralistic practices contained in social and cultural practices in urban
spaces are traced. The starting point is that in local areas there are formations of polit-
ical spaces where processes related to belonging, inclusion and exclusion are played out
and contested. The ways in which schools enable, support or constrict rights related to
urban citizenship are explored. The focus is also on practices of school students in their
local areas and on ways in which these are reflected in the everyday life at school. How
local membership is discussed and negotiated in encounters in urban areas is explored.
The analysis is based on theoretical and empirical foci including literature review, site
visits to schools and interview data with young people.
In the context of Nordic countries issues around urban education have somewhat
different inflections than those in, for example, US, or other countries with more social
and cultural differentiation among school students, as well as with more pronounced
income differentials. Neo-liberal politics and policies have eroded the idea of welfare
societies in Nordic countries, not to mention other European countries such as the UK.
Moreover, in Nordic countries there are sparsely populated areas where organizing
educational provision is difficult, and hence rural education raises possibly more specific
issues than urban education. In the PISA-survey on educational achievement Nordic
447
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 447–462.
© 2007 Springer.
448 Gordon

school students in general, and Finnish school students in particular, attained excellent
results (Lie, Linnakylä, & Roe, 2003). In Finland, children in more urban areas in the
south performed better than children in the more rural areas in the north.
As Popkewitz (2006) has suggested, the “urban child” is a cultural thesis, whereby
some students become constructed as “urbane” and “cosmopolitan” rather than “urban.”
Therefore “urban” is an “assembly of cultural categories,” and these categories position
the “other” in schooling. Here the cultural thesis of urban education is engaged with
through an examination of possibilities and limitations of enactment of rights, duties,
and responsibilities related to citizenship.

Citizenship
Generally citizenship refers to membership of a nation state. In the classical definition by
Marshall (1963) citizenship was characterized as political, legal, and social. Political
citizenship refers to the right to vote and to stand as a candidate in elections and legal
citizenship refers to equality in the context of legislation. Social citizenship is a concept
that has been used to strive for social justice. This means that equality between citizens
is aimed for, so that political and legal citizenship would assume more socially just char-
acter as well. Social citizenship, promoted through the welfare state, is expected to pro-
vide universal access to education and welfare society provision such as health and
income support as well as education, and support for those who are unemployed or too
ill to work.
In discussions on citizenship the number of dimensions that are considered to be
connected to it have increased. Based on the theorization of Raymond Williams (1979)
the concept of cultural citizenship has been introduced (cf. Miller, 2002). For example
the significance of schooling has been emphasized as an institution promoting access
to cultural citizenship. However it is also important that diversity of cultural practices
is accepted in the context of those rights. But, as for example Seyla Benhabib (2004)
has suggested in her discussion about universal rights, it is not acceptable that any
single cultural group engages in practices that contravene ideas about equality and
social justice.
Moreover, gender is an important element to be considered in citizenship debates.
Initially white men with property became citizens. They were considered to be able to
rise above daily contexts and circumstances in order to obtain the abstracted position of
citizenship. Gender, ethnicity, and age were categories on the basis of which practices
of exclusion took place (Young, 2000). Gradually citizenship has been extended to
different groups. However, feminists argue that women are still considered to be specif-
ically female citizens, and in practice they do not have similar influence on relations of
ruling and power in society as male citizens. Embodiment is also a dimension of
socially just citizenship – for example accessibility of public places for people with
disabilities is significant here.
Children, usually, become citizens at birth. Nevertheless children and young people
are treated, particularly in education and schooling, as if they are in the process of becom-
ing citizens. For example there are schools restrictions on the basis of age. In the process
 Urban Citizenship 449

of discussing when young people will be able to vote, consume alcohol, get married,
or become (solo) clients of social welfare services, citizenship is usually thought to be
achieved when full rights of adults have been obtained. But, more specifically, it is the
case that children and young people have all the citizenship rights already, except those
that are specifically defined as not yet applicable.

The Global and the Local

In a world that has been characterized as transnational, citizenship is subject to debate.
It is suggested that the through the processes of localization different parts of the world
are becoming increasingly similar. The power invested in globalization is said to chal-
lenge local cultures, curtail them and diminish them. This new convergence is not as
straightforward, and not as hegemonic, as is often suggested. For example Roche
(2002) considers arguments for the so-called convergence thesis that emphasizes that
there are both external and internal pressures towards convergence. He suggests that con-
vincing arguments against the convergence thesis can also be presented. The responses
constructed at the level of the nation state as well as political debates and decisions at
local levels indicate that there is a range of possible ways of reacting to structural changes,
as Roche claims.
When considering citizenship rights in different countries, access to state-financed
education is a crucial indicator of success in the maintenance of more localized rights.
For example in Nordic countries public schooling financed by the state is still the most
prevalent form of organizing education. As Nordic countries in general and Finland in
particular have demonstrated, public education can produce considerable results, as the
PISA-survey has demonstrated (cf. Lie et al., 2003). The discussions on such results
have suggested various reasons for success. Access to public schools is important.
Finland has a comprehensive schools system so almost all students are in state schools,
with the exception of a small number of private schools such as Steiner and Montessori
schools. A high level of teacher education is crucial. Provision of accessible health
care is important too. Indeed generally the existence of the welfare society and more
equitable distribution policies promote higher standards of learning. Indeed, Roche
(2002, p. 71) suggests that the state’s commitment to the social rights of its citizens
provides them with resources to tackle difficulties. This is particularly evident as some
public services have been subjected to financial cuts.
A number of discussions on globalization remain at a high level of theorization,
such as considering trends of capital accumulation, internationalization of capital, and
processes of convergence between countries and continents. Yet the relationship bet-
ween the global and the local can be a great deal more complex. For example Stuart
Hall (2000) has suggested that the global marketization of Hollywood films has actu-
ally stimulated the production of the so-called Bollywood films in India, rather than
stifling it.
When considering globalization and education in relation to local state practices, it
can be suggested that state-financed education as a social right of citizens can develop
and foster transferable skills that enable their occupants to move in global settings.
450 Gordon

At the same time such skills may facilitate the construction of resources in local contexts,
so that for young people staying in their home becomes a possibility (Tolonen, 2005).
Citizenship and cities are fundamentally associated. As Turner (2002, p. 262) sug-
gests, “citizenship is most appropriately regarded as a modern concept that first
emerged with the creation of autonomous cities in medieval Europe, but came to fruition
with the revolutions that created the modern world, namely the American and French
Revolutions.” Derek Heater (2004, p. 21) notes that medieval citizenship was based on
ideas of freedom and fraternity. People had individual rights, but they also co-operated
in order to secure common interests. Heater further suggests that the habit of local
government rendered conditions suitable for urban citizenship. As Sassen (2000) has
argued, citizenship rights are often claimed in urban contexts and in urban space.
Therefore rights, duties, and responsibilities related to citizenship are negotiated in the
cities and also in urban schools. The urban landscape that provides the context for such
negotiations is complex and intricate.
Nira Yuval-Davis (2000) refers to the need to see citizenship as a multi-layered con-
cept. Developing this further, one of these layers is the localization of citizenship in
urban spaces. Urban citizenship is, as Robert A. Beauregard and Anna Bounds (2000)
suggest, significant in cities today. Public spaces are crucial for urban citizenship. For
example people publicize their identities in city spaces, and therefore urban citizenship
has been associated with freedom. Localized urban citizenship has assumed new kinds
of significance in a globalized world, where transnational movement has increased.
This can take the form of privileged cosmopolitanism (cf. Linklater, 2002) or more
restrictive and less optional transnational border crossing in order to obtain work and
to ensure daily livelihood, for example in domestic service or the tourist industry. These
kinds of movements serve to diversify the localities – often urban spaces – where they
take place. Therefore such spaces become places for encounters between people in dif-
ferent cultural and social locations. Whilst this phenomenon is not new, it has become
increasingly significant and constitutes a shift in cities and societies, thus generating
changes in the everyday places and spaces that people inhabit.
There are cosmopolitan flaneurs who can be characterized as “flexible citizens”
(Ong, 1999). Such citizens are at home in many countries and cities, and they are able to find
the appropriate arts and culture. For others the shift can be more complex, and one char-
acterized by locations in poorer, less privileged areas and availability of fewer resources
for constructing everyday lives. The latter encounters, taking place in cities, are of par-
ticular interest here. Rose (2000, p. 97) refers to “citizenship games,” thereby drawing
attention to practices where certain actions become thinkable and possible. Such games
of citizenship contain possibilities for modification, and, as Rose notes, have particular
implications in city spaces, where the capacity to act citizenship can be exercised. This
is an interesting suggestion that further points to the significance of urban education and
its potential to enable agency for social change within spheres and encounters of every-
day life. Thinking about urban education and schooling, it is possible to ask how such
enablement should be fostered. Pedagogic possibilities for cultivating diversity in citi-
zenship practices are an important consideration when thinking about education in cities.
The next focus in the discussion on the concept of urban citizenship examines ways in
which local encounters are imagined and in which actual encounters are discussed.
 Urban Citizenship 451

The emphasis is on searching for educational practices that promote inclusion and help
young people construct resources that enable them to negotiate socially just encounters
characterized by increasing inclusion. My argument is that urban citizenship can be
taught and practiced in schools. Further, it is argued that in the context of movement
towards more socially just local encounters, increasing equality in other dimensions of
citizenship and equality can also be sought.

Urban Citizenship and Neighborhood Nationalism

Urban citizenship refers to cities as political spaces, where, partly, citizenship rights are
exercised, and, partly, more rights are demanded. Pluralist practices develop in city spaces.
But local contexts are also places where practices of inclusion and exclusion occur.
Urban citizenship is considered in relation to “neighbourhood nationalism” –
a term that Les Back (1996) in UK has used in order to analyze ways in which young
women and men negotiate race and ethnicity in the local area, particularly in youth
clubs. Urban citizenship is potentially more inclusive and subject to negotiation as well
as contestation, whereas neighborhood nationality is more exclusive and subject to
contestation rather than negotiation.
The discussion is based on literature review on the one hand. On the other hand it draws
on an ethnographic research conducted in two schools in Helsinki, Finland. This was a col-
lective and cross cultural project. In Finland a team of six researchers planned the study and
carried it out, constantly sharing data and developing “analysis through discussion” (cf.
Gordon et al. 2006). In London Janet Holland carried out a similar project with two research
assistants (Gordon, Holland, & Lahelma, 2000). Therefore the discussion draws on a cross
cultural analysis as well, and education is discussed as a national project. The considerations
have also been influenced by visits to schools in the San Francisco Bay Area in Berkeley and
in Oakland. Beyond the ethnography I have, together with Elina Lahelma, continued to trace
the transitions of the young people we met in school during the ethnography. This longitudi-
nal data is drawn on as well. A range of elements is used to develop an analytical inscription
and a broad understanding of the significance of urban education is suggested.
Because of increasing movement in Europe and Nordic countries it is important to
analyze ways in which education prepares children and young people for increasing
difference and diversity among the students in their school, as well as in the local area.
As Ahmed (2000) suggests, people encounter the figure of “the stranger” who should
be welcomed according to agreements on flows of people, either as visitors, workers,
immigrants, or refugees. Yet this figure who should be welcomed is also considered to
represent difference. The very idea of recognition of the stranger already presumes a
distance and inequality in the encounters. There are, as Ahmed suggests, also problem-
atic encounters between texts, institutions, and lived lives. The task of urban education
is to deconstruct the figure of the stranger so that more inclusive practices in the con-
text of encounters are possible.
Doreen Massey (1998) has noted that when different and diverse groups use a
particular space, at the same time other people or groups can be excluded from
these spaces. Therefore in the use and control of space issues round difference and
452 Gordon

commonalities, struggles and tensions between these are mobilized. The kinds of
strategies that young men have used in order to control the spatial practices of others are
characterized as territoriality (Liberg, 1994; Watt & Stenson, 1998). In this context the
relationship between citizenship and urban spaces has become increasingly relevant.
Cities are spaces where there are opportunities for claiming local rights, whilst they are at
the same time spaces where the everyday practices of people are controlled (Isin, 2000).
Public space is central in these encounters. Nayak (2003) has analyzed how young
men place themselves in urban space and ethnic relations in Newcastle in Britain using
ethnographic methods. Nayak notes that among white working class young men there
are tensions in practices of exclusion and sharing in relation to uses of space. Whilst
there are exclusionary practices, at the same time there can be processes of inclusion. As
one young man suggested in an interview, “some coloured are English.” Nayak describes
this kind of inclusive talk by referring to the concept of “neighbourhood nationalism”
(Back, 1996).
Back wanted to trace the formation of new ethnicities in urban culture. His analysis was
also based on ethnographic research that he conducted in two – mostly working-class –
areas in South London. He explores the history of these areas, and analyses ways which
different ethnicities are encountered, and how young people, particularly young men,
meet each other and emphasize differences, but at the same time recognize commonal-
ities. Local histories are, Back argues, relevant in understanding ways in which differ-
ences are understood, acted upon, or bridged.
In the first, older area, “Riverview” the inhabitants were originally mostly white.
The estate became increasingly run down as the local authority neglected necessary
repairs. Concomitant with this process more members of minority ethnic groups began
to move into the area. The white inhabitants experienced this movement as a sign of the
deterioration of their environment. In Riverview differences between ethnic groups
were emphasized more than commonalities. In young people’s talk ethnicity was typi-
cally a sign of difference. However, in their own practices young people engaged in
practices of inclusion as well. Back notes that encounters and processes of inclusion
were characterized by “neighbourhood nationalism,” whereby there were tensions in
ways in which being English and white were both emphasized and deconstructed.
Neighborhood nationalism produces local commonalities, but does not remove categories
that differentiate between people. Nor does it transcend the kind of everyday categories
that young people use, for example, in the youth club, where young people acted both
together and separately.
In the other, newer area, “Southgate,” that Back studied, young people were more
likely to cross over differences and to construct more commonalities. This estate was
from the very beginning more multicultural and multiethnic than Riverview. Young
people formed inclusive practices in their encounters by differentiating themselves
from Englishness and instead emphasizing being British. Among these young people
there were more of those with multiethnic backgrounds. When the young people talked
about being British, they referred to multicultural citizenship with syncretic
features that were connected to different cultures. Young people in Southgate were also
more politically orientated than those of Riverview. This could be seen in the youth
clubs where participants were likely to question and challenge practices that they
 Urban Citizenship 453

considered as exclusionary. Instead they demanded practices of inclusion and recogni-

tion of commonalities. Inclusive practices took place in Riverview as well, but in a
more restrained manner, drawing on neighborhood nationalism.
Comparative studies have demonstrated the significance of the area people are
located in. In a large quantitative cross-national study Klasen (2001) demonstrated that
the policies that endeavor to address childhood social exclusion need to address social
and cultural local geographies, and tackle issues such as unemployment, access to pub-
lic and social services and spatial concentrations of disadvantage. Klasen (2001)
demonstrates that social exclusion has a severe impact on the well-being of children and
influences their schooling. Moreover, Klasen argues that social exclusion has a nega-
tive effect on society as a whole. He suggests that many educational systems do not
have adequate ways in which to counteract such exclusion.
In another study of impoverished neighborhoods in several European cities Olagnero,
Meo, and Corcoran (2005) argue that local areas that are characterized by economic
precariousness also contain impoverished social networks. In this context it is difficult
to foster access to, and achievement in, education. They suggest that urban education
should be supported by welfare policies that increase parental resources so that it is eas-
ier for them to care for their children. The study demonstrated that unemployment,
poverty, and general precariousness of life are associated with impoverishment of
supportive networks.
However, in the context of urban poverty trans-cultural fusion among young people
assumes particular relevance, as Ålund (1999, p. 113) suggests. Additionally common
cross-boundary symbols are created. These practices can work as a resource for young
people, contributing to the possibility of exercising agency in daily life. Socially just
education and schooling could build on such urban practices of school students.

Walls and Bridges

In her analysis of what she calls confrontations between racist and anti-racist young peo-
ple in Sweden, Abby Peterson (1995) refers to the metaphors of “walls and bridges.” In
their everyday practices in city spaces young people construct connections without con-
frontation, but such activities are less likely to be reported in the media than the more
violent struggles between the “rainbow coalition” – young people against racism and
exclusion, but also against confrontation – and those groups for whom confrontation is a
preferred strategy. Peterson suggests that there is “a dialectic between the explosive
sociality of confrontation and the non-confrontation of rainbow coalitions – between the
construction of walls and the construction of bridges” (1995, p. 68).
Moreover, Peterson argues that in this process the message of inclusion disappears
and new visions about a more equal society remain elusive. Citing Paul Gilroy (1987)
Peterson notes the practices of the “Rock against Racism” movement in the UK,
whereby encounters between differences were celebrated through music. As Sara
Ahmed (2000) notes as well, encounters in one space “involve an embodied dialogue –
a speaking to each other that is at once ‘face-to-face’ and embedded in institutions”
(2000, p. 163).
454 Gordon

Paul Watt and Kevin Stenson (1998) also discuss ways in which mixed groups of
young people negotiate public spaces in their everyday lives in south-east of England.
They are particularly interested in processes whereby particular places and people
become codified as “danger” or “trouble” (Watt & Stenson, 1998, p. 249). They dis-
cuss “white territorialism” whereby by some whites, particularly young males, may
endeavor to control their local areas. Watt and Stenson also note that for young girls
streets often seem difficult places because of unwanted attention and safety risks.
Therefore girls, when they enter public spaces, are likely to tend to spend more time in
shopping malls (Watt & Stenson, 1998, p. 21). But it is notable that schools can also
be problematic places for girls, where they may be teased in ways that border on sex-
ual harassment – and often it can be difficult for them to draw the line. Similarly, boys
and young men whose masculinities are called into question may experience difficulties
in urban schools and other urban spaces (Connell, 1989).
Peterson’s “walls and bridges” metaphor is also appropriate when we consider young
people with disabilities, and their opportunities for unrestricted movement in urban
spaces. As Butler (1998) notes, those young people with disabilities who are integrated
into mainstream schools, may find that their needs are overlooked. However, in our col-
lective cross-cultural ethnographic research of two schools in Helsinki and two schools
in London, it was found that the one London school where students of diverse special
needs were placed, these young people were well integrated into everyday life at school.
This particular school aimed at generally inclusive practices in terms of a range of social
differences (Gordon et al., 2000).

Urban Education as a Metaphor

Interest in urban education is particularly US phenomenon, where urban schools often
invoke images of inner city areas, local patterns of deprivation and low levels of edu-
cational success. Similarly in the UK the term “inner city schools” usually refers to
those local schools that are characterized by diversity of students and relatively high
levels of poverty in the home, as well as poor school buildings and faster than average
turn-over of teachers. However, in some European and Nordic countries the best
schools are often thought to be in inner urban areas, and rural schools are considered
more problematic in terms of being able to maintain sufficient resources. It may be dif-
ficult to attract teachers with appropriate qualifications, and a willingness to stay in
such local areas. As the trend is towards larger and larger schools, more village schools
are discontinued. Often in sparsely populated areas the disappearance of the local
school may be the last straw for some parents, who thereby decide to move to more
densely populated villages or cities. There have been efforts to ensure long-distance
learning through the use of computers so that smaller schools can survive with fewer
local resources. Problems are different in big cities such as London where it is difficult
to construct a high standard committed teaching force, because of the high price of
housing and cost of living.
Therefore meanings of “urban education” can be markedly different in Sweden,
Norway, and Finland, if compared to UK or US for example. However, the phenomenon
 Urban Citizenship 455

of “urban schools” can also be found in Nordic countries. But the kind of schools that
raise issues associated with “urban education” are located in the suburbs rather than in
the “inner-city” areas. Nordic inner city centers are often spaces where arts and busi-
nesses are located. They are also areas characterized by higher income levels of
inhabitants. It is the appearance of young people in the public central urban spaces that
can generate unease. Cathrin Lundström (2006) found in her study on young high
achieving Latina girls, that when they moved around the city centre in Stockholm,
other people assumed that they are “visiting” from the suburbs, or they were seen as
out of place.
Nevertheless the “inner city” school phenomenon is familiar in Nordic countries,
even though it is not characterized by such extreme differences that can be found in big
global cities such as London, Paris, or New York. Thomas Gitz-Johansen (2003)
conducted participant observation research on representations of ethnicity in two
“inner city” schools in the vicinity of Copenhagen. Both areas were characterized by
relatively high rates of unemployment and a relatively large proportion of immigrants,
compared to the national average. In discussions with teachers Gitz-Johansen noticed
that they made implicit differentiations between students on the basis of their ethnicity.
They also considered the local area as characterized by a low level of parental resources,
for example, due to unemployment. Problems of linguistic competence were also men-
tioned. For example, a teacher talked about students (2003, p. 73) in the following way:
“The teacher tells me that she despairs over the parents of the bilingual students.
According to her, they have no ambitions on behalf of their daughters.” Whereas in some
schools competence in two or more languages is considered an asset, in other
schools such competence is questioned and considered to impair fluent command of
any language.
Anne-Lise Arnesen (2003) was also puzzled by ways in which teachers talked about
school students. She conducted ethnographic research in a school in Oslo, Norway and
began to analyze how teachers discussed individual students. Arnesen focused on one
particular girl student who was considered to be an “outsider” and she found that
the ways teachers talked about her were contradictory and ambiguous. In particular she
found tensions between the ideology of inclusion and practices of exclusion. On the
basis of closer observation Arnesen was able to suggest that the difficulties that
the student was experiencing were connected to bullying at school; this had remained
unnoticed.
Similar problems can be found in pre-schools. Sirpa Lappalainen (cf. 2003) studied
constructions of nationality and ethnicity in two Finnish pre-schools. Both of these
schools aimed at inclusive practices and their stated aim was to form international wel-
coming spaces for children. Yet, when discussing different practices the children might
be used to, implicitly the teachers as well as the children reproduced popular under-
standings about national differences. “Internationalisation” in urban education can,
therefore, be a complex aim. As Sverker Lindblad and Tom Popkewitz (2003, p. 23)
suggest, “the issues that underline globalisation and restructuring require thinking
about the multiple actors that are present in any speech act of schooling.”
In the comparative and cross cultural ethnographic study of two schools in Helsinki
and two schools in London there was a pronounced contrast between the two London
456 Gordon

schools, one in inner city and one in suburbia (Gordon et al., 2000). However, the inner
city school had resolved to make great efforts to formulate inclusive practices, so that
they catered for children who were from new immigrant families, and also children with
various disabilities. This meant that the staff was able to build expertise round such
diversity.
The Helsinki schools also formed a contrast in that one was more middle class, and
the other was more working class. The more middle class school was located in the
centre of Helsinki, whilst the more working class school was located in the suburbs.
The former school had a particular arts orientation, so it attracted students from a
number of districts in Helsinki. The suburban school attracted mostly students from its
own catchment area, so it was a more local. Of course it is the case that in London, too,
there are schools located in inner cities that are nevertheless not thought of as “inner
city” schools. Social class composition is crucial in considering what is characterized
as “inner city.”

Urban Education and Processes of Inclusion

and Exclusion
“Green Park” in Helsinki was located in a working class area. The local community
association gathered memories that people have of Green Park. When the area was
being built, its local culture was characterized by communality and interaction. The area
lacked many basic amenities, so local collaboration was crucial, because it facilitated
joint efforts of the inhabitants in the process of constructing local services. People
were mutually dependent on help from other inhabitants.
Memories that local people recorded emphasize that children and young people
moved about together, particularly boys. Whilst the boys might squabble, there were no
insurmountable conflicts. Whilst boys tended to play football together and girls tended
to associate among themselves, girls and boys spent time together as well. Although
there were disturbances in the area, children seemed to have been protected from
them. A teacher referred to classrooms that had been overflowly with students, but
nevertheless suggested that the atmosphere was positive. However, few people who
recorded their local memories and referred to schooling, expressed similarly positive
memories.
During our ethnography there had been a recent increase in ethnic diversity in Green
Park. The school had begun to think about difference, but it was not easy for the teach-
ers to decide when they should intervene in the informal talk of students. In this context
ethnocentric or even racist comments were not always discussed or challenged by the
staff. For example when boys called others “Pedro,” teachers did not take issue with
that. Such name calling was used to marginalize its object from ordinary Finnishness
and hence from the centre of the networks among the boys. Hence it contravened the
idea of inclusive rights of school students. Similarly, incidents were observed where
boys were teasing girls. As Elina Lahelma (2002) has suggested, teachers found it
difficult to draw the line between mutual joking and behavior that bordered on harass-
ment. Similar practices have been found in Swedish schools. Nordic girls are expected
 Urban Citizenship 457

to stand up for themselves and through this process to become “strong Nordic women”
(Lahelma & Öhrn, 2003). However, as Elisabet Öhrn (1998) has noted, girls do engage
in practices of resistance.
In the context of a study on transitions, school students in the ethnography were
re-interviewed (Gordon & Lahelma, 2003). When young men talk about encounters in
the local area in these interviews, they refer to exclusionary practices, suggesting, for
example, that members of ethnic minority groups occupy public spaces in ways that
exclude others. However, young men also discuss local encounters that are character-
ized by co-operation between people who are considered to be different. In an inter-
view two young men they talk about their use of space. The interview was conducted
in the Department of Sociology, located in an area that I call “City Park.” The young
men have a following conversation:

Tuula: Where do you tend to spend your free time?

Ismo: In Greenland mostly.
Heikki: Well if we go and spend some free time it’s mostly so that we go to either of
our homes, go to cinema, but rarely really. Or we go and get – or buy a CD or
something. That sort of thing. And then if I’m with Pekka we go into the city
sometimes, because he’s lived here in City Park. So we always come here or
something.
Tuula: But quite a lot – if you go to cinema, you go in Greenland?
Ismo: If we go to movies we come to the city. There’s no proper one in Greenland.
Heikki: It’s really bad.
Ismo: You’d need to be mad to go there.
Tuula: (…) Have the areas that you move in become larger?
Heikki: Yes. At least for me, because I’ve never really been to City Park. And now
then, even though I’ve known Pekka (…) for six years, seven years, but I’ve
not been here in City Park before. Only in the last few years, or last year
Tuula: (..) do you go (..) any pubs or discos or anything like that?
Ismo: Not really.
Heikki: No in pubs, I once accidentally ended up in X, but it’s a useless place. And
then, when you have a free evening, you need to have alcohol, so it is usually
at Pekka’s friends.

Young men spend time in public places both in local areas and also in the city centre,
but they also spend a fair amount of time at home.

Tuula: (…) what would a favourite place for you? Somewhere that you really like a
lot?
Heikki: My own room.
Ismo: Yes, that’s really –

Public places can be exciting places, but they can also be characterized by tensions,
and being in them can seem unsafe at times. Therefore one’s own room can be place
where one can have privacy, safety but also freedom.
458 Gordon

When discussing public places, it becomes evident that some white young Finnish
men have negative views about immigrants.

Pete: I have a fairly negative image about them. They’re criminals, or a large propor-
tion of them are criminals.
Jere: Yes.
Pete: And they take jobs away from Finns, and we sort of keep them, when we pay taxes.
For example when drivers get fined and so on, the money is not used to fix roads,
it’s used when yet one more family comes from over there to live in Finland.
Jere: Yeah, they need to fix things there in their own country and stay and live there.
They come over here and complain and we pay everything for them.

In the next extract it is evident that at the same time as these young men produce these
negative perceptions, they also state that this picture does not necessarily match exist-
ing circumstances.

Jere: Well they’re not all quite like that, I mean there’s a small proportion, who want to
do something in order to be here, they study and so on. But nevertheless there’s a
negative picture on the whole.

It is significant that these negative pictures do not always reflect personal experiences
of the young people, but they also reflect public discussions that have been conducted
in the media, where representations of refugees and immigrant are often negative
(Raittila, 2002).
I ask further questions of Pete and Jere about their negative picture and how it has
formed. They refer to their own experiences as well as to the media – particularly when
the interviewer questions their views:

Jere: Usually it’s all that – when you watch the news and hear and read papers and so
on. And you can see who are the ones who move about in the city. There they
are, over there.
Tuula: Well?
Pete: I don’t like them.
Tuula: They have a high percentage of unemployment, it’s difficult to get work here.
Pete: Yes, and we still get more anyway.

When young men talked about exclusionary views, they often mentioned particular
immigrant groups, for example, that members of a particular group moved about with
knives in their pockets. In this situation it is fairly clear that they are not talking about
girls and women (although they may have knives as well) but rather they think about
boys and men. In such situations it is particularly the relations between young men that
are considered significant.
Boys can also be aware of the fact their views may be based on exaggerations. Heikki
and Ismo, cited above, shift their tone gradually when they talk about the generalizations
that other people have about them.
 Urban Citizenship 459

Heikki: Well it doesn’t mean that I would attack everyone I see in the streets.
I don’t sort of hold – like that “get out of Finland.” But sort of – often when you
see them in the streets they really don’t behave in a very flattering way, sort
of. It’s easy to have this image that …
Ismo: I mean generalisation is so …
Heikki: Yeah, we do it ourselves, even though we just said that (unclear).
Ismo: Yes, it’s a kind of, you don’t necessarily even notice it, that you’re already gen-
eralising, so if you sometimes have some experience, someone comes and
mouths at you, or you hear from friends about those who’ve come with knives
to rob, or who’ve been beaten up. Then it’s everybody straight away.

This kind of talk demonstrates that young people do have a capacity to think about
their own conceptions, particularly if they are encouraged to do so. In interactive life
history interviews every participant may offer new ideas in the course of the discus-
sion. Heikki and Ismo continue the discussion on generalizations by talking about their
own experiences. In this context they are critical about generalizations:

Heikki: No but, I mean I really try not to generalise, because it’s like, having been the
target of generalisations, sort of. So it’s been possible to notice how, sort of,
one tries. But it doesn’t always work.
Tuula: What sort of generalisations have you come across?
Heikki: Well wearing black clothes and that it’s straight away satan worship or some-
thing like that.

Someone who practices exclusion in one context, may be the target of it himself in
another context. In that sense in urban areas there are a range of overlapping exclu-
sions and inclusions. Neighborhood nationalism is intertwined with urban citizenship,
and embedded in practices whereby rights and duties are negotiated in everyday situa-
tions and spaces where young people meet. When those concerned are young men,
these encounters are framed by hegemonic masculinities that refer to hierarchical rela-
tions between men (cf. Connell, 1989). Being Finnish is produced in many contexts,
representations and orders that become emotionally embedded. Relations among
young men are important in contestations and struggles about local spaces. Their
presence in public places may scare others, but they may also fear for their own safety
(cf. McDowell, 1999). As Coffey and Hall (1999) suggest, spaces are shaped to
become places in a range of ways. They propose that one of the tasks of youth work is
to participate in such negotiations among young people. Similarly the task of urban
education is to support young people in their interaction across differences at school.

Educational Implications
Education is a crucial site where agency of young people can be constructed and
supported so that it is possible for them to engage critically with negative representa-
tions of others, and to critically consider society, culture differences and social justice
460 Gordon

(Osler & Vincent, 2002). Negative and/or stereotypical ways of representing others are
problematic in a globalized and transnational world, where people cross many kinds of
borders and boundaries. These border crossings cohere unevenly, so that global flaneurs
are often white middle-class men who can operate as cosmopolitans. Others, however,
have to cross borders even though they may not want to. For people in transnational
spaces, rights and duties associated with citizenship are important. If these rights and
duties and the sense of belonging that is associated with them take place in local
places, through the encounters associated with them, it is possible to cultivate a sense
of belonging and inclusion, so that in the context of multicultural and syncretic border
crossing new cultures can emerge. These new cultures may facilitate the formation of
those kinds of shared collective responsibilities that were demonstrated in the discus-
sion about the early history of Green Park.
The idea of urban citizenship introduces questions about rights, duties and respon-
sibilities between and among people. Critical engagement with patterns of city forma-
tion is also important in promoting socially just education. Access to public services in
general is also critical in order to prevent any further development of suburbs charac-
terized by low level of resources, and inner cities where a multitude of services includ-
ing arts and culture are generated and utilized by middle and upper classes. Whilst
social planning and city design remain processes that are not held apart, young people
have access to a diversity of cultures and they have opportunities to negotiate collabo-
rative practices. The important task of urban education is to support these practices in
a multitude of contexts where young people are located.

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25

TERRITORIAL STIGMATISATION, HIP HOP

AND INFORMAL SCHOOLING

Ove Sernhede
University of Goteborg, Sweden

You know I’m not that smart, I’m not that much into school and homework …
reading and writing and all that, but it doesn’t matter anyhow. My next-door neigh-
bour, he is an architect, he is very well educated from the finest universities in
London. He has applied for more than a hundred jobs, but no work place wants to
hire him because he is a “blackhead.” I’m also a “blackhead” so why should I try
to be good in school? I’ll never get a job that way anyhow. The only way for us to
get somewhere is to do the things we are good at here – break-dance, boxing, bas-
ketball and rap. I’m all into music, so that’s what I’ll do. To be a microphone
prophet is a safer future for me than to get good grades in school. Tederico, age 20

Tederico is a rapper and a member of a Hip Hop collective in Hammarkullen, Göteborg.

Hammarkullen is one of the better-known immigrant neighborhoods located in
Angered, an area in the north-east part of Göteborg, a city with half a million inhabi-
tants on the west coast of Sweden. The youngsters refer to Angered as Los Angered,
and there is a strong territorial awareness that keeps the many break-dance and rap
groups all around Angered together as a coherent Hip Hop culture. They do not con-
sider Angered as a part of Göteborg. Angered is “the third world in the middle of the
first world.” Even if they are Swedish citizens they say that they will “never be a part
of Swedish culture” and that they never see themselves as Swedes. They belong to the
Global Tribe of Hip Hop.
The initial words from Tederico may sound a bit categorical, but it is no exaggeration
to say that the school system has great difficulties in many immigrant-dominated areas
in the metropolitan cities of Sweden. If, for example, we take a closer look at the
2,500 persons from the Göteborg region who are registered each autumn at Göteborg
University, we find that only 65–70 of these are from Angered, an area with more than
40,000 inhabitants. There has been a public debate about the under-representation of
immigrants in higher education. Göteborg University has launched diverse projects to
attract the youth in Angered, but with little success. The problem is alarming, and to
463
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 463–480.
© 2007 Springer.
464 Sernhede

solve it we must go deeper beneath public debate. Segregation, marginalization, and

the growth of new forms of poverty in many Swedish cities have created a demarcation
line between Us and Them – the immigrant-dominated areas are at the heart of what
we might consider as an urbanization of injustice.

Luxury Alongside Poverty

Since the mid-1980s a debate has raged among sociologists and other social scientists
about patterns of marginalization and poverty on the European continent, including the
United Kingdom. The development towards a “post-industrial” society has implied a
growing social polarization in many countries. The rise of new forms of social exclu-
sion has pushed an increasing number of groups into marginalization and ultimately
into exclusion. The forms and intensities involved in this process of mounting class
differentiation vary. However, it is still possible to discern certain common tendencies
in the emergent New Europe.
In order to explain this development, politicians refer regularly and compulsively to
economic crisis. Simultaneously, the GNP and accumulated wealth have witnessed
strong growth over the entire European Union during the past two or three decades.
Luxury and poverty have always existed side by side. However, the present situation
offers something new in the form of growing gaps between the world of affluence and
that of scarcity. Neither millionaires nor the destitute have at any time during the post-
war period been so numerous as now. According to official EU statistics from 1998,
before the incorporation of the former Eastern European States in 2004, there were
52 million poor people, 17 million unemployed, and 3 million homeless in the EU
(Waquant, 1999). These figures do not seem to be declining, and at the same time an
improved competitive position has moved the European economy into a phase of strong
expansion.
A background element of importance in this development is the new international
division of labor. In addition, there are crucial structural changes in the economy that
have created a situation where, for example, the new IT sector is putting greater
demands on labor. Economies require highly qualified people with exponentially
increasing competence, while many tasks in traditional industries are being elimi-
nated. The simple truth is that there are no jobs for a growing army of redundant work-
ers. The effect on immigrants and refugees who in recent years have moved to the
suburbs of European cities is that they too are facing growing difficulties in entering
the labor market. The permanency of contemporary patterns of poverty is clearly linked
to processes of de-industrialization and globalization. The French sociologist Pierre
Bourdieu characterized the new patterns of poverty that grow out of these structural
changes as the “Modern Misery,” and that this new situation emerged independently
of the state of the economies (Bourdieu, 1999). Those who have carried the new
destitution on their shoulders have easily been disarmed by their marginal positions
and their heterogeneity. The political machines of established interests find it men-
acing to be in any sense identified with, or much less a mouthpiece for, this modern
misery.
 Territorial Stigmatisation 465

The Divided City

The dismantling of the institutions of the welfare state is also at the root of contemporary
poverty. The British sociologist Scott Lash (1994) characterized this as “institutional
deficit,” which is particularly evident in urban, ghetto-like environments where mod-
ern misery is more manifest. The American scholar William Julius Wilson (1993)
stressed the pattern of synchronization between developments in Europe and the
United States. The French sociologist Loic Wacquant has (1993), on the other hand,
found decisive differences. One important such difference is constituted by the hetero-
geneous ghettos in Europe. Another difference is that, in Europe, the demarcation line
between the socially excluded and the rest of society is not as clearly related to the
categories of race or ethnicity as it is in the US. There has been great controversy on
how to characterize this new situation. Scholars on the right think that the development
of the welfare state produced a social stratum which they call “the new underclass,”
unwilling to work and deeply dependent on welfare subsidies. The opposite view of
this new situation blames not the victims, but the structural changes of the European
economy during the last two or three decades.
Those marginalized groups of mobile immigrants or refugees who on the continent
are labeled “the new poor” or “outcasts” have, over the past 15 years, been forming
ghettos everywhere in Europe. In Sweden the best-known ghetto areas are Rinkeby
(Stockholm), Angered (Göteborg) and Rosengård (Malmö). All of these neighbor-
hoods are involved in what Wacquant defines as a territorial stigmatization process
(Waquant, 1993, 1999). The societal and medial discourse demonizes the conditions of
life in these areas so that, both inside and outside them, fear and insecurity are being
created. A moral panic is created by stereotypes about criminality, race, culture and
religious antagonisms, which additionally exacerbates conditions for people who are
already sidetracked by poverty and alienation. The social tensions are growing, and
Lash, instead of asking “if,” is asking “when” and where the European version of the
Rodney King affair will occur: in Berlin, Marseilles or Rotterdam?1
Now we know. The European version of the Rodney King Riot started on the 27th of
October 2005 in Paris. To be closer, it started in the immigrant dominated Parisian sub-
urb Clichy-sous-Bois. The police hunted two young French citizens with parents from
Mali and Tunisia. They tried to get shelter in an electric power station and there they
were burnt to death. The very same evening citizens in Clichy organized a meeting to
show their rage against the police. Later on that night hundreds of youth in Clichy and
other suburbs attacked the police with stones and Molotov cocktails. This was the start
of the most serious uprising in France since May 1968. For 2–3 weeks the whole of
France went up in flames and the authorities had to put in more than 25,000 extra
policemen. But the riots were not defeated until a “state of emergency” was proclaimed
in 300 cities of France. And now the whole of Europe has but one question, when will
these riots start again. Can these riots be exported to other countries? The Swedish
media showed their anxiety and interviewed social workers, youth and social scientists
during the weeks France was burning – is a French situation possible in Sweden?
The situation in metropolitan areas in Sweden may not be as rough as in France.
But the official reports on the living conditions in the immigrant-dense suburbs of
466 Sernhede

Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö does not make for uplifting reading. 40% of all
children and young people up to 17 years of age live in “exposed urban districts,” to cite
a parliamentary committee on Big City Conditions. The majority of people in these dis-
tricts have foreign backgrounds. The largest proportions of youngsters with immigrant
origins are to be found in districts with extremely low incomes. The disposable income
among families with children in many neighborhoods in Angered is some 14,000
British pounds lower per annum than the average income in the city of Stockholm. In
Göteborg and Malmö, there are districts with extremely low incomes that coincide
with a 90% immigrant population and with more than 50% of the children up to six
years of age having unemployed parents. These circumstances have put Sweden into a
state of shock. The so-called Swedish model, the famous welfare state, is eroding. The
situation for child immigrants can in some respects be compared with conditions for
blacks in the United States, where one in two children lives in poverty. In a recent inves-
tigation (Salonen, 2003) of child poverty, 73% of the children in Rosengård live in fam-
ilies that are below the poverty line. Sweden has for some time also been a two-thirds
society, or more correctly it is a four-fifths society. In Göteborg, a classic working-class
city with half a million inhabitants of whom nearly 150,000 have an immigrant back-
ground, social entitlements doubled between 1990 and 1993. Even though the situation
for the Swedish economy has stabilized the processes of marginalization, poverty and
discrimination are made permanent and Sweden has become a country of “Us” and
“Them” like many other European countries. The unemployment figures amongst immi-
grants are higher than for the “ethnic Swedes,” immigrant youths do not attend higher
education, and so on.
Research on the new areas of poverty in the European metropolitan districts suggests
that, in contrast to the traditional working-class quarters where poverty was an integral
part of the working-class culture, the new areas are suffering from a lack of solidarity
and community spirit (Mingione, 1996). The local, collective and territorial identity,
which previously provided security and a feeling of self-assertiveness, is now replaced
by instability in the very same districts. There exist, it is claimed, uncertainty and
alienation in relation to the rest of society. At the same time, the internal conditions are
inculcated by competition and conflict-ridden antagonisms between different groups.
These patterns can, of course, also be discerned in Sweden. The new immigrant-
dominated suburban districts in the three Swedish metropolitan areas constitute frag-
ile communities, the mark of which is extreme ethnic heterogeneity. For many adults
who see their living in a particular district as a temporary solution, the social space
provided by this district is a rather weak basis for any community spirit. Instead, it is
the family and the commonality of one’s own ethnic group that are charged with a new
meaning.

Reality is My Nationality
Things are different for the young. During leisure time they are out on the streets and
cultivating friendships that supersede the ethnic boundaries drawn by the parental cul-
ture. All adolescents are in the process of seeking their outer and inner selves – this is
 Territorial Stigmatisation 467

part of the identity work of modern youth. In these multiethnic areas, the constant
encounters with young people from other cultures, with Swedish society and with today’s
multi facetted, global and media-based youth culture, imply that new points of departure
are created for identification processes, which by necessity are embedded in adolescent
identity work.
For two and a half years I conducted a research project in Hammarkullen, one of the
immigrant suburbs of Angered in Göteborg.2 One of the salient features amongst the
groups with which I had contact is their openness to absorbing and testing different
expressions, articulations and outlooks on the world which are inherent in different cul-
tures. Although most of the youngsters I met are Swedish citizens, they do not consider
themselves as Swedes. On the other hand, adopting their parents’ national identity is not
self-evident either. “Cassius” from Tunisia told me:

I’ m not Swedish, I never could be Swedish ’cos this society don’t want me, but I’m
not Tunisian either, but of course I’m more Tunisian than Swede. You see …
I couldn’t go back to Tunisia ’cos I have no future there. I’ve been going to school
here in Hammarkullen, I have all my friends here, I have my life here – but this is
not Sweden, it’s Hammarkullen and Hammarkullen is a reservation, there are no
Swedes living here so it’s not Sweden – it’s Hammarkullen. It’s like the Third
World in the middle of the First World, if you see what I mean.

The general election in Sweden in 2002 supported the picture of a general pattern of
decreasing voter turnout. Today, in a number of different groups within Swedish soci-
ety, we see an increasing tendency towards dissociation in relation to the official forms
and institutions of politics. This new pattern of development has been presented as a
threat to, or a crisis for, democracy. Although these developments are general in nature,
it is undoubtedly the case that they are more prominent among young people and
immigrants than among many other groups. Muhammad, 20 years of age, born in
Somalia, a Swedish citizen for eight years:

They say on TV that immigrants have to be integrated and that we should do this
and that. But how the fuck can we be integrated into society when they don’t even
want us there really. They shut the door, got it. That’s how I see it. They shut me
out of society, then they want me to participate. You understand? How can you
participate when you can’t even get in … I don’t see myself as a member of this
society, ya know. That’s how I feel. I’m a Swedish citizen, I’m not going to vote.
’Cos I don’t care, got it. I don’t care. Why should I get mixed up in their business.
It doesn’t feel like my business. Even though I’m a Swedish citizen and have lived
here for ten years, I don’t care. Ya know, that’s how I see myself. I don’t want to
integrate anything. I don’t want to be part of … I have nothing in common with
Swedish society.

Muhammad, quoted above, is in many respects representative of the young people with
whom I have had contact during the time I did my research on segregated, suburban
immigrant youth and their cultural expressions. The most striking common feature of
468 Sernhede

the stories they have shared with me has to do with exclusion, non-participation, and a
feeling that “real Swedes don’t really want to get to know us immigrants.” Their stories
are about experiencing that official Swedish institutions are not intended for them.
Time and time again, they return to the feeling of not being desirable, of not fitting in,
of not having a place – and to the frustration of “not knowing what I should do with
my life.” They are Swedish, problematically so. Moving to their parents’ homeland is
not a practicable solution either. Even though they have family and friends there, enjoy
visiting (if this is at all possible), and may perceive themselves as more for example,
Chilean or Somali than Swedish, their parents’ homeland remains a different world
than the one they grew up in and have an internalized relation to. There is no future
there either.
Given their feelings of non-belonging both in Sweden and their parents’ homeland,
many of the youths I interviewed consider the identity offered by immigrant status as
their primary identity. They are neither Swedish, nor Chilean or Somali, but immi-
grants or – as they often call themselves – “blackheads” or “blackies.” These young
people are brought together by the alienation of being an immigrant. All of them are
“blackies,” regardless of where they have their roots – in Europe, Latin America or
Africa. “Alienation is our Nation” and “Reality is my Nationality,” claimed one of the
youngsters – with an alien passport – in a reference to the well-known rap artist Kool
G. Rap. The innovative cultural work these young people are involved in – and which
I have focused on through my research – deals with, among other things, redefining
this alienation and deciding for themselves what it means. The new cultural patterns
being created not only highlight frustration and pain, but likewise the power and poten-
tial, the joy and community that also exist in the environments where they live their
lives. Among other things, this is a matter of taking from “the Svens” their right to
interpret how these environments are understood and defined. “We aren’t people you
should feel sorry for. I hate it when there are discussions and Swedes say ‘poor immi-
grants.’ We are not poor immigrants. We have our pride, you know, we’re not wimps.”
They defend themselves against being turned into victims. This is why they have, for
instance, consciously taken over the epithet “blackie,” a term originally used by xeno-
phobic Swedes. Thus, just as blacks in the US have taken up the derogatory “nigger”
and given it another meaning, young people in Angered have transformed the meaning
of “blackie.”
Another common response to the situation of rootlessness felt by young immigrants
is to focus on their own neighborhood or suburb. It is primarily boys and young men
who use this strategy for creating identity and security. The place where they grew up,
where they live, where they spend their everyday life and where they have their friends
becomes obviously a factor of crucial importance to stabilize identity if you are
considered an alien in the world outside your own area. Among the young men I met,
there is a strong need to charge with meaning and elevate the local physical environ-
ment as well as the youth community. “Hammarkullen – that’s our place on earth,” but
Hammarkullen is not part of Sweden, it is a “reservation.” Hammarkullen is another
world, another form of community. Hammarkullen offers security and protection and
is the social space for common interests.
 Territorial Stigmatisation 469

A Tense Relation to Swedish Authorities

When, after a day’s work, the social workers, teachers, youth-club leaders, and admin-
istrative staff climb into their cars and drive ten plus kilometres home to their housing
areas in Göteborg’s inner city, they are replaced by security companies and police as if
“changing of the guard for the occupying power.” Many I have spoken with consider
the relationship between Angered and the rest of Göteborg to be colonial. Given this
understanding, the police have a clear mission, and particularly in Hammarkullen the
young people’s relationship to the police has a long and inflamed history. In inter-
views, young immigrants tell of how they have long felt provoked and harassed by the
police. “If they come here with their batons and cocky attitudes then we have a cocky
attitude back. Just ‘cos we’re some sort of underclass doesn’t mean we put up with any-
thing, ya know.” Santos, a 20-year-old Peruvian, talks at length and with intensity about
his experience of their relation to the police.
When I started to visit the area, one of the first things that happened was a confrontation
between youth and the police. At this time there were no neighborhood police in the
area. When a 19-year-old young man was about to be seized by a police patrol a large
group of youths intervene in order to rescue their friend. The patrol car’s windshield is
smashed and the policemen lose control, become panicky and call in reinforcements.
Within a few minutes, 22 additional police cars arrive in order to head off the “riot.”
The next day, big headlines were circulated in the press. Youths from Hammarkullen
were depicted as an unruly mob, as hoodlums. The circumstances that, according to the
young people, were the actual cause of the disturbances were not presented in the
media. On television, Channel 4 was an exception. The local news desk arranged a
debate between youth and the police. On this occasion it became clear that the media
had not provided the whole truth. Indeed the young people were not shown as hooligans
and they in no way corresponded to stereotypical portrayals in the evening papers –
portrayals of immigrant youth as dangerous and brutal. Instead, these young immi-
grants appeared to be just the opposite – verbal, mature and sober. During the live
broadcast, they even invited the police to take a “class” that they intended to give, pro-
vided the police were interested. In their opinion, the police needed to acquire more
knowledge about the life conditions of immigrant youth and the big city. Many police
officers come from small towns and have little idea about what it means to live in a
modern, big-city suburb. Their knowledge of what it means to be an immigrant is even
more limited.
Adults living in the area also perceived the 22 extra patrol cars and newspaper articles
to be insulting. They demanded a meeting with and explanation from the office of
the chief of police. No one from the office came to the meeting that was called, but
instead two former neighborhood police, both of whom have a good name in the district.
Because neither of the officers was present during the event in question, they were
unable to respond to the questions posed by the indignant participants at the meeting.
It was poignant to see an elderly Chilean refugee stand and take the floor. He was
extremely critical of the police and said, “I have been at the soccer stadium in Santiago
as a political prisoner, I have seen police and the military attack people in this way, but
470 Sernhede

I never thought this could happen in Olof Palme’s Sweden.” In order to understand how
many young people view the media, we must remember that events such as this “riot”
and its consequences constitute the relevant background. There is a strongly expressed
aversion to all the images of misery, poverty, and trouble that the media are perceived
to ration out at regular intervals. Every negative reference in the papers or on TV is
considered as an insult. The media is not thought of as an independent or neutral and
critical institution. On the contrary, the perception is that the function of the media is
to identify the immigrants as second-class citizens.

Tha Klika
Tederico, the young man we met earlier, has a close friend called Victor, a 19-year-old
of Latin American origin, who comments on the media-made image of his own suburb
in the following way:

Hammarkullen is really a reservation. Rinkeby is too, in Stockholm. When I’m in

Hammarkullen everything feels okay. Everybody badmouths Hammarkullen, but
nobody’s been there. That’s why people don’t want to be anywhere else, ’cos then
things aren’t okay. Now I’m in Hammarkullen, it’s another world. I know every-
body and everybody’s just like me. When I leave Hammarkullen I come to
Sweden, and when I’m in Sweden I feel discriminated against. It doesn’t feel like
Sweden is my country and it never will. Even if … I have a theory that the world
is where you want to live. If a place feels good, you should live there. But Sweden
doesn’t feel like my country. When I look around I only see white, blond people.
I really don’t want to be part of that society. There’s no reason to ’cos I don’t feel
at home there anyway. Then maybe you wonder “why the hell are you here then.”
There really are a lot of problems. I was born here, ya know, and I don’t know what
I’m going to do with my life really. There just shouldn’t be any barriers.

In Hammarkullen there is local version of Hip Hop culture. I have spent much of my
time in the area with a group of 10–15 young men, aged 17–25, who make rap music.
They are part of a bigger Hip Hop collective of 50 young people who make rap music,
produce graffiti and break-dance. The members of this rap group have their origins in
Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. They regard themselves as constituting an
ethnic alliance, the task of which is not only to represent the young from Hammer Hill
(which they have literally re-baptized as their district), but to speak for all immigrant
youth from all suburbs in Sweden. This group aptly calls itself The Hammer Hill Click
or Tha Klika, and has as its main aim to create respect and goodwill for its own suburb.
When Hip Hop grew out of the Bronx, New York City, in the late 1970s, it was a response
to social devaluation and stigmatization. For Hammarkullen’s youth, Hip Hop is also a
means of improving a city district’s sullied reputation.3 “We don’t want Hammarkullen
to be known because there are a lot of problems here, we want everybody to know about
Hammarkullen because the best rappers and break-dancers are here.”
Demands for respect are raised only by those who have been treated disrespectfully.
Hip Hop is a cultural expression of demands for respect. Hip Hop is a street culture.
 Territorial Stigmatisation 471

This does not mean it has no interest in reflecting upon the society it is part of. But the
knowledge that is valued in the Hip Hop culture is not something one learns in school.
A rapper can in one way be seen as an “organic intellectual,” who makes use of personal
experience to analyze history and contemporary social reality (Holmes-Smith, 1997). In
this culture’s eyes, the schools have lost their credibility since they are founded on His-
story, that is, on descriptions of history by “the white man.” The schools rest on a
Western, Eurocentric perspective where universal principles are preached at the same
time as society practices segregation, discrimination, and inequality. “Democracy is
Hipocracy and has to do with luring the poor.” “Democracy is Hipocracy and has to do
with cheating the poor.”
Click or Klika is a designation of “Clique” which refers back to the youth gangs of
the so-called Chicano culture in Los Angeles. There, a “clique” means a solidly coher-
ent group. To define themselves as a clique implies that the members have mutual bonds
of trust which approximate to their relationships to their original families. However, to
have borrowed a group designation from Los Angeles, and tattooed one’s body in the
same way as one’s “brothers” across the Atlantic, does not entail identifying one’s living
conditions with those of young Chicanos in Los Angeles. Residing in a “depressed”
area of Sweden and Göteborg is quite different from inhabiting an American ghetto;
the kinship is primarily on a symbolic level.

Informal Learning Processes

Tha Klika started as a tight group of comrades and had many features in common with
the characteristics of exclusive boys’ clubs. One of the hallmarks of the “Clique” was
that the members’ mutual sense of responsibility was so strong so as to make the
group’s coherence resemble, in some respects, a family. The continual talk about being
brothers was more than rhetoric. It reflected true caring and consideration between the
individuals. Hard words, peeves, conflicts, and rudeness naturally occurred, and there
were cases of persons who left the group because they did not fit in. But the underlying
loyalty, the belonging and the shared feeling for the “task” were stronger than in any
other youth group I have had contact with.4
Such youth groups have often been portrayed as male-dominated collectives that build
upon needs for separateness and security in an uncertain, demanding world. Through
the “collective self ” that the group constitutes, a marginalized and powerless individ-
ual can gain strength. Being a member, allowed to take part in the collective warmth,
is the primary motive and each can hide his uncertain self in the gang. Relations within
the group have also frequently been seen as dominated by superficial contacts. The
tension between a confident, tough surface and a weak self-image has endowed the
collective with an inner life where, as one prerequisite, nobody exposes himself and
talks about himself and his own thoughts, feelings, or needs. Togetherness does not
allow the individual space to show who he or she “really” is. This type of socially and
psychologically structured gang is usually also a kind of closed fortress, permeated
with separation-anxiety and fear, as well as sometimes controlled by demonic-leader
figures.
472 Sernhede

This characteristic has limited relevance for the groups I got to know in Angered.
On the contrary, in a group like Tha Klika, knowledge about each other, and the possi-
bilities of showing who one is, are among the prerequisites for the collective. Most of
these youths were active Hip Hoppers and this in itself may have promoted the climate
between the individuals. Hip Hop is an expressive culture that bases its idioms upon
each participant emphasizing his own subjectivity and creating a personal style as rap-
per, graffiti painter or break-dancer. One’s personality and the distinctions between
individuals are of central significance in this culture. An implication is that nobody
can hide himself and bask in the light of others. Every member has his own assignment
and role in the group. But to maintain this function, training is needed. In regard to
creating music and performing on stage, as well as to the codes in daily life, there is a
mentor system which provides the new initiate with a “guide” or, perhaps more accu-
rately, a “big brother” in the group. This older brother helps, encourages, trains and
leads the new member into the secrets of Hip Hop and rap music.
I met a number of rap gangs regularly for more than a year, and my field notes
contain many observations about the social and musical learning processes that took
place in these groups. The discipline, seriousness and intensity with which they trained
were recognizable to me from other contexts (Fornäs, Lindberg, & Sernhede, 1995).
What I found novel was the clear division of work and almost school-like situation.
Efforts were required of all the individuals, chiefly in the form of writing texts but also
of suggestions for melodies and “beats.” Sometimes the rehearsals became seminar-
like events where, for example, one of the older experienced members recounted the
history of Hip Hop or of blacks or native Latin Americans, or someone reviewed a
book he had read. Perico from Tha Klika, when I ask him whether he enjoys school,
speaks of the relationship between the learning that takes place in school and what
happens in the rap group:

School isn’t my bag, but I get by … you could say that the group is also a kind
of school, see … like Immanuel, he’s a Muslim and he takes care of his own,
Muhammed and Niladh who are Muslims too, you know, so he teaches them
about their history and I teach Ronaldo and Pablo and the other little rappers who
hang around us about Latin America’s history – not like “come here or there at
five o’clock and I’ll test the lesson,” but more when we meet, and then we chat
and I can talk a little as if lecturing when I tell it was this or that Indian tribe liv-
ing at the time, and this or that year when it happened, it was then that the
Spaniards came, the Indians had a certain religion and all that.
It’s fun to talk, you see, and now they’re going to make a new song about Latin
America’s history, see, I said one person can concentrate on the Inca kingdom,
another can take up the Spaniards when they came and wiped out a whole conti-
nent, and the third can talk about the situation in Latin America today. Nobody in
Latin America likes the USA – even though we rap and this comes from the USA,
there’s a difference from the country and those blacks and poor people; the gov-
ernment is something else. Then there can be part of the text about one’s own
thoughts on how that should be handled.
 Territorial Stigmatisation 473

Here, the group and the Hip Hop culture are an arena for seeking understanding, which
schools and parents are not able to provide. But the group also has to do with each indi-
vidual’s need of belonging, security, closeness, meaning, identity and respect. Thus,
“rowdy youth groups” cannot be considered destructive “per se.” On the contrary, they
may well comprise a form of “organisation” that the school has everything to gain by
developing a comprehension of. The basis of any pedagogy must be to develop,
together with the young, content and forms of instruction that are considered mean-
ingful and, in the students” eyes, credible. This must also apply to the young in the
high-rise suburbs. They are entitled to instruction which does not ignore or avoid the
fact that the Swedish society they have to grow up in is stratified into A- and B-classes,
that structural racism exists, and that it is not true that everyone has the same chance
regardless of social, cultural, economic, religious, and ethnic background. The schools
should not compete with the youth culture, but must use its resources to develop intel-
lectual tools which, taking account of the young’s capacity for understanding, give them
a possibility of investigating and understanding contemporary life. In this way the
schools can become credible. Only when school is perceived as an institution that takes
its task seriously can the trust be built up which is needed for the young in these areas
to choose university education in the future. The emergence of the New Sweden
has made it increasingly important that teachers reflect more profoundly upon the
school’s function and their own role. Their loyalty toward the structures in which they
participate is far from self-evident or unproblematic.

88-Soldiers
Being a “clique” also implies that what the members do is more than just to express
themselves through music – in a way it is possible to look upon the group as a kind of
political manifestation. Tha Klika has no problem combining the cultural with the
political, the aesthetic with the ethical. Being a “clique” means that, in spite of their
different origins and creeds, they are an inseparable unit. Within this clique, every indi-
vidual has a fundamental right to claim religious or ethnic particularity and to repre-
sent any branch of rap music, as long as he or she is loyal to the defined common task
of the group. The task is to regard oneself as a soldier with music as a weapon or to be,
as the Clique says, a “microphone prophet.” As has been noted, the group’s lyrics deal
with police brutality, discrimination and racism in Swedish society; they embrace
friendship and gang solidarity, reverence toward Allah and Islam, the history of Latin
America, everyday life in the suburb and so on. The group also issued a mini-CD. One
song is entitled “88-soldiers.” When I ask what they mean by that title, one of the Latin
Americans in the group responds:

Man, you must think, think for yourself – what do you think, man?

After some intense thinking work, dismissing the explanation that they are a total of 88
persons, I realize that it has to do with the symbolism in figures that the neo-Nazis
474 Sernhede

employ when they render cryptic greetings to Hitler. H is the eighth letter in the alphabet
and 88 is consequently HH or Heil Hitler. Thus I ask if it is just something the Nazis
use to praise Hitler. The whole gang bursts into laughter and one of them says:

Sure – we rip those symbols off the Nazis and create total confusion for them, you
dig, man. In one year’s time they can’t go around in the city any more with their
88-tattoos ‘cos we’ve snatched their symbols. For us, 88 means Hammer Hill (the
literal translation of the name of the suburb Hammarkullen) and 88-soldiers repre-
sents us being soldiers, the soldiers of Hammarkullen and we are ready for war.
We’ve had enough, we don’t want to take all this crap any more – do you get it, man,
you get it. In this song everybody is there, all 12 have their own rhymes about their
own thing. Muhammed and B-boy speak for the Blacks, for their people and their
religion … you hear that they rap around Allah and “breaking the law” and … then
we Latinos are coming with the message to our people about the brown ones, you
understand, man … then we are creating certain rhymes together so it becomes
“niggaz and latinos got to unite ‘n’ fight” and that sort of thing, you get it, man. You
know, the song begins with different sounds like that, then it eases its way over to
violins, beautiful and disturbing like that, then there are sounds showing that there
is a war going on, you understand and then we come in and talk cool, first saying
that we aren’t gonna take any more crap and then … we really get going

The title of another song is El Mensaje (The Message); written by two of the Latinos
in the group. The lyrics tell about the Mapotcho tribe, the only Latin American Indians
that the Spanish conquistadors failed to defeat. The song is about the fate of the
Indians; it tells us that their history is just about the same as that of the blacks from
Africa. Their histories are parallel: the plundering and the enslavement by the white
man, by Europe. This is the situation still – all exploited people must unite against “the
white man’s love for money,” then the Mapotcho tribe is something strong to identify
with – “no retreat, no surrender.” The song starts with an aggressive Spanish guitar,
which symbolizes the scent of gold and the hubris of the conquistadors. Gradually, this
chord recedes into an Indian melody-line that becomes stronger and clearer. This folk-
lore-inspired melody is played on an old Indian string instrument and symbolizes the
resistance on the part of the Indians. The song is in praise of those Indian tribes who
were driven back farther and farther up in the Andes and whom the Spaniards never
managed to subdue. Even if these boys do not have any Indian ancestry they strongly
identify with these South American Indians. When I ask if any one of them has Indian
blood, they tell me that it does not matter. It is not a question of blood in that sense; the
identification is grounded at another, symbolic level. Alexander, 19 years of age, with
parents from Chile says:

Even though I’m not an Indian, what the Spaniards did hurts me. It’s too bad the
culture will disappear, for other people too. We don’t want to lose it. Even if
I don’t have Indian blood, we’re proud to come from a country where there were
Indians, and in the song – The Message – we’re trying to say that all Latin
Americans are the same people and that we all have the same blood. A long time
 Territorial Stigmatisation 475

ago we experienced the same thing and we have the same fate. We can gain power
if we just unite, but it’s not that way today, we’re not united, in Sweden we’re
different – Chileans, Bolivians and all. But we feel like one and the same people,
like Latinos. Europe has tried to screw us. We shouldn’t be against each other – it
should be us against them … and them – that you can think of however you like,
ya know …

On the CD, there are two more songs. “One is more commercial, you know, like more
funky gangsta-shit, and it’s called West Coast Slang, whereas the name of the other one is
Pig-hunting Season, which deals with police hostility towards us and how we are
against the police.”
Even though a territorial mythology that constitutes a kind of “nationalism of the
neighbourhood” (Cohen, 1997) is created, there is at the same time a strong sense of
internationalism in this milieu. The most palpable feature of my contact with this mul-
tiethnic Hip Hop collective remains their definition of themselves as representatives of
and spokesmen for what they themselves define as the “new underclass,” which does
not only relate to Sweden. The members of Hammer Hill Clique show a kind of “glocal”
consciousness – they have a strong local identity but they relate to, and are at the same
time connected with, other parts of the world – Bogotá, Cape Town, Los Angeles, and
Paris. It could be said that they are a part of an underground Hip Hop network that is
global. Through the World Wide Web they exchange beats and lyrics with other Hip
Hop groups. They buy CDs, videos, and clothes from all over the globe, and they
inform themselves about the conditions for Chicanos in Los Angeles, Aztec Indians in
Latin America, Somali refugees in Italy etc.5 They consider themselves as a part of
“The Global Tribe of Hip Hop,” or “The Hip Hop Nation.” Sometimes they say that
they live on the “Hip Hop Planet.” Pedro, 23 years of age, who came to Sweden from
Latin America when he was four, says:

I am living through Hip Hop–Hip Hop is the centre of my brain. If you think like
that it is easy to understand other people from other parts of the world that also are
into Hip Hop. If you are Hip Hop you have a lot of things in common … Hip Hop
people all over the world have the same language so it is easy to live with them.
Hip Hop is a language for those that live in ghettos … in the concrete jungle

And Cassius falls in:

We belong to the Hip Hop Nation. That means we have more in common with Hip
Hop people in Berlin, Cape Town and Mexico City than we have with someone
that lives in this town that don’t think like us. We out here are all One, even though
we come from everywhere – you know, we are citizens of the world – what keeps
us together is that we are all on the outside, we don’t have no place inside society.

In one sense the young men in The Hammer Hill Clique are unusual. There are few other
politically articulate groups of young immigrants who see themselves as “soldiers” and
the multiethnic cultural expression they create as armory. In another sense they are
476 Sernhede

quite ordinary. In several comparable districts around Sweden, similar meetings and
fusions between different groups of young people are taking place. Each area has its
specific preconditions, such as its own specific history, its own ethnic composition etc.,
thus resulting in different youth cultures being created in different areas. Although
local variation is great, there are still certain fundamental patterns that characterize
most of the immigrant-dominated suburbs irrespective of their location – Stockholm,
Göteborg, or Malmö. One is the subordinated role of girls in street cultures that
outwardly give shape to the patterns of development outlined above. Another striking
feature concerns the identification with, and impact of, those lifestyles and ideals
formed in the frustrations and wrath of the North American ghetto culture.
Identification with the Afro-American culture does, however, contain a dualism.
On the one hand, it appears as if the openness of this culture, its “call-and-response”
structure, leads to embryos of new communities and cultural models. Its aesthetic
codes, particularly evident in the music, constitute a language that in certain respects
loosens up ethnic boundaries or builds bridges across them. Such processes may cre-
ate new forms of alliances and amalgamations. Herein we find a potential that may
function as a basis for constructive dialogues and learning processes between those
youngsters who employ these cultural patterns and Swedish society.
On the other hand, we can also see today how marginalization and powerlessness
contribute to creating a fascination with the criminal gang culture of the ghettos, which
in real terms may reinforce alienation, exclusion, and segregation. Those tendencies of
hostility towards the dominant culture – tendencies that already existed in the areas
where many immigrant youngsters grow up – may be reinforced through identification
with the most uncompromising and violence-centered aspects of the ghetto culture. It
may thus cement and legitimate irrepressible, confrontational stances that are evident
in certain areas. This is a likely growing scenario if the tendencies towards segregation
and marginalization cannot be broken.

Youth Culture as a Seismograph

Hip Hop emerged from the black ghettos of the US east coast during the latter half of
the 1970s. Rooted in the oral and musical traditions of black culture, while also sensi-
tive to the landscape of sounds in modern society as a whole, it gave voice to a new
generation. With simple means, cultural codes developed in the streets and a new lan-
guage was created, which in a new and effective way publicly expressed the brutal real-
ity of ghetto conditions for many blacks. Hip Hop started as a way for young blacks to
communicate with their “own people” – through rap, graffiti and break-dance.
Today, rap has a rich content and the performers are not exclusively black. But it was
in fact the hard-core Black Nationalist-inspired rap that gained the attention of
non-blacks (Sernhede, 2000). This politically engaged rap began to flourish during the
second half of the 1980s, mainly through “black consciousness rap” performed by
Public Enemy, a group parroting the Black Panthers. This rap was inculcated with
social realism and criticism. It soon had a foothold on the American west coast, with
Los Angeles as the centre of its further emergence. This development needs to be seen
 Territorial Stigmatisation 477

against the background of the internal wars between gangs, the police brutality, and dope
pushing, some of which provide the most salient themes of gangster rap. Militants such as
Public Enemy were eventually surpassed by a street culture that also gave expression to
criticism of injustice in a racist society, but also articulated weapon fetishism, contempt
for women and romanticization of violence. In this context, so-called gangster-rap arose.
This form of rap music had, during the late 1990s, a tremendous impact on certain
groups of immigrant youth in Sweden, particularly in the metropolitan suburbs.
The Hip Hop youngsters in Hammarkullen reflected this attraction to gangster-rap,
but were also influenced by the east coast Hip Hop as well as “conscious rap.”
Their expressions are closely related to what could be seen as a form of post-colonial
political agenda.
The currents of migration, processes of marginalization, and patterns of segregation
that have profoundly transformed Sweden during the 1990s often show immigration as
synonymous with social exclusion. Comparing the Swedish situation with develop-
ments in France, the French sociologist Etienne Balibar (1992) denotes these conditions
as “racism without race.” As we know from youth culture research, cultures developed
by the young often make visible antagonisms and conflicts that exist below the surface
of society. The immigrant young men I interviewed in “Los Angered,” Göteborg, do
not expect anything from Swedish society. They are forced to grow up in a society in
which ethnic boundaries are inflicted and where social inequality is transformed into
cultural difference. The social and cultural logic at work here leads to a sub-cultural
resistance that adopts ethicized forms of appearance (Back, 1996). The ghetto culture
poses, jargon and attitudes tend to offer an exclusive counter-identity – for “blackies”
only. Thus young “ethnic Swedes,” who have been demoted to second-class citizens by
the “two-thirds society” and who are just as excluded as immigrant youth, find their
identity and forms of resistance in cultural expressions with other ethnic overtones and
political preferences.
In the cultures developed by youth, antagonisms and conflicts that exist under the
surface are made visible. Thus, the youth culture can be likened to a seismograph. The
young immigrants living in big-city suburbs are in many ways – in spite of the fact that
they create expressive cultures – invisible. Segregation has deported them to demar-
cated reservations where contact with the surrounding society is limited. In this con-
text, music and other cultural forms of expression are important. Culture endows an
individual with the opportunity to give form to, and work through, his or her situation,
not least because it creates the conditions for self-understanding and makes possible
the development of collective strategies. Culture is also a channel through which a
person’s situation can be communicated to others and which makes the terms of one
person’s life visible to the rest of society. An important aspect of the work to break up
the patterns of segregation is to offer young people in these areas – immigrants as well
as Swedes, young men as well as young women – the opportunity to define them-
selves, thereby creating arenas where they can stand out and be seen.
The growth of new forms of youth culture in multiethnic suburbs carries with it a
criticism of societal development in recent decades. However, in public political dis-
cussion, there is a tendency to deny or shut one’s eyes to the development. This attitude
originates in a non-articulated, but nonetheless present, hope that the last few decades
478 Sernhede

were merely incidental. There is, without a doubt, a desire (though not always articu-
lated) that the old order will be re-established. But history is an irreversible process –
this is the New Sweden and we must do more than simply learn to treat the new reality
as the differences and diversification this new society has created. We must also be
open to the new opportunities entailed in the new situation.
(A longer version of this article, with another title, will be published in Carlson, Marie,
Annika Rabo, and Fatma Gök (eds): Education in “Multicultural” Societies. Turkish and
Swedish Perspectives. Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul: Tauris, 2007.)

Notes
1. Rodney King is the Afro-American who was beaten up by a group of policemen from Los Angeles Police
Department. A citizen with a video camera filmed the scene. In a trial 1992 the policemen were found
not guilty. The same day the biggest uprising in modern American history took place in Los Angeles.
2. The Swedish Research Council for Social Science (Socialvetenskapliga Forskningsrådet, SFR) financed
the project for three years, through 1997–2000. The main purpose was to study identity work amongst
young males in a segregated, immigrant-dominated suburb. The point of departure was that these young
men should be active in expressing themselves through different aspects of youth culture. I carried out
the research alone. It was qualitative field study that utilized ethnographic methods, primarily partici-
patory observation and interviews. I visited the area for two or three days over a period of 18 months.
Altogether I did 30 in-depth interviews with individuals as well as groups. I also did interviews with
other affected parties such as parents, social workers, teachers, etc.
At a general level, participatory observation is a method in which the researcher participates in rele-
vant areas of the reality and everyday life of the “research subjects.” In this case participatory observa-
tion meant observing events, listening, asking questions, and being part of the interpersonal interaction
in contexts that were important to the study. Since the project was interested in the biographies of the
young men, individual in-depth interviews was conducted in two rounds, the first at an early stage of the
study and the second at a stage just before the analysis and final writing began.
3. This Hip Hop community was, as most youth subcultures are, dominated by males. Only 5–6 of the
“members” in the collective of around 50 persons were young women. They were excellent rappers and
definitely accepted as equals in the community. All the girls had immigrant background and all of them
were engaged in doing rap music. Some of their lyrics were feminist oriented, but most songs had the
same topics as the boys. Musically they were more into soul music and singing than the majority of the
young men. On certain occasions they performed together with the young men as one act. But during
the time I did my fieldwork there was only one constellation that on a regular basis experimented and
mixed boys and girls during their rehearsals. There were of course other girls, girlfriends, and different
kind of “hang arounds,” that came and went. These girls were a part of the milieu, but not really a part
of the collective. The reason for this was that they were not considered as Hip Hoppers and because of
that they did not belong to the nucleus group with the mission to represent the neighborhood.
4. It was not easy to gain access to the group, they were initially suspicious and not very interested in being
“research objects.” It took me more than 3 months to be accepted as the “intruder” with the tape
recorder. Once “on the inside” it was no problem for me to take part in all aspects of their cultural activ-
ities. Obviously, my knowledge of and interest in “black music” helped me to get acceptance of the
group.
5. Is my presentation of the group too romanticized? One of my aims with this article is to get behind the
moral panic that rules the public debate. That means that I am putting my focus on the creative aspects
of the youth community in Hammarkullen. The media, on the other hand, notoriously concentrate on
ethnic conflicts, criminality and the dangerous youth. In reality crime rates for this area is on the same
level as for the whole of Göteborg. In the book AlieNation is My Nation (Sernhede, 2002) I give a more
complex picture of this subculture.
 Territorial Stigmatisation 479

References
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Sernhede, O. (2002). AlieNation is my nation. Stockholm: Ordfront.
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26

BETWEEN THE ROAD AND THE TOWN: AN

ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF THE EDUCATION
OF TRAVELING ATTRACTIONISTS1

Francesca Gobbo
University of Turin, Italy

Prologue

One September afternoon of 2001, a woman attractionist and I were walking

back toward the attraction she had put up and parked in the tree lined area
between the cemetery and the hospital of Dolo,2 besides all the other attrac-
tions. Abruptly, she started to tell me that one evening she had driven through
another provincial town not far from where we were. At first, she had not rec-
ognized it at all, but soon after she suddenly realized that such unfamiliar
looking town was one of her circuit’s regular stops and that she had in fact
brought her attraction there only two weeks earlier, as she did every year for
the local fair. She felt dismayed by her misperception, but had to admit that
indeed she did not know the quiet, sombre, and empty urban centre she was
crossing. Whenever she stayed there, there were lights, music, noise, pleasant
smells from the food stands, laughter, children’s delighted cries, and young
people’s excited shouts, couples and families strolling around and chatting.
“We bring life to towns, we make them change, and when we leave, every-
thing disappears and it [the town] goes back to what it was,” she concluded
still trying to make sense of her encounter with the unheimlich, as her expe-
rience can be appropriately described.
Shortly before that same September afternoon, she and her fellow
attractionists had complained to the Dolo town government about the loca-
tion assigned to them, reminding it how attractions’ traditional place had
been on the main road facing the Brenta canal. There the attractions are
highly visible and all entering the town have to drive along them and are
therefore enticed to stop and enjoy themselves. The reply was that the
annual fair produced traffic jams and required an ad hoc traffic plan, if only
for few days, that could instead be avoided if the fair was moved to the
peripheral area of Dolo cemetery. In any case, the law the Italian parliament
481
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 481–504.
© 2007 Springer.
482 Gobbo

passed in 1968 gave local administrators the responsibility to confirm a

fair’s traditional location or find another one so as to suit the town’s inter-
ests while still providing traveling attractionists with an opportunity for
work and an income. Thus peripheral areas rather than central market
squares (the place where fairs were originally held) seem to have become
administrators’ preferred choice these days.

Introduction
As the above story tells poignantly, at the beginning of the twenty-first century travel-
ing attractions are not always warmly welcomed in Italian towns’ and cities’ centers, and
the temporary changes they bring to the urban environments with periodical regularity
tend to be now perceived as upsetting the habits of sedentary populations. Attractions
and circuses are still hosted, but for shorter times and preferably away from central areas
that, even when they do not have a historical or artistic value, are to be protected from
the merry crowds, noisy confusion, and occasional conflicts traveling attractionists are
seen to bring with them. The expectation, if not the requirement, that the daily ways of
urban dwellers be respected by their non sedentary fellow citizens assigns a new mean-
ing to the rubric “urban education,”3 where urban is reminiscent of its original meaning,
namely a way of life that is imagined as distinguished by urbanity of habits and by
urbane manners enacted in social interactions.
Such persistence of meaning across centuries and momentous changes helps us to
remember that the process of mass urbanization was more than just the migration into
towns and cities of rural or mountain populations: while the latter reaped the opportu-
nities offered by the urban work environment and became craftspeople, factory work-
ers, or service employees, at the same time they were also expected to learn the civil
manners that are desirable, if not necessary, in urban contexts where many different
people have settled and live together, meet, and work side by side. As a popular Italian
saying goes (no doubt grounded on a biased and ethnocentric perspective), the air of
the city liberates a person (from the villagers’ close social control). In addition to this,
urbanization also civilizes the person’s ways, by polishing and refining them in the
way expected of a town or city dweller.
Furthermore, the effects historically attributed to urban life are emphasized by the
fact that Italian society and its cultures have in modern times and until recently con-
trasted and opposed town and countryside,4 urban centre and urban periphery, regions’
capitals and provinces’ towns. Such opposition was compounded by the fact that up to a
certain time and within a type of economic development concentrated in well defined
areas such as the Italian “industrial triangle” (Milan, Turin, Genova), leaving the country-
side or the mountains was, and in many cases still is, the only option for a more decent life,
even if it means living in the peripheries of the big industrial centers built at the expense
of the surrounding rural areas. The Italian peripheries are inhabited by working class or
immigrant families who moved out of the town or city centers because of their limited
income and work opportunities, or who were relocated when their central and rundown
neighborhoods became fashionable and underwent extensive and expensive renovation
 An Ethnographic Study 483

so as to attract affluent new dwellers. Thus it is not surprising that the problems that
“urban education” focuses on in the United States or in Great Britain (high level stu-
dent-teacher conflicts, poor school performance, problematic peer behavior, poor life
chances for young people and adults alike, among others) are in Italy instead often
found in areas distant from the urban centers.5 In each case, the central question educa-
tors address is the educational and social exclusion resulting for instance from schools’
organizational strategies and teaching practices,6 teachers’ differential expectations
with regard to low status and/or minority pupils’ performance and further educational
prospects, and the impact of local contexts on the everyday life of families and young
people. Educators’ commitment in devising or improving the latter’s educational oppor-
tunities and life options is based on the conviction that the right to education must be
actively connected to issues of social justice and equity, if it is to be realized.
Yet processes of exclusion in the highly polarized “urban” and “peripheral” school
contexts are not the only ones that demand our attention and the enactment of ad hoc
policies. Teachers and educational researchers should not overlook or underestimate
other, more subtle, ways through which the school experience can become meaning-
less for a number of young people, and breed their frustration, indifference for, or
rejection of it by confirming their perception of being considered, and treated, apart
from the rest of the school population because of families’ different lifestyle and occu-
pation. Children of traveling attractionists are a case in point: the latter live “on the
road” most of the year, stopping in winter time for just a month or two usually spent in
their mobile homes (or caravans). Their way of life appears sharply different from that
of their urbanized fellow citizens and questions long established assumptions about
ways of, teaching and learning. However, the educational inequality their children
suffer does not depend on the sociological and historical traits of a given problematic
context – be it an area in the inner city or an anonymous “dormitory” neighborhood
in the periphery – but on the disquieting exception that occupational nomadism is
perceived to represent for the dominant sedentary lifestyle and for schools.
To explore this complex relationship, I decided to carry out an ethnographic research
among Italian attractionist families.7 Fieldwork was carried out between Fall of 1999
and the end of 2001 among a group of 25 families whose annual fairs’ circuits call at
many towns and villages in the Veneto provinces of Padua, Venice, Treviso and Vicenza.
Findings were gathered through participant observation and informal conversations
during, and in between, fairs. Longer unstructured interviews with adult traveling
attractionists and their children took place at the end of the ethnographic experience. All
interviews, except one, were conducted in Veneto, the region’s language still widely
spoken at all levels of society and my mother tongue as well. Interviews were later tran-
scribed in Italian, and then into English, always trying to preserve the original meanings
of words and maintain the textual metaphors. In this chapter, excerpts from interviews
with members of four families (Casati, Bertini, Forani, and two Gioietti brothers) are
used, though the overall interpretation benefits from the fieldwork experience and many
more interviews.
The ethnographic exploration of this occupational minority’s everyday life, the chil-
dren’s family education (the enculturation process, as anthropologists call it) and
schooling8 was motivated both by my concern for the principle that every child has a
484 Gobbo

right to education,9 and the belief that the effort to understand diversity is a challenge
to habitual pedagogical expectations and answers, and a resource for making improve-
ments and/or changes not only nomadic pupils, but their sedentary classmates as well,
can benefit from.
Such concern and belief are also the leit motiv of many studies carried out at the
European and international level on the schooling problems of nomadic children
as pupils and students “at risk.” Some early European studies (European Commission,
1994; Liégeois, 1992; Schools Council Research Studies, 1975) initially looked at
nomadism both as an inclusive category (Gypsy nomads and occupational Travelers,
not to mention bargees) and a distinctive one (nomadic students vs. sedentary ones) that
could help us understand what was often defined a case of “educational deprivation.”
However the same studies also acknowledge the occupational Travelers’ different atti-
tude toward education (as measured by their children’s relatively positive school results)
and their specific social function (made visible by the entertainment they provide and
the contribution they make to the various countries’ economies). Later research (Jordan,
1997, 2000, 2001a, 2001b; Kiddle, 1999, 2000) emphasizes the internal cultural com-
plexity of the group by giving voice to the members of this minority: interviewees stress
their belief in education (a point ascertained also in European Commission, 1994), but
they also denounce stereotypes and prejudices that often give way to bullying of
Travelers’ children and stop their school attendance. Such a strong stance is evidence of
occupational Travelers’ perception of themselves as full members of society rather than
as a stigmatized minority, according to researchers.
The latter interpret the school problems encountered by Travelers’ children as a
consequence of cultural discontinuity between the families’ style of life and work trans-
mitted to the younger generation through the enculturation process, and the schools’
organization and different cultural ways, and teachers’ learning expectations. While it is
pointed out that enculturation fosters children’s self-reliance, independence and inner
strength in order to meet the demands of a nomadic life, school life and culture are
instead seen as a threat to those values and even likely to make young Travelers less
suited for a life and work on the move (Kiddle, 1999; Liégeois, 1992; Schools Council
Research Studies, 1975). On his part, Liégeois views schools as unable to represent a
relevant reference point for the nomadic school population since the former have always
been oriented toward sedentary populations and promote a different way of learning and
teaching from the Travelers’. Teachers do not seem capable of devising suitable educa-
tional projects for these students and, in turn, the latter’s irregular attendance is at the
root of teachers’ difficulty to understand, and respond to, this kind of cultural diversity
(Jordan, 2001a; Kiddle, 1999; Liégeois, 1992). Finding many similarities between the
Scottish Travelers she studied and those from Britain and continental Europe, Jordan
suggests that nomadic students are “interrupted learners” (idem), and furthermore she
interprets their decision to stop attending school as a form of “resistance” against the
educational environment and personnel. European researchers also posit that the seden-
tary majority considers occupational mobility neither as an acceptable way of life nor as
an educational specificity to be concerned with urgently. Similar conclusions are reached
by researchers exploring Australian Travelers’ educational and life problematic contexts
(Danaher, 1999, 2000; Danaher, Hallinan, & Moriarty, 1999; Danaher, Moriarty, &
 An Ethnographic Study 485

Hallinan, 2000). All studies stress the need for finding new, innovative ways to teach these
children, so that diversity based on nomadism will no longer be an excluding factor and
effective integration in the classrooms a way to realize their right to education.10
As for the schooling experience of Italian attractionists’ children, it is also shaped by
the tradition of occupational nomadism: thus, school attendance takes place in different
schools, and school learning is regularly and predictably interrupted by the next family
move, as also happens in other countries. Except for the months of the winter stop, these
children will be in a different school almost every week (often for less than a week), meet
teachers and peers with the same (ir)regularity, according to the different towns and vil-
lages their families’ fair circuit calls at. As the latter remains the same year after year
(unless a local administration decides to cancel the fair), the schools children enrolment
will also be the same year after year, until completion of compulsory education.11 While
their school learning is a sequence of regular and predictable interruptions, such frag-
mented attendance is nevertheless accepted and in fact acknowledged by official educa-
tional policy (both at the national and local level) as a way for pupils to realize their right
to education and for families to comply with the requirement of eight years of compul-
sory schooling. For that purpose, attendance, together with topics taught during the
school week, are duly recorded by teachers in a notebook that is the family’s and the
pupil’s responsibility to keep and hand to the teacher at the end of the stay.

Between the Road and the Town: The Presentation of

Self Among Veneto Traveling Attractionists
I have argued that living between the road and the town constitutes an important and
multifaceted learning process (Gobbo, 2001, 2003, 2006, 2007) around which a com-
plex identity is constructed, itself characterized by a tense encounter between urban
and nomadic cultures. The family education of traveling attractionists’ children takes
place in the everyday experience of mobility aimed at providing entertainment to local
residents. However the practical and social skills and knowledge required to be suc-
cessful in this occupational sector, are accompanied by the need for urbane manners,
so that common sense expectations and symbolic oppositions – nomadic groups’ mar-
ginality to urban, settled life; nomadism vs. urbanism – are questioned when considered
from the perspective of traveling attractionists. It is however true that a considerable
part of the “educational” experience the latter transmits and acquires comes from learn-
ing what is perceived as the sedentary society’s discourse about them.
I myself learned this when, during fieldwork, I started to visit the families I had met
many times at the fairs and with whom I had already had informal conversations. My
belief that such conversations could continue with greater ease in their caravans had
however to reckon with my hosts’ own priorities, namely the concern to discuss biased
popular perception of a nomadic way of life and to present and distinguish among the
different kinds of people working in this occupational sector. Sharing a lifestyle and an
occupation does not mean that everyone wants to be perceived as the same – so the
strategies of self and group presentation enacted need to be considered, taking into
account how the latter use different “names” of members of this occupational category.
486 Gobbo

When attractionists spoke of their problems, they defined themselves as attractionists

(attrazionisti) or proprietors (esercenti), terms that include the circus people as well.
However, when conversation moved from the formal to the informal everyday lan-
guage level, and the social climate warmed up, the word everyone used was giostrai.12
It is commonly used in discussions with, and about, members of this occupational
minority and it is currently found in newspapers’ reports of criminal acts in which
some of them have been involved. It is to be noted that though giostrai is more widely
and often used, and connotes this minority’s world and the values more powerfully than
attrazionisti, the latter word is nevertheless present in these people’s conversations as
it points to a different, more positive self image, and a more participatory relation with
the rest of society.
In the beginning of their narratives, the attractionists showed widespread awareness
of uneasiness and mistrust that nomadic people like themselves often provoke when
they arrive in a town or a village and start to interact with the local residents. To the lat-
ter they are the outsider, or the other (as we tend to say today) and are automatically
labeled as “nomads,” that is, Gypsies. All interviewees reported having to confront
such a situation, including the children in school, and because of this, every family
showed a keenness to make itself known to the locals, that is, to be trusted, a goal
which takes time, patience and good communication skills. Overcoming the symbolic
boundary drawn by sedentary people meant succeeding in being respected for the
entertainment and skills attractionists bring, and to be able to work in the most pro-
ductive and satisfying way. In the past – as they reminisced – it was different: back
then, the boundary between outsiders and local people was not so clearly drawn, even
though the latter seldom left towns or villages and can thus be imagined as more firmly
rooted there. The local people were instead remembered as appreciative of the sur-
prises and the novelties brought in from outside, and such emotions seemed to have
been related to the transience and cyclical returns of attractions and circuses.
The genealogy of these families might include one or two ancestors with a Gypsy fam-
ily name, or an ancestor of unknown origin (such as an orphaned child, or a foreigner),
but they generally defined themselves as Caminanti – literally, those who walk – because
their grandfathers or fathers (and sometimes also grandmothers and mothers) came from
a “still” ( ferma) family, or married into a traveling attractionist’s family. Presenting one-
self and the family as Caminanti or Gagé (the Gypsy name for all those who are not
Gypsies) seemed to be an initial strategy chosen to distinguish oneself from the “others”
in front of an outsider. They always started by acknowledging the outsider’s strong prej-
udice against the occupational category, and they often opened a conversation or an inter-
action by complaining that sedentary people do not distinguish sufficiently between the
good attractionists and the criminals. Caminanti and Gagé described themselves as “law
abiding” people and on the opposite side to the “criminals” who end up on the front page
of newspapers. It was crucial for them to distinguish themselves from the latter, and not
just to an outsider. According to Mr. Casati, one of the “law abiding” attractionists, cer-
tain sons and daughters had chosen to leave the sector and lead a sedentary life. Their
successful move to uproot and replant themselves into a new environment, where attrac-
tionists would neither be acceptable nor accepted, usually led them to sever the ties with
their nomadic relatives and families.
 An Ethnographic Study 487

Once my interviewees set the boundary between “themselves” (the “law abiding”
attractionists) and the “others” (the “criminals” who are a disgrace to the category), and
made sure that I understood the distinction, they proceeded to elaborate on their iden-
tity. Presenting themselves as Gagé (and not Gypsies), they thus disclaimed any rela-
tionship to a group that is highly negatively stereotyped (i.e., not wanting to work, living
by stealing, involved in shady business, having a lot of money which nobody knows
from where it came).13 Furthermore, they underlined how the origin of the individual or
of the family could be traced back to a Veneto “still” family or individual who, at one
point in his/her personal history, decided to become a traveling attractionist.14
Boundary drawing and identity constructed in the relationship to sedentary people
and, contingently, to myself as an outsider-ethnographer, continued so that sooner or
later those who had presented themselves as “law abiding” people, Caminanti and/or
Gagé, would point to another crucial distinction, namely between those defined as
“entrepreneurs” and the opposite – the “happy-go-lucky” attractionists. Being an “entre-
preneur” not only means the ability to be economically successful in this occupational
sector, but to have qualities such as vision, management and investment capacities, and
openness to novelty, that can make one appreciated by the public, and respected by fel-
low attractionists (at least by the “law abiding” ones). These qualities are centered on
the passion for “the craft” (as they call every type of attractions), because taking good
professional care of the latter and making it more attractive do not go without a deep,
sweeping feeling that also involves choosing the right music, anticipating the public’s
taste and needs (of children’s as well), investing money in the attraction, and
“humouring” the customers.
In the course of many interviews a common bond uniting all subgroups emerged and
was repeatedly stressed. In fact, though it was most often stated by the “law abiding”
attractionists, it concerns the whole occupational category. It was insisted that first and
foremost they were “victimized” by the local governments’ bureaucratic apparatus, and by
the taxes levied on them by the central government. Mr. Casati vividly described attrac-
tionists as regularly being “winnowed” by local and central government. Bureaucracy was
claimed to be an even worse stumbling block than taxes, and created just to make attrac-
tionists’ life miserable and cause them “great worries and suffering” – a viewpoint that all
shared. The problem is considered so crucial that it surfaced at almost every turn of a con-
versation: even as we talked about schooling and family education, the conversation
would often and almost naturally slide into complaints of how attractionists are treated by
local administrators. These – as mentioned in the introduction – are responsible (accord-
ing to law 337/1968) for distributing permits to participate in the fairs, and for checking
that safety or construction regulations be enacted. They may also decide to shorten or to
cancel a fair, as well as to reduce the number of attractions that can be put up on the fair
grounds, or to move the latter to a different location usually never as good as the tradi-
tional one. Such decisions have a negative impact on the families’ economy and sense of
agency: they plan their tour a year in advance and once they have decided which fairs they
will participate in, they must apply to the local administrations in order to be allowed to
put up the traveling attraction. When the local administrations change their minds and
vote to cancel or to move the fair grounds to another location, those who applied in that
particular town incur a loss of work and money. Furthermore, because they usually learn
488 Gobbo

about the decision too late to apply elsewhere, they are left without the opportunity to find
an alternative town to go to. This signals that the social function of the traveling attractions
must today compete not only with discos and pubs, but also with a growing demand for
parking spaces in areas previously dedicated to fairgrounds, and that it has become more
difficult to find new sources of work and income.
Notwithstanding the fact that some of the narratives presented this occupational
minority as “quasi-victimized” by other individuals or groups, the narrators rarely acted
as “victims”: that is, they were not shy or uneasy during the conversations that took
place at fairs or in caravans, but rather they spoke boldly and proudly of their work and
especially of their satisfaction at customers’ appreciation. They also strongly criticized
the prejudices they, and especially their children, had encountered. Also whenever they
did not want me to take notes or to tape a conversation (or part of it), they would say so
firmly. As I understood after several of these “incidents,” they were less afraid of telling
me as an outsider something in secret and rather more resolved to set their own priori-
ties for the researcher, although they always took, and held, their stance with great
politeness, in an atmosphere of warm hospitality.
As I wrote down, after returning home from such an encounter:

Mr. Forani declined to be interviewed even though Mr. Pulliero15 and I had made
the long car trip specifically for that purpose, as it had been agreed on the phone
when we had set the appointment. Instead Mr. Forani had placed the home cured
salami, a bottle of good wine, home made pickles and pan biscotto [local double
baked bread, the required companion to a mid-day salami or cheese treat] on the
festive tablecloth. He even insisted (and succeeded) in giving me a jar of pickles
to take home. While we were all [he, his wife, Mr. Pulliero and I] enjoying the
food and the cordial atmosphere, he spoke at length and with great enthusiasm of
his work, stressing that “learning is the most important thing in my life,”16 and
explained “learning” [a concept he reiterated a year later by saying that in the attrac-
tionist’s world one “learns by living”] as the attractionist’s ability, and particularly
his own, to size up a situation and to do what is necessary to improve it, for exam-
ple by establishing and maintaining good relations with local people or by making
the attraction more beautiful.

It was important – he had later added – to leave a lasting impression on the towns and
villages his attraction called at; therefore he worked on his “image as an attraction-
ist,” for instance by keeping a vigilant eye on the attraction and giving caring atten-
tion to customers.
Politeness and hospitality characterized attractionists’ interactions with me: even if
I was not a customer, I was however providing them with an opportunity to give me both
their own perspective on their way of life and examples of their urbanity. The interviews
often became social events with neighbors and relatives passing by the caravan who
were always invited to join. The transcripts of the taped conversations show how the
researcher’s initial question and her later few, almost shy, interjections were immedi-
ately surrounded (if not submerged) by lively discussion, heated comments, fond mem-
ories, detailed explanations, repeated invitations to the occasional guests to speak their
 An Ethnographic Study 489

minds, and warm recommendation that the researcher interview one of their colleagues
or a relative. In an important sense, the caravans became an imaginary “stage” portray-
ing the nomadic and sedentary worlds according to scripts that maximized their com-
plex cultural knowledge and advanced social and communication skills.
Therefore it can be said that nomadism is the attractionists’ way of life but does not
constitute their exclusive cultural horizon: to interact with these families and individ-
uals solely on the basis of their mobility17 would obscure the fact that their identity as
occupational nomads is constructed, and passed to the next generation, based on a tra-
dition that entails cultural continuity but also awareness that knowledge of, and pro-
ductive relations with, the sedentary population are indispensable. Almost always such
relations seem to have been built and maintained through the urbane manners appro-
priated and brought to the rural villages and small provincial towns in Veneto during
the circuits. As Mr. Forani further recalled, the waxed floor of his family’s caravan had
so much impressed a local child, taken by her mother to contemplate such a rarity in
Veneto countryside homes in the sixties, that when she recognized him as the son of
the woman who 40 years earlier polished her floor so beautifully, she had to share her
childhood’s “shiny” memories with him.

The Enculturation Process: Teaching and Learning to

Become a Traveling Attractionist
Fieldwork allowed me to witness how cooperation rather than division of labor
between genders and generations is the predominant discourse (and practice, to a con-
siderable extent) among attractionists: men always acknowledged women’s indispen-
sable support and help (sometimes by stressing that they “work like men”), and adults
young people’s, while all pointed out that such an arrangement was required by their
occupation. Women – old and young, married and unmarried alike – narrated themselves
as agents, entrepreneurs, dependable work partners, but not surprisingly they are also in
charge of keeping the family’s caravan, clothes and furnishings clean as well as of look-
ing after the well being of husbands, children, and parents in-law when they become
too old to manage an attraction by themselves. Women who came from “still” families
stressed how hard it had been to learn (and put into practice) the ways of an occupa-
tional nomad’s life.
Since childhood, attractionists’ children learn by sharing their parents’ and relatives’
commitment to work, what makes their life livable (in terms of decent earnings) but
also enjoyable and something to be proud of. Some of the young ones may sit at the
cashier’s desk and learn to add, to multiply and to subtract, or to calculate the value of
notes and coins by watching their mother exchange them for attraction tokens, well
before they know anything of mathematics. A little girl may stand near to adults busy
taking down the “craft,”18 and hold a little bucket in which adults will put nuts and
bolts. Older ones, with furrowed brows and a measuring tape in their hands, will make
sure that the “craft” is parked exactly in the area assigned by the local police. Parents
took proper pride in their children’s accomplishments, so, for instance, the youngest
Gioietti brother praised his son for his popularity: he knew how to smile to, how to
490 Gobbo

start a conversation with the crowd of young people, and how to turn customers into
friends (so that they will keep coming back). For her part, the younger sister claimed
that she learned to repair roller coaster cars by watching and then asking adults about
what they were doing.
It is the heads of the families (be they men or women) who are responsible for
transmitting these strongly and widely held beliefs in self-reliance, hard work for the
sake of the family, the need to be wise and alert to the ill that other people or one’s own
choices (such as gambling) can bring. All interviewees agreed on the need for multiple
competences, and upon the conviction that “unless you can do things by yourself, you
accomplish nothing.”
A similar belief colors the words of Mr. Forani, who describes his relation to the
attraction in terms of a “passion,”

You grow up with. Our parents taught us that a piece of wood had to be made bet-
ter, so we would paint it and draw stars on it, so that when the season began, your
“craft” was full of colours. Thus a “craft” is not only a working instrument, that is
there only to be used, just like any other kind of industrial machinery. In our work,
a “craft” is a matter of image. It is necessary to make the giostra more and more
beautiful.

Being the owner of a “travelling attraction” also involves harboring a deep sense of
obligation toward the family and the “craft”: parents are cared for when they get
old, a married brother will return home after his father’s untimely death in order to
help his mother and younger brothers to continue working, and every choice and
decision concerning the “craft” is discussed by the whole family. This is under-
standable since working in this sector is a family enterprise and thus needs the
cooperation and willing consent of all in order to be successfully managed. But this
may also result in a limitation of children’s aspirations and activities in yielding to
the wishes of the family to keep up the tradition, even when school performance is
good, or other opportunities present themselves. Perhaps most youngsters feel like
the Gioietti daughter, who said she chose not to enrol in secondary education
because she firmly believed that the traveling attractionist lifestyle and work were
her future. Perhaps others stay in this occupational sector because they think it will
be hard to find a job as satisfying as that of the traveling attractionist. Nevertheless,
it appeared that in many cases the children were badly needed if the family enter-
prise is to survive. According to an attractionist whose bitter and grim view of the
sector’s way of life and work depended on having had to take too great a responsi-
bility when he was only fifteen, parents succeed in “tying” a son or a daughter to
the “craft” by “brainwashing” them.
Yet, throughout the interviews, young people indicated that they were pleased to have
finished school, to be able to test their ability to improve the “craft’s” fortunes, and to
have their own family in due time. It is possible that a sense of agency is enhanced in
this cultural environment, and as they learn the skills necessary to manage a giostra or
a circus act, young people like the Bertini older son come to appreciate increasingly
“a life that’s full of enthusiasm, especially when one is young. It’s great. I thought of
 An Ethnographic Study 491

what else I could do, but it is difficult to find alternatives, it would mean a big jump
[into a very different kind of life and work].”
Work in this occupational sector seems less exacting (even if it is heavy work) because
there are no timetables or obligations predetermined by other people. In fact, young
people and adults alike claim that, aside from the demanding task of assembling the
attraction and taking it down once the fair is over, there are few other chores or obliga-
tions. Rather they enjoy much freedom compared with “still” families whose members
need to get up every morning to go to the factory and clock in.
In the Bertini family (owner of a very small circus), teaching and learning social skills
and social competence are also directed at achieving self-reliance. The older son thus
believes that in a circus one must be able to do almost everything, namely not only put
up the circus top and then take it down later, but also set up the lights and hopefully suc-
ceed in repairing them if anything happens. Capability to tackle problems and solve them
is not just a matter of technical know-how but also requires that appropriate and respect-
ful relations be established with the much needed expert from whom to learn what to do.
“In such situations he concluded it helps to have gone to school [because you can speak
better], but it isn’t everything, I need more, I need to know what will work.”
Self-reliance was also prominent in the narratives concerning the teaching and learn-
ing of acrobatics. In the Bertini family, the grandmother was once a well known acrobat
who taught her older son and two granddaughters to become contortionists. Her teach-
ing skills are highly appreciated and praised by her sons and daughters-in-law, though
her older son remarked that she was too “soft” with the younger granddaughter, aged
eleven, who at the time of the interviews seemed to prefer to play and to write poetry. If
she would only apply herself to the task – continued her father – she could do even more
complex acts than her older sister! But then he added that “you cannot make people do
what you want them to do. You can tell them what to do, but it is they who decide what
and how to perform.” His son backed him by recalling that his younger sister is always
expected to go up on the stage smiling and looking directly at the audience. However,
she seldom feels like doing it, and since it is she who decides how to behave, nobody
can make her change her mind: “it’s for her to decide.”
Both he and his younger brother decided that they wanted to be jugglers, even
though their parents wanted them for the clown acts. The younger brother still plays
the clown but he has become a great juggler as well, learning how to juggle first by
watching his older brother and then by practicing the acts by himself. All that is needed
is “practice, practice, practice,” according to the former, and therefore he and his
younger brother learn by looking at other performers, and by imitating them through a
“trial and error” approach that capitalizes on what the “student” can infer and learn
from repeated and often painful mistakes.

The Schooling Experience: The Parents’ and

Children’s Perspectives
How does this nomadic way of life affect schooling? Parents (most of them in their 40s
and 50s at the time of research) had mixed feelings about the education of their children.
492 Gobbo

The younger Gioietti brother argued for the importance of education to their sector, even
though he knew that some families and their children did not share his belief:

This is the year 2000, it’s high time that the travelling attractionist be educated, so
that he will know what to say to a person he must talk to, so that he will know what
is the meaning of problems, so that he will know things about the past, the present,
what must be done, what must not be done. If he has to fill a form, he should be
able to understand at least 80% of what is printed on it, and what he’s supposed to
write down. … I never completed compulsory education, and to this day I always
curse the fact that I didn’t finish it. Nevertheless, I believe that I have been able to
learn a few things by myself, to evaluate situations and people. Because, after all,
when one goes to talk to persons who have a university degree, one doesn’t want
to cut a poor figure, as if he didn’t know what he came for, and didn’t know what
he wanted. (…) I succeeded in taking care of a few problems I had in the recent
past, and for sure I owe this to the little education I have, that has taught me to say
what I must say in a certain way. Maybe an unschooled person could have done the
same as I did, but he would have had to count on his listeners to understand what
he wanted.

A successful self-defined entrepreneur whose family once owned a well known cir-
cus, admitted that he had very little schooling, and never completed compulsory edu-
cation. This – he explained – was related to the fact that circuses stay in a town a much
shorter time than any of the “crafts” that arrive for a fair. The requirements of com-
pulsory education could be satisfied so long as children ( just like the ones of today)
presented themselves to the school of the town and stayed as long as they could –
usually one or two days at most. Attendance was duly recorded, as still happens now,
in a notebook that the pupil always brought with him or her, to let teachers and princi-
pals know that he or she had complied with the rules. Remembered is how local residents
were always prejudiced against “them nomads,” how bad feelings and mistrust would
eventually disappear once teachers and classmates became acquainted with him, and
ironically how they were helpful to him, “since they knew I was going to stay so short
a time.”
But even attractionist’s families that are less socially and economically successful
welcome their children’s good school performance in the face of the difficulties that
both the latter and the parents have to cope with. It is usually the mother’s task to take
the children to school and this meant, in one particular case, a very long trip that had
to be made four times a day. Until 20 years ago, parents could send their sons to the
only boarding school in the area (not open to girls, however) in order to secure better
learning conditions for them. It was a choice that some had to make, but it made par-
ents and sons suffer greatly.
The young people interviewed seemed proud of any good school performance of
theirs and spoke of their school friends with affection or nostalgia. But they did not for-
get the prejudiced attitude of some of their peers and even of some adults. This took the
form of a certain indifference to their learning needs on the part of their teachers, and
the necessity to make do with whatever ability or competence these children had been
 An Ethnographic Study 493

able to acquire. Not surprisingly, young people remember some schools, teachers and
classmates with greater appreciation than others. It is certainly difficult for these pupils
and students to participate effectively into the classroom activities, and it becomes their
responsibility, and burden, to keep up with the curriculum, because teachers seldom
slow down the pace of teaching or pay attention to the knowledge gaps these students
may have.19
One of the most successful attractionists claimed that “he would have done the
impossible” to send his children to high school, but the latter argued that their studies
would have given them not much more than a diploma. In the traveling attractions’
sector – they stated – “if one knows his or her way around, there are more opportuni-
ties” to improve one’s lot than through formal education. He was proud that his sons
are esteemed by other attractionists, that they are well educated and greet everyone
politely, unlike other “colleagues,” and praised them for having done a wonderful job
on one of the family “crafts,” thus saving the money needed to pay a mechanic. He
taught them to be well behaved in school and to respect people, and claimed that there
is no need to teach them things many times: once is enough and they can take it from
there. He also acknowledged that this moving between towns (and schools) may make
the children shy and somewhat ashamed whenever they enter a new classroom, and
added that when they worked in Bologna for a big fair, his wife would enroll the chil-
dren in a school where there was no chance of meeting other attractionists’ children.
This pleasure that teachers’ appreciation of their children and grandchildren gives the
older attractionists is to be measured and weighed against the prejudice and the need
to be considered part of the society.

The Schooling Experience: The Teachers’ Perspectives

A way of life and a family education, that encourage self-reliance, ingenuity and good
manners in social relations are recognized as positive assets by teachers whose class-
rooms are periodically attended by the attractionists’ children. Toward the very end of
my research I asked these teachers to participate into focus groups I organized in
different schools.20 My purpose was to understand how they perceived these children
as pupils, how they interpreted their learning performance and motives, and what edu-
cational activities – if any – had been organized for those pupils. Because I was inter-
ested in understanding how teachers would narrate experiences connected to their
personal and professional identity and status, the questions were as unstructured as pos-
sible. Though I had specific points to explore, I suggested that teachers would lead the
conversation and highlight whatever aspects seemed particularly relevant to them. My
role was that of a resonant listener and I only interjected questions aimed at clarifying
or expanding what had been said, even though at the end of both focus groups I was
asked many questions about the group’s lifestyle and occupation.
The first question I asked was formulated in such way (can you tell me about your
school experience with attractionists’ children?) so as to let teachers choose and present
what they defined as aspects relevant to their role, activity and educational goals.21
Interestingly, in both schools the relevant aspects and their order of presentation were the
494 Gobbo

same, even though the two groups knew neither each other nor my research; furthermore,
those working in the Venice school had never met me before nor had heard about me or
my university work.
In each case the teachers’ narratives of their experience and educational activity with
these children were articulated according to a hierarchy of presentation whose founda-
tion rested on the recognition of positive social attitudes and school know-how of such
pupils. The narratives then suggested regret about the latter’s unquestionable status of
“interrupted learners,” and communicated teachers’ feelings of anxiety about their role
and effectiveness. Narration proceeded by acknowledging a limited acquaintance with
the pupils’ nomadic lifestyle that raised conjectures about the perceived low relevance
to school culture of such a lifestyle. The narratives eventually concluded by highlight-
ing and praising those pupils’ self confident and independent behavior – especially
when it was compared with the more clumsy and teacher-dependent classmates.
Teachers rarely talked of attractionists’ pupils in general terms; they mentioned
Violet who had just left, discussed Rocky’s and Sonny’s learning blocks but also their
surprising achievements, praised Dennis’ polite behavior, remembered the two cousins
attending the same class, and of course the boy who had failed the examination. In con-
trast, the rest of the class, the classmates, the other children remained just that: “the
rest of the class,” “attractionists’ children’s classmates,” “the other children” or “our
children.” Perhaps because primary school teachers spend many more hours in the
company of children (age 6–10) than their colleagues at junior high level (age 11–14),
this may be a reason why the nomadic pupils were so vivid in their minds. A more gen-
uine reason might be that I interviewed them shortly after the local fair had ended, and
therefore soon after these pupils’ departure. In my view, however, such an attitude on
the part of the teachers does not mean that they paid more attention to the nomadic chil-
dren than to the “rest of the class,” but rather that on the occasion of the interview, “the rest
of the class,” and “our children” functioned as representatives of a taken for granted,
“normal” school situation against which these pupils’ difference stood out.
In fact teachers seemed to hint at this when they portrayed themselves as profession-
als striving to make a child into a pupil. In order to attain this goal, two different but
complementary dimensions were considered educationally crucial by them: positive
interpersonal relations (as indicated by expressions such as “welcoming attitude,” “good
acceptance” of the other, for instance), and a child’s involvement with learning. In the
case of the latter, teachers meant the pupils’ capacity to understand concepts, procedures
and tasks, rather than any mere ability to rote-memorize contents and procedures. A more
formal educational perspective on learning seems to require – according to the teachers –
a continuity in school attendance, which, in turn, makes it possible for each pupil to
learn what is being taught at a more or less uniform pace with the others.
Teachers of first and second graders (i.e., six and seven years olds) greatly emphasized
the quality of interpersonal relations that make the young ones feel at home in school.
Therefore, all teachers began with an appreciation of attractionists’ children’s “good
pupil behaviour.” By this, they first meant that, whenever they arrive, these children
are always welcomed both by the class teacher and by their peers, “unlike Sinti or
Roma children.” In turn, the just-arrived pupils will do as much as they can to “inte-
grate” into the class not only because they are such well behaved children, but also
 An Ethnographic Study 495

because “they are eager” to participate, and insist performing as pupils. If the teachers
admitted that there are – and were – some “difficult” pupils among attractionist fami-
lies, they also emphasized that the majority seldom oppose or refuse schooling even
though it may not be a rewarding experience. They are the children who say they will
continue to attend “their” school even if this becomes impossible due to the family
leaving the town to go elsewhere, but two stories are particularly illustrative of the
attractionist families’ positive attitude towards the educational opportunities schools
offer. In one case, after a trip enormously enjoyed by the whole class to a nearby
Venetian villa, one of the attractionist pupils heard that there would be another one
planned for the future; immediately he asked if they could wait for his return the fol-
lowing year before going on the outing. In the other case, a teacher was surprised by
the request to know how a certain story had ended. Because the year before the pupil
had as usual stayed in that class too short a time to learn what would happen to the
story’s main character, he wished to be updated. The teacher was embarrassed because
she could not remember the story, but at the same time she was moved by how much
in her view the boy had enjoyed being in her class and how deeply he had participated
in the activities.
Teachers argued that those children want to be pupils: “they wanted to engage in a
school task … [yet] they could not participate into the learning group [because they
did not have the needed knowledge].” Therefore, attractionist children were described
by the teachers as enacting a number of strategies – such as (1) doing what teacher
says rather than negotiating her requests, (2) asking teachers for things to do,
(3) working hard to finish a project in time, (4) participating in the discussions that
are held periodically in class, and (5) reminding teachers and classmates of their par-
ticipation in class activities – that will integrate them into classroom life. As pupils
they know that even at an early age they are expected to become deeply involved in
the process of learning. Thus, these children’s eagerness for school tasks is not only
evidence of their goodwill, but also of knowing that if they cannot do as the other
pupils do, without any problem, at least they can try to show that they also share such
an expectation.
Yet, the children’s socio-educational knowledge is not sufficient for them to perform
successfully as learners. As much as they are popular with their classmates and well
integrated in the class, they are perceived as painfully isolated22 because of their learn-
ing “gaps” [buchi]23 which prevent them from working together with the rest of the
class, or following what teacher or peers are doing. Furthermore such “gaps” require
those pupils to wait until the teacher has some free time to devote to them. In the teach-
ers’ narratives social integration, though a positive feature, does not provide a pupil
with the status that comes from successfully participating in the learning process and
from achieving some of the educational goals teachers set for each school year (for
instance, seven years olds should be able to read relatively fluently, write from dicta-
tion, and write the name of an object correctly under the drawing representing it).
The role of the “inadequate pupil” is familiar and “acceptable” in school culture so
long as the inadequate one humbly acknowledges her/his own limitations. And in fact,
both attractionists’ families and pupils are much aware that they can rarely follow the
instruction for the rest of the class, because they were not present when this or that
496 Gobbo

was taught. One teacher repeated that “they looked like they had [ just] landed in a
classroom, [and while] the rest of the pupils were working, they were just [sitting]
there, unable to join their classmates.” Another hypothesized that asking the teacher
for work to do and completing a few easy assignments gives them a feeling of being
able to demonstrate their skills, to learn successfully a few things, to benefit from the
teacher’s attention for a short time, and to aspire to perform to the standards of the
other pupils.
Teachers expressed their professional and personal frustration at being unable to
help these pupils more effectively. As one of them put it:

I hope that our work will be useful for the [children’s education] next step, but
I feel so useless … I can help [them] for an hour … I don’t have enough time,
enough opportunity to give them a hand, and [therefore] I feel ill at ease. This
way, there isn’t, and there can’t be, continuity in my work.

Another was deeply aware of the school’s “hidden curriculum” and of how it con-
structs and affects diversity often negatively. Therefore, she argued, careful attention
should be paid to “the way a teacher addresses a kid, the way she looks at him, whether
or not she gives him a nickname just as she does with the other children,” because act-
ing with sensitivity, care and equity can “make these pupils feel they are part of the
[class] group,” while behaving “in a detached way” will send a message of exclusion
to the rest of the class.
The notebook with the official seals of the schools attended by attractionist pupils
only tells teachers about the institutional “circuit” undertaken by the children, but it
gives little indication of the work done nor of the methodology used.24 So, left without
clues, teachers claimed to have but two alternatives: the first is to encourage the child
to try overcome not only her/his learning “gaps” but also her/his insecurity (and perhaps
shame at not being able to do a specific task). To this end, a teacher took care that an
almost illiterate seven year old understood that the letters of a word must written in the
correct order. Oblivious of the possibility of dyslexia, this particular teacher remembered
that when that child understood the rules of the writing/labeling game, he was – as she
described him – totally overwhelmed with joy: “he discovered he could at least write a
few words correctly, just the day before he left. He looked as if he had conquered … he
showed me what he had written and after I told him ‘look, you did it right’ he couldn’t
believe it, he just couldn’t believe it.”
The second alternative is to hope that – as one of the teachers said – “by sheer
chance I [may] hit the right moment,” namely that what she is teaching fits more or less
exactly with what the pupil has just learned in the previous school. If this happens, as
it did recently in the Venice school, then the pupil is able to follow the class activity
and the teacher can go on “without any problem.” But such a coincidence rarely hap-
pens, and therefore teachers must guess the point of the learning process reached by
the pupils, then they must prepare some ad hoc assignments (drawings, exercise cards
and the like) which these pupils will work on as individualized tasks. Whenever this
occurs attractionists’ children are described as rewarding their teachers with a “smile
from one ear to the other.”
 An Ethnographic Study 497

On another occasion, thanks to the teacher’s ability and sensitivity, a pupil became
aware that he knew numbers – contrary to his own perception; overwhelmed with joy
and pride, he recited numbers up to 200. Most of the time, however, teachers’ time is
already so taken up by the annual educational plan that to find some free time for the
pupils’ learning “gaps” becomes a kind of “mission impossible.” In one case, peers had
been organized to act as tutors to the newly arrived (both immigrant and nomadic chil-
dren); in another the latter were given additional instruction outside the classroom,
because the school had an ad hoc project and an extra teacher assigned to it – something
that is more and more difficult to do because of current cuts in funds and personnel.
Yet, for all the efforts made by both parts to perform as the school expects, teachers
in the end acknowledged that “good pupil behavior” stops at the school door: “home
has nothing to do with school. Home is home … parents are respectful [towards us and
our work], but once the kids return home, no more talking about school. Everything
[educational] remains inside the school.” Teachers saw no continuity between school
life and home life, between the school culture and the nomadic way of living and work-
ing of these pupils. This time however the reason given was not their “piecemeal”
school attendance, but rather the meanings and the attitudes towards school that result
from life-style. According to teachers, attractionist parents accompany and introduce
their children on the first day, but say very little about their own life and work, and
return at the end of the stay in town to get the school official seal stamped in the atten-
dance notebook. Meetings at the fair ground are not very likely to happen; if they do –
as one teacher remembered – it is because one of those pupils had seen her from the
cashier’s desk and attracted her attention loudly.
Teachers see these children as participating in “daring, risky” games, such as going
up the merry-go-round or the roller coaster scaffolding while their mothers attend to
household chores just a few steps away, seemingly not minding at all what the young
ones are doing. Both the children’s and parents’ behavior is a source of surprise to the
teachers, who claim not to understand the parents’ calm attitude but they also seem to
look on the children with some nostalgic admiration. To them, these children appear
to live and play the way “normal” children should, unlike “their own” who are likely to
be locked inside home, perhaps in front of a TV set, under the vigilant eye of a parent,
a relative or a baby-sitter. Teachers’ nostalgic appreciation of a different way of living
the childhood years might at first be interpreted as an appreciation of diversity, and as
an indication that the principles and goals of intercultural education have made their
way into teachers’ minds and hearts. Yet such an attitude is also bound to be somewhat
frustrated by these children’s efforts to play down, and possibly not talk about, their
“difference.”
From the teachers’ view, this happens because the nomadic lifestyle “is too different
from what the others say about their life and they are afraid of the comparison,” or
“they feel different but to say so doesn’t mean there is something to be proud of ”;
or, “they [know they] are different but in a negative sense. They don’t have the courage
to say they are equal to us [regardless of the difference].” The reason seemed to be that
“they must confront hardships everyday, and when this happens one can’t help feeling
different [in a not so positive a way].” Families living on the move were imagined to
enjoy fewer comforts than sedentary families: my fieldwork experience suggests that
498 Gobbo

this is true in terms of care for their belongings (every breakable item must be packed
with great attention), but that it is not necessarily true when it comes to the homes
themselves. Caravans can be as big and luxuriously furnished as any apartment, it all
depends on the wealth of the owners, a point which teachers seemed to overlook.
But the presumed lack of comfort allowed teachers to emphasize another positive
cultural feature they appreciated and praised highly: these pupils were seen as more
advanced than their peers when it came to practical matters. By this, teachers did not
only mean ability to solve problems that have to do with money, but also the ability to
take good care of oneself and of one’s own belongings – be they books or notebooks,
sweatshirts or jackets. Furthermore these children, unlike their peers, are capable of
tying shoe strings, buttoning and unbuttoning sweaters and coats, dressing and undress-
ing in the gym – indeed, they are a great relief for teachers who battle daily with twenty
or more pairs of shoes. Again, unlike their peers – noticed the now delighted teachers –
they can turn the pages of their notebook without any help from the teacher.
The teachers’ narratives not only tell of their experience with these pupils, but also
of the categories of school culture that help shape their perception of it. Attractionists’
children are alternatively described as children, pupils, and learners.25 As learners
they are perceived as bogged down by repetition (“they did addition three times, but
they were never taught subtraction”), and as limited by time. According to a sympa-
thetic teacher, they say to themselves “I’m here [for a short time], I must pay close
attention [to what is being said], I must take as much as I can from this place, because
I will soon move to another school, and there, it will be a different story altogether.”
Furthermore, they are seen as rarely able to achieve the standards set by teachers, both
in terms of knowledge transfer and of being able to work at the pace the annual school
plan requires of the whole class. School performance – as evaluated on the basis of set
standards and expectations – is clearly not successful, but in the eyes of teachers this
is compensated by them being very good pupils, namely by showing their capability to
learn and follow the social and cultural knowledge and rules obtaining in a school,
notwithstanding all the obstacles they meet. As children, they are narrated by teachers
by means of an emphasis on their cultural diversity, connected to a nomadic life, and a
form of work that keeps them apart from sedentary people (and vice versa).

Conclusions
Today, most countries are perceived and described as multicultural because of the hun-
dreds of thousands newcomers born in places different from those they later came to
live and work in. Italy is no exception to this social phenomenon and it has finally real-
ized that diversity will characterize its future. It is a prospect Italian intercultural edu-
cation started to address almost 20 years ago by promoting a theoretical and practical
approach centered on knowing the different cultural, religious, linguistic traditions the
new pupils had been enculturated into, and on promoting interaction between the former
and the Italian ones in order to foster mutual understanding and to enrich intellectual and
social life, among other goals. In turn, attention to diversity from without promoted
awareness and acknowledgement of the everyday differences historically characterizing
 An Ethnographic Study 499

every complex society, independently of migration (Gobbo, 2000). However, the focus
on, and reception of, immigrants’ diversity has sometimes overshadowed the issue of
equality of opportunities in school and in society, as if they were two separate ques-
tions. Yet, when it comes to the everyday interaction and educational experience in our
stratified societies, the risk is of not taking into full account the low social status and
even stigma that might be attached both to immigrants’ cultures and to a country’s
“internal minorities,” thus underestimating the persistence of prejudices and stereo-
types affecting groups and individuals, regardless of their geo-political origin.
Therefore, when considering diversity in terms of inequality, studies of immigrant
pupils and students need be complemented by research among “internal minorities.” In
the latter case, a nomadic occupational group such as the traveling attractionists pro-
vide a telling illustration of educational problems arising both from the group’s per-
ceived cultural differences and from the treatment they receive from mainstream
(sedentary) society and culture.
The Veneto attractionists’ everyday activities and their narratives indicate that both
the enculturation process and work constraints are seen as powerful reasons to “choose”
to remain in the sector of traveling attractions. Yet the same narratives, together with
those of teachers, indicate how such reasons conflate with even more powerful ones,
namely practical arrangements involving school attendance at compulsory education
level, lack of educational provision such as education-at-distance or e-learning aimed at
promoting longer schooling that will not require leaving the family, persistence of prej-
udice and stereotyping, and the many changes that have taken place in Italian society
since the end of the 1960s. Because those changes concern the entertainment sector
generally, and that of traveling attractions in particular, the families I became acquainted
with during fieldwork worried, on the one hand, that attractions, old and new ones alike,
could not in the future ensure a comfortable enough life; on the other hand, longer
schooling and a high school diploma that would allow different work options are not
within easy reach. Furthermore, families feared that if they enrolled their children in
high school the latter would be cut off from the sector’s cultural and working tradition,
and thus from the necessary skills, while if they continued such tradition they would
find themselves little by little at the margins of economic production, civic participa-
tion and social intercourse, and entertainment. In fact, pursuing a high school diploma
requires that students reside permanently in the vicinity of the school selected, and it
implies that relationship with the family be – at least temporarily – severed. As I
learned during research, a few of them try, some succeed but many more leave sec-
ondary education after a year or two. So, it is not surprising that most Veneto attrac-
tionists’s children start to work in the family enterprise as soon as they complete
compulsory education.
They did not seem to regret their decision that gave them explicit adult responsibilities
and rewarding appreciation from the family and the occupational group. Nevertheless,
when continuity with, and a career in, the sector of traveling attractions appear system-
atically “chosen” (and often narrated as such), educational researchers need to inquire if
this “choice” means loyalty to the group’s cultural tradition, recognition of good eco-
nomic rewards, or, instead, limited equality of educational opportunities with its ensuing
difficulty in finding alternatives to work with the family’s attraction. Thus, researchers
500 Gobbo

need inquire whether or not attractionists’ children have real equal educational opportu-
nities, and whether or not their cultural difference is perceived and treated in such a way
by school teachers and personnel that it produces further difference and inequality, now
and in the future.
Yet the lives these families lead between road and towns gives way to behaviors, atti-
tudes, values and skills that intertwine nomadic and urban cultures in an interesting
way. It can be said that attractionists have developed a double cultural framework that
makes them capable of accepting many cultural features of sedentary culture, while
they continue practicing their own style of life. This multiple cultural competence
undoubtedly represents a necessary, if not the best, way to maintain a sense of agency
and identity; the manners in which they pass both of them to the younger generations –
namely, an education centered on “teaching/learning/knowing how” – is certainly worthy
of further reflection, as it helps teachers and educational researchers alike to question
educational givens, and to look for, and valorize, the different experiences that can offer
human and intellectual enrichment.26

Notes
1. I wish to thank anthropologist Michael Herzfeld who, after I had presented an earlier version of this
research as a Harvard PERC Colloquium (Gobbo, 2001), drew my attention to the fact that the word
“attractionist” does not exist in the English language. In fact it is the Anglicization of the Italian
attrazionista (pl. attrazionisti) whose coinage I assume responsibility for.
2. Dolo is a middle sized town located between Padua and Venice, along the so called Brenta Riviera
(Brenta canal) that in the past allowed boat connections between the two cities.
3. Such rubric is not found in any Italian educational or pedagogical encyclopedia or dictionary.
4. The first educational “research” to explore the opposition between rural and urban culture (defined
as middle class culture) and its deeply unjust effects on countryside students’ schooling was Scuola
di Barbiana, 1967.
5. As it is certainly true of other countries, in Italy it is difficult to generalize by saying that every periph-
ery is a breeding ground of educational conflicts and failures. On the opposite, many of such areas
have maintained or improved their neighbourhood life and schools; furthermore, many cities’ govern-
ments have launched programs to upgrade and multiply cultural events in peripheral areas. It must also
be added that in cities such as Naples and Palermo the central neighbourhoods are still “problem
areas,” since poverty and lack of opportunities make schooling hardly relevant and thus it can seldom
prepare young people to find real alternatives to a future too often controlled by organized crime.
6. For Italian cases see, among others, Gobbo, 2000; Saletti Salza, 2003, 2004. An interesting interpreta-
tion of French educational problems in the peripheries is in van Zanten, 2003.
7. Mine is the first ethnography of Italian attractionist families. When fieldwork was almost finished
I supervised one of my students’ shorter research on attractionist families in Emilia Romagna
(Canesi, 2001).
8. In Silvestrini, a cura di, 2000, interviewees occasionally narrate educational matters but they are not
the focus of this research. Based on a life story approach, primarily it explores the lives and work of
men and women from Bergantino, a small town in Southern Veneto, who chose to leave a sedentary
life and jobs (tenant farmers, craftsmen, mechanics) and start instead touring the countryside with the
attractions they had often invented.
9. In Italy such right is a constitutional right.
10. In Veneto, when I was doing fieldwork, new, innovative ways were tried to keep track of a pupil’s
school “migration.” See AA.VV., 2002; Provveditorato Studi Verona, 2002; Donzello, s.d.
11. At the time of the research compulsory education lasted eight years.
 An Ethnographic Study 501

12. The word giostrai does not include circus people (who do not usually share the fair grounds) since the
root-word giostra (in Medieval times it was a mock, but often deadly, fighting encounter knights would
perform in front of the local ruling aristocrat or the king himself) refers to any “craft” (as the giostrai
call their attractions familiarly, literally mestiere) operated by them, such as the carousel, the roller
coaster, the shooting stalls, etc.
13. At this point the speaker would tilt the head, wink his eye, give a little cough, all non verbal signals that
in fact suggested it was just the opposite!
14. I must add that Gagé or Caminanti do not exclude interaction and even marriage to Sinti as long as they
perceive them to support or to strengthen the family’s interests, and to avoid strife and violence. This
seems to indicate that the attractionist’s nomadic life entails not only the bitter taste of prejudice in the
occasional relationship with sedentary people, but also a certain fear of social isolation within the
group itself, since it will expose him to attacks by other fellow colleagues.
15. Mr. Pulliero was the soon-to-be-retired secretary of the leftist SNAV (Sindacato Nazionale Attrazionisti
Viaggianti, that is, National Trade Union of Travelling Attractionists) whose knowledgeable help and
assistance was crucial for my research: the various people involved in this occupational sector I had con-
tacted before him had not been helpful and for a while I had been wondering if fieldwork could even
start, let alone proceed.
16. I was able to remember one or two sentences uttered during the conversation and wrote them down as
soon as I was home.
17. This is a real risk, perhaps unavoidable at the beginning, since a good part of the researcher’s time will
be devoted to mapping the attractionists’ circuits, the fairs’ schedules, the winter stops, so as eventu-
ally to drive to the fairs for a chat with the new acquaintances and to watch them put up the attraction.
18. In none of the fairs I visited I ever saw school age children engaged in heavy work.
19. The older daughter of Mr. Casati, a young woman is in her early thirties, recalled that “we were not
paid much attention to, and yet I still long to read the Iliad, the Odyssey again, as we did in school. Any
time I go into a bookstore I’m tempted to buy of copy.”
20. On this occasion, only teachers’ focus groups in two schools will be presented and discussed.
21. The teachers’ interviews were also a way to compare what I had learned from children and families
about schooling, education and their relation to a nomadic style of life with the teachers’ own view and
experience.
22. Some of them attributed these pupils’ vague condition of isolation not only to their learning “gaps” but
also to their awareness that their stay in the class is so limited.
23. The Italian term teachers used was buchi, which means “holes,” a gap to be filled (as a venerable
educational metaphor used to remind teachers).
24. This might not always be true, however, as some notebooks I had a chance to look at show.
25. In Italian there are not two commonly used words by which to define the different situations pupil and
learner allude to. Discente means learner, but it is no longer used and sounds “out of time.” Therefore,
I am responsible for translating according to the sense of the discourse.
26. In saying this, I hasten to add that the appreciation and respect I have for the families I met and for their
life and work did not (and does not) prevent me from noting the limits both can impose on an individual’s
projects and prospects. However, I still firmly believe it is the task and lifelong contribution of ethnogra-
phy to understand who we and the others are, and who else we could be, by intentionally trying to learn a
different point of view and different meanings.

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27

THE LIMITS OF COMPENSATORY EDUCATION

IN SPAIN: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF SOME
AUTONOMOUS GOVERNMENTS1

Xavier Rambla and Xavier Bonal

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain

It would be very confusing to speak literally of “urban education” to a Spanish audience.

Certainly, part of the problem would simply be the meaning of the adjective, since its
geographical sense is so self-evident in our languages that it is difficult to figure out
what it has been for Deweyan educators in Anglo-Saxon countries. However, the con-
cept would also be difficult to translate because the intellectual and political tradition
that identifies educational reform with the foundations of democracy and progressive
change has been quite different and dramatically weaker during the twentieth century
in Spain. So, an account of the related issues in the country instead focuses on the
institutionalization of “compensatory education” after the dictatorship plus mention of
the few and new proposals that aim to work beyond the scope of this strategy.
More than 20 years ago the Compensation Royal Decree (1174/1983, April 27) used
the term “compensatory education” in order to define the function of specialized teach-
ers and schools who had to “aid the zones or demographic groups that need preferential
educational attention due to their particular characteristics.” Then a small scholarship
scheme for low-income students was also implemented. Later on, academic disadvan-
tage due to cultural or social reasons became another kind of special education need
when the Organic Act on the General Framework of the Educational System (1/1990,
October 3) defined special pedagogic strategies as “treatment of diversity.”
The Conservative governments that were in office between 1996 and 2004 reacted
against the child-centered philosophy that had inspired the1990 Education Reform
Act, and finally in 2002 passed the Organic Act on Educational Quality (10/2002,
December 23), which aimed to instill the “culture of endeavour” into students. However,
the Socialist party won the 2004 election and is at the moment of writing preparing a new
reform that will modify these tenets.
Since the early 1980s seven autonomous governments or “autonomies” (Comunitats
Autònomes) have been in charge of their regional education systems, while the other ten
received this responsibility in the late 1990s. So far, some of them have complemented
the initial and general scheme for “compensation” with other strategies. Immigrant
505
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 505–522.
© 2007 Springer.
506 Rambla and Bonal

reception programs, learning communities, priority schools and areas, e-learning

initiatives and local educational participatory plans all provide examples of “urban
education.” For instance, the Basque country, Aragon and Catalonia have deployed
immigrant reception programs and have implemented the first experiments of learning
communities. These latter educational strategies aim to trigger participatory planning and
assessment of academic and social objectives in disadvantaged schools (Comunidades
de Aprendizaje, 2005; DE/DGA, 2000, 2004; DE/ GC, 2004; DP/GC, 2001). Aragon has
also carried out an ambitious e-learning program in order to promote distance educa-
tion among its large rural areas (DE/DGA, 2005). Some public schools are the object
of priority attention in Catalonia (DE/GC, 1996), where many municipalities have also
implemented participatory planning of after-school activities (Jaumandreu & Badosa,
2002). On its own, the Solidarity Plan has enlarged reception programs in Andalusia,
which foresee the explicit participation of immigrants, and has created priority areas in
some localities (CE/JA, 1998, 1999, 2001a, 2001b).
In this article we aim to explore if these interventions are powerful enough to meet
their official objective, that is, to overcome educational problems and disadvantages. Our
argument relies on two previous generalizations that have established the framework for
wider discussion. On the one hand, some recent contributions continue the long intel-
lectual tradition that looks for actual opportunities whereby schools can tackle inequal-
ities and their correlative educational disadvantages. Thus, several authors highlight the
importance of explicit objectives (Derouet, 1992), minority-friendly curricula (Connell,
1997), democratic participation (Apple & Beane, 1995), flat and polyvalent organiza-
tion (Fullan & Hargreaves, 1996), supplementary education (Bridglall & Gordon,
2002), public-political spaces (Griffiths, 2003), and school-community collaboration
(Warren, 2005) for educational justice or social inclusion. Certainly, in Spain auto-
nomous governments and other social agents have drawn on these ideas for the design
of the initiatives we have just mentioned. On the other hand, other reports and authors
recently highlight that societal features influence educational disadvantage more than
the concrete programs and strategies deployed by schools (UNESCO-OECD/UIS,
2003). An exhaustive recent international comparison identifies two axes of these soci-
etal effects, namely enrolment rates and performance scores (Duru-Bellat, Mons, &
Suchaut, 2004). Everywhere, working-class and minority students are more likely to
achieve a low score in standardized exams and drop out early, though early leaving rates
and average scores vary among countries. Thus, programs explore the opportunities to
foster social inclusion through school policies, but societal features can limit such
opportunities and therefore become bigger challenges to social inclusion.
Our argument follows four steps. First, we present an overview of the inclusive
educational strategies that autonomous governments have deployed so far in Spain.
Second, we ask if these strategies influence non-graduation rates in the 17 autonomous
communities. Although an initial expectation was that they made a difference, the
available evidence casts doubt on the effect of innovative programs. The main factors
are broader societal phenomena such as average education level, educational expendi-
ture, or unemployment rate. Third, we also ask whether this influence of societal fac-
tors is an immediate effect of recent educational expansion. Thus, we compare regional
educational disparity and gaps between economic and educational development in
 The Limits of Compensatory Education 507

Spain and other European countries where expansion took place some decades earlier.
Finally, we use the “capabilities approach” in order to interpret these findings. Such an
approach draws on normative principles of social justice (that we will only sketch
here) and focuses on “positive” empirical connections as judged by these principles. In
Spanish education from the 1950s until the 1970s the main positive connection was
family aspirations triggering enrolment despite many shortcomings. Later on, education
reforms and increased expenditure contributed to raising graduation levels significantly
in the 1980s. However, current trends do not show either persistent old connections or
new influential ones that raise graduation and curb drop-out rates in upper secondary
education in all the “autonomies.”

Autonomous Educational Policies for Social Inclusion

Autonomous governments have implemented several kinds of educational strategy for
social inclusion since they have received the political responsibility to do so. Some have
significantly enlarged the set of instruments that central government institutionalized in
the 1980s, whilst others have simply continued to use the same set. “Compensation”
strategies consist only of distributing specialized teachers according to observed
“social” needs in schools. “Autonomies” use “co-ordinated compensation” if their pol-
icy has established new frameworks for action at the infant, primary, or secondary edu-
cational levels or even the whole region. The strategy is “intensive compensation” if the
policy includes the aforementioned new experiments (e.g., learning communities, priority
areas, participatory intercultural education, and so on). Finally, one single case combines
educational and economic intervention on a more “universal” basis (Figure 1).
“Compensation” and “co-ordinated compensation” may sometimes include free text-
books schemes. Normally, all students have to buy their textbooks, and changes to the
list of these textbooks increase family expenditure. Following family associations’ cam-
paigns for free textbooks in public schools, some autonomous governments have agreed
to provide students with free books either in some or in all courses.
“Intensive co-ordination” is associated with the pedagogic organisation of rural,
small, incomplete schools (whereas all schools are complete or “graduate” in urban
areas). In the early 1970s the dictatorship suppressed many rural schools on the grounds
of economic efficiency, but popular action prevented the process in some areas. Thus
rural schools have become a democratic symbolic vindication, and some governments
are aware of their importance for territorial cohesion. Participatory experiments are the
most visible markers of this broader view. From the mid-1980s to 2002, each school had
an elected council that included teachers, parents, students, and support staff, which
appointed the principal and established the main guidelines. Municipal, autonomous and
state-wide councils were also established. Additionally, teacher unions, parent associa-
tions (in public and private state-funded schools), student unions, and private schools
participated at the different levels. Although the 2002 Quality Education Act promoted
professional instead of elected direction, some autonomous governments have tried to
open other participatory channels. A new reform was passed in 2006, reinforcing the role
of school councils.
508 Rambla and Bonal

Educational inclusion
strategy (Autonomous
Community) Characteristics

The most universal strategy
(Basque Country)
● Immigrant reception and learning communities programs.
● Scholarships for fees, transport, books, stationery and lunch
expenses (CEUI/GV, 2004). In the school year 2004–2005 a
family receives a 1.118–2.348 € benefit provided its per capita
yearly income is below 2.573 € and its offspring is enrolled in
post-compulsory academic or vocational programs. The
average expenditure per person in the Basque Country was
2.237.52 € in 2004 (INE, 2006).

Intensive compensation ● Immigrant reception and learning communities programs

(Andalusia, Aragon, Catalonia) (Aragon, Catalonia), participatory intercultural education and
priority areas (Andalusia). Governments propose educational
pacts to civil society.
● Several participatory Local Educational Plans (Catalonia).
Special emphasis on innovative rural education (Aragon).

Coordinated compensation
(Canarias, Castilla La Mancha,
Galicia, Madrid, Murcia, Navarre)
● These governments aim to foster cohesion or equity with new
plans. Some of them focus on a school level, such as the
Equity Plan in Compulsory Secondary Education
(Castilla- La Mancha) or Infant School at Home (Galicia).
Others try to improve co-ordination (Madrid, Navarre).
● Free textbooks schemes are being extended.

Compensation ● Basic compensatory program basically including specialized

(Asturias, Balearic Islands, Castilla
Leon, Cantabria, Valencian Country,
Extremadura, Rioja)
teachers for students who need “attention to diversity.”
● Extremadura and Rioja are also extending free textbooks
schemes.
● Voucher system for infant schools in Balearic Islands
(and some Valencian municipalities).

Figure 1. Different educational inclusion strategies deployed by Autonomous Communities in Spain

The Basque country is a specific case due to its scholarship scheme, but a general,
though minimal, scholarship scheme was implemented throughout Spain in the 1980s.
The Basque government added complementary economic benefits so that lower class
students were more able to finish their secondary post-compulsory courses. For this
reason, this case is labeled as the “most universal strategy.”
Finally, although globalization is visible in education policy through international
policy-borrowing (e.g., the comprehensive reform in the 1990s, the comparison of
OECD student assessment after 2000), some “autonomies” have also borrowed educa-
tion policies from other ones in Spain. Thus, some regional governments which draw
on either “co-ordinated compensation” or simply “compensation” are currently dis-
cussing “equity” or “cohesion” plans that look at learning communities, priority areas
and even reception programs as sources of inspiration. At first sight, a plausible but
cautious guess might state that policy- borrowing is pushing towards more intensive
compensatory education.
 The Limits of Compensatory Education 509

Regional Educational Inequality

Autonomous governments have implemented increasingly broad educational inclusion
strategies, but have they made a difference? Tables 1 and 2 explore the impact of soci-
etal and institutional factors on non-graduation rates in order to estimate the influence
of these strategies. The percentages of the graduate labor force (in upper secondary
education) and the youth unemployment rates account for societal factors, whereas
expenditure measures institutional margins. Graph 1 plots all the communities accord-
ing to the percentages of the graduate labor force (in upper secondary education),
which turns out to be the most powerful determinant of non-graduation rates.
Table 1 shows that secondary compulsory education students (Educació Secundària
Obligatòria, ESO) experience a significantly higher probability of failing their exams
in a Spanish region if the educational level of the region is low and public resources
devoted to the regional educational system are scarce. The gross non-graduation rate
indicates the number of 16 year-olds who have not attained their ESO degree. In a
sense, they are the target of interventions aiming to counter educational disadvantage
and inequality. The percentage of the labor force with at least upper secondary educa-
tion is the indicator of average educational levels commonly used in Ministry reports.
Similarly, public educational expenditure per student measures the public resources
devoted to education by both the central and the regional or autonomous government.
In 2001 these two factors (namely, average levels and public expenditure) explained a
substantial part of non-graduation in the 17 regions inasmuch as they accounted for
49% of its variance. Therefore, data concerning school failure show a robust regional

Table 1. Influence of average educational levels and public expenditure on the gross non- graduation rate
in compulsory secondary education (Spain, 2001)

Independent Variables Estimated Standard error T statistic

coefficient

Active population with

at least upper secondary
education (%)* –0.6066462 0.2230803 –2.72
Public educational expenditure
per student* –0.0778893 0.067069 –1.16
Constant* 58.74696 9.201697 6.38

Dependent Variable:
Gross non-graduation rate in
compulsory secondary
education
Prob > F  0.00840 The relationship between independent variables
and the dependent variable is not spurious
(F  0.05). Therefore, the model can explain
the relationships between them.
R-squared = 0.4945 The independent variables explain 49%
of the dependent variable variation.
Adjusted R-squared  If the number of independent variables is
0.4223 taken into account, the model explains 42%
of the dependent variable variation.

Note: * The influence of these variables is significant if T  2.

Source: MEC (2001, 2004) and INE (2000).
510 Rambla and Bonal

Table 2. Influence of average educational levels, youth unemployment and public expenditure on the
gross non- graduation rate in academic upper secondary education (Spain, 2001)

Independent Variables Estimated Standard error T statistic

coefficient

Active population with at least

upper secondary education (%)* –1.029678 0.1978508 –5.20
Unemployment rate of the
20–24 years-old population* –0.487231 0.141609 –3.44
Public educational expenditure
per student* –0.1186511 0.0576154 –2.06
*
Constant 119.4323 9.333185 12.80

Dependent Variable: Prob F  0.0001 The relationship between independent

Gross non-graduation rate variables and the dependent variable is not
in academic upper spurious (F  0.05). Therefore, the model
secondary education can explain the relationships between them.
R-squared  0.8003 The independent variables explain 80% of the
dependent variable variation.
Adjusted R-squared  If the number of independent variables is
0.7542 taken into account, the model explains
75% of the dependent variable variation.

Note: * The influence of these variables is significant if T 2.

Source: MEC (2001, 2004) and INE (2000).
Gross non- graduation rate in academic upper sec. ed.

70

Extremadura Balearic Islands

Canary
60 Islands
Castilla Valencia Murcia Catalonia
Mancha Andalusia
Galicia
50 La Rioja
Castilla Cantabria Navarre
León Aragon Madrid

40
Asturias
Basque
Country
30
30 35 40 45 50 55
% Labour force with at least uppersecondary education

Graph 1. Gross non- graduation rate in academic upper secondary education and active population with
at least upper secondary education (%) (Spain, 2001)
Source: MEC (2001, 2004) and INE (2000).
 The Limits of Compensatory Education 511

effect between generations, since the labor force includes everybody from 16 until 65
years-olds. In other words, more teenagers fail their exams in compulsory secondary
education in the regions where the labor force has not received much education and the
school system is not underpinned by many resources. Generally speaking, this finding
reflects the influence of class origin on academic performance, which is well known to
sociologists of education. But the replication of this effect at the regional level is not
an automatic consequence of the general pattern (as Table 3 will show).
Table 2 reports that academic secondary post-compulsory education students
(Batxillerat or baccalaureate) experience a significantly higher probability of failing
their exams in a Spanish “autonomy” if the general educational level of the region is
low, the labor market is open to youth and scarce public resources are devoted to the
regional educational system. The gross non-graduation rate records the number of 18
year-olds who have not attained their baccalaureate degree. As in table 1, the percent-
age of the labor force with at least upper secondary education indicates the educational
level, and public educational expenditure per student measures educational resources.
But here the unemployment rate of the 20–24 years-old population impinges on non-
graduation (i.e., the dependent variable) even more than resources. In 2001 these three
factors (respectively, educational level, youth unemployment and public expenditure)
explained the bulk of non- graduation in the 17 regions, because they accounted for
80% of its variance. Thus, once again Spanish data concerning school failure show a
robust regional effect between generations. In other words, where the labor force has
not received much instruction, the youth have some labor opportunities and schools
lack financial support, students are more likely to downplay the importance of their
examinations, or at least are more prone to fail their baccalaureate. A cumulative effect
can be observed between the situation of the middle-aged generations (as indicated by
the labor force average) and the situation of the younger generations (as indicated
by unemployment and educational expenditure).
Graph 1 shows a relatively small influence of educational inclusion strategies in
terms of regional differences. In the graph the main line represents the proportion
between the two main factors, namely the percentage of the labor force with at least
upper secondary and the gross non-graduation rate in academic upper secondary edu-
cation (or baccalaureate). That is, Extremadura, Castilla-Mancha, Andalusia, Valencia,
Murcia, Galicia, Rioja, Castilla- Leon, Cantabria, Aragon, Navarre, and Madrid
roughly keep this proportion at different scores, whereas Balearic Islands, Canary
Islands, Catalonia, Asturias, and the Basque Country are significantly deviant cases.
The Basque Country not only shows a high average educational level but also
achieves a non-graduation rate even lower than the proportional line. Such a pro-
education position is even more salient when this region is compared with Madrid or
Navarre, where average education levels are similar but non-graduation rates are
slightly above the proportion. Thus, the most universalistic and inclusive strategy
seems to yield the most satisfactory outcome. Let us notice that this policy combines
pedagogic instruments with economic support of teenager students coming from a
lower class position.
Asturias offers another success story, though this cannot be attributed to its inclusion
strategy, because the Asturian government has not so far significantly enlarged the basic
512 Rambla and Bonal

Table 3. Rate of enrolment in upper secondary education and rate of population below that level in
Austria, the Czech Rep., France, Italy and Spain (average figures compared to Germany, Malta and
Portugal), 2003

Country Inter- Inter- Inter- Regression

regional regional regional coefficient (R 2)
average standard (coeff.of) between “Pop.
deviation variation below u. sec.
ed.”(2) and “Up.
secondary
students” (1)

Up. Secondary students 76.42 76.03 5.32 7.00

Austria 0.33
Pop. below u. Sec. ed. 29.18 29.75 3.20 10.74
Czech Up. Secondary students 70.95 71.14 9.09 12.77 0.64
Republic Pop. below u. Sec. ed. 20.90 20.97 3.44 16.42
Up. Secondary students 65.91 65.99 1.70 2.58
France(3) 0.02
Pop. below u. Sec. ed. – 47.29 6.93 14.66
Up. Secondary students 87.65 90.59 59.47 5.60
Italy 0.22
Pop. below u. Sec. ed. 59.12 5.08 3.97 6.67
Nether Up. Secondary students 67.23 65.55 16.88 25.75 0.06
lands Pop. below u. Sec. ed. 36.70 37.45 3.07 8.19
Up. Secondary students 42.24 43.54 3.76 8.63
Spain(4) 0.24
Pop. below u. Sec. ed. 60.66 61.21 5.28 8.62
Up. Secondary students 60 – – – _
Germany
Pop. below u. Sec. ed. 25 – – –
Up. Secondary students 30 – – – _
Malta
Pop. below u. Sec. ed. 76 – – –
Up. Secondary students 53 – – – _
Portugal(5)
Pop. below u. Sec. ed. 77 – – –

Notes: (1) “Up. secondary students” states for the gross ratio between the number of upper secondary students
(ISCED3) and 15 to 19 years-old population. (2) “Pop. below u. sec. ed.” stands for the proportion of popula-
tion (aged 15 and over) that has not attained upper secondary education (ISCED1 and ISCED2). (3) Overseas
French territories are excluded. (4) Ceuta and Melilla autonomous cities are excluded. (5) Açores and Madeira
are excluded Source: EUROSTAT (2005).

compensatory scheme. Rather, a relatively high educational expenditure and youth

unemployment explain this second positive position of an extremely de-industrialized
region.
A small effect of inclusion strategies can be observed by comparing Andalusia
(intensive compensation), Galicia (coordinated compensation) and the Valencian
Country (compensation). Once again average education levels are similar but the for-
mer two cases score much better than the latter; furthermore, expenditure contributes
to a relative success of the inclusion strategy in Galicia.
Balearic Islands, Canary Islands and Catalonia offer the most negative cases.
Actually, the schooling system is relatively worse in Balearic Islands and Catalonia,
which are both thriving regions, but suffer dramatically high non-graduation rates (see
Table 4). Youth unemployment is the main factor that accounts for their position below
 The Limits of Compensatory Education 513

Table 4. Labor force educational level, enrolment at 17 and gross domestic product per capita (Spanish
autonomies and some European countries, 2001–2002)

Labor Force Spain Enrolment Spain Gross Spain

with at least (LFUSE) at 17 (E17) domestic (GDPpc)
upper  100 (E17)  100 product per  100
secondary capita
education (GDPpc)
(LFUSE)

Spain (total) 41.6 100 77.8 100 18893.5 100

● Andalusia 34.6 83.17 73.8 94.86 14050.3 74.37
● Aragon 43.2 103.85 85.6 110.03 20059 106.17
● Asturias 43.4 104.33 90.2 115.94 16173.7 85.6
● Balearic Islands 40.5 97.36 69.5 89.33 23546 124.62
● Basque Country 52.2 125.48 91.4 117.48 23443 124.08
● Canary Islands 38.9 93.51 76.3 98.07 17853 94.49
● Cantabria 42.9 103.13 83.8 107.71 18340.4 97.07
● Castilla –Leon 42.6 102.40 89.7 115.30 17449.2 92.36
● Castilla -La Mancha 33 79.33 73.2 94.09 15239.3 80.66
● Catalonia 43.2 103.85 70.7 90.87 22562.2 119.42
● Extremadura 32.1 77.16 71.6 92.03 12024.9 63.65
● Galicia 37.3 89.66 80.3 103.21 14904 78.88
● Madrid 54.3 130.53 87.5 112.47 25479 134.86
● Murcia 39.1 93.99 74.6 95.89 16143.4 85.44
● Navarre 48.3 116.11 87.5 112.47 23814.2 126.04
● Rioja 41.5 99.76 80.4 103.34 21578.4 114.21
● Valencian Country 36.4 87.50 70.9 91.13 18123.1 95.92
France 65 156.25 91.2 117.22 23480 124.28
United Kingdom 84 201.92 73.6 94.60 23543.7 124.61
Sweden 82 197.12 91.1 117.10 23818.4 126.07
Portugal 20 48.08 72.6 93.32 15782.4 83.53
Italy 46 110.58 75.3 96.79 22420 118.66

Source: MEC (2001) and OECD (2004).

the proportional line, as Table 2 estimates and a simple comparison with Asturias illus-
trates. Tourism is the main resource in the islands and provides very important inputs
to the Catalan economy, where industrial areas and a big city also create many jobs for
young people. However, a second but significant factor is the small expenditure that
the two relatively rich, Mediterranean governments devote to their schools.
In short, not only regional educational levels rather than educational inclusion
strategies explain non-graduation rates in most “autonomies,” but also the main excep-
tions to this rule can be attributed to other factors. Pedagogic interventions have
impinged on the outcome in the Basque Country, although economic parallel support
has reinforced them there. When intensive compensation has been implemented with-
out a similar support in Andalusia, Aragon, and Catalonia, the final outcome has been
either proportional to the educational level (Andalusia and Aragon) or has scored well
below this (Catalonia).
514 Rambla and Bonal

Regional Disparity and Economic-Educational Development

in a Comparative Perspective
Average educational levels of the labor force are the main predictor of non-graduation
rates at the end of both compulsory and post-compulsory academic secondary education
in the 17 autonomous communities. One question is whether this effect is a consequence
of sharp regional disparity due to the recent expansion of schooling in Spain.
Table 3 shows that middle-term trends have drawn a relatively heterogeneous regional
educational map in Spain. The table reports the enrolment of the younger generations
(i.e., a gross rate of upper secondary students compared to the 15–19 years-old popula-
tion) and the educational level of the whole population (i.e., the proportion of population
aged 15 and over who lack this degree) in a small sample of European countries with avail-
able data on regional educational disparities. Notably, the gross enrolment rate of teen-
agers holds a robust (R2  0.55) and negative correlation with the gross non-graduation
rate used in Table 2. Besides, these figures explore middle-term change by comparing
younger and older generations. This information is relevant to questions about whether
educational regions are heterogeneous in countries where compulsory schooling is
universal, whether regional patterns can be attributed to earlier or later expansion,
or whether we should look for correlates somewhere else. It also provides important
evidence in estimating the geography of educational disadvantage.
According to these data, in Spain the gross rate of upper secondary students is low
(42%), with Malta alone having a lower score (30%). A simple comparison shows that
regional disparity is moderate, and discredits any view attributing its importance
directly to the recent expansion of schooling. First, in Spain inter-regional variation
(8.63%) is high compared with France (2.58%), where schooling expansion started ear-
lier, but such an expansion also started earlier in Austria and inter-regional variation of
teenagers’ enrolment in this country (7%) is similar to Spain. However, the Netherlands
was also an early developer of schooling and shows a higher inter-regional variation
(25.75%) than Spain. Second, the population’s educational levels show a higher inter-
regional variation in France (14.66%) compared with Spain (8.62%), although French
regions are more homogeneous with regard to secondary students. Further, this varia-
tion is similar in the Netherlands (8.19%) despite the sharp disparity concerning stu-
dents’ completion rates. And third, a simple correlation analysis between these two
variables reveals similar R 2 coefficients in Austria (0.33), Spain (0.24) and Italy (0.22),
zero values in France and the Netherlands, and a robust level in the Czech Republic
(0.64), this showing no general pattern of regional variation concerning students’ com-
pletion and population’s average education.
If recent expansion cannot account for the weak influence of inclusive strategies,
economic development might explain it. In fact, there is a general correlation between
economic and educational development if the latter is measured by literacy and enrol-
ment at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels (UNDP, 2005). Since Spain enjoys a
high human development index (HDI), here the significant focus is on enrolment at 17.
Students who are at school at this age are likely to finish their upper secondary educa-
tion, whereas those who are not will fail to complete. Although secondary graduation
does not indicate such a basic capability as HDI components (e.g., literacy or primary
 The Limits of Compensatory Education 515

enrolment), it is important for future work careers (OECD, 2003) and the academic per-
formance of future generations (OECD & UNESCO/UIS, 2003). On the other hand,
two other indicators estimate the match in economic and educational development in
Spanish “autonomies,” namely the proportion of the labor force with at least upper sec-
ondary education and the regional Gross Domestic Product per capita (GDPpc).
Table 4 compares educational and economic development Spain, France, Italy,
Portugal, the United Kingdom, and Sweden. Recent expansion can be observed in as
much as the labor force shows higher levels of education in France, the UK, and Sweden
than in Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the Spanish “autonomies.” However, more students
leave school at a lower age in the “autonomies” compared to the other European coun-
tries included in the sample. For instance, Balearic Islands, the Basque Country,
Catalonia, and Navarre record a per capita gross domestic product (GDPpc) close to
France, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Italy. However, economic development
(GDPpc) and post-compulsory enrolment indicators are only similar in the Basque
Country, France, and Italy. Catalonia and Italy share similar economic (GDPpc) scores,
but the enrolment indicator is much lower in Catalonia; similarly, Balearic Islands have
the same economic level (GDPpc) as France and the UK, but its enrolment rate is the
lowest in the sample. Besides, Madrid has the best per capita gross domestic product in
this sample, but other cases like Asturias and Castilla-Leon and European countries like
France and Sweden achieve a better enrolment rate.

Reflections from the Capabilities Approach

To what extent do these structural limitations of urban education eliminate the margin
for school-based action for justice? In our view, Nussbaum’s (2000) and Sen’s (1999)
“capabilities approach” suggests a relevant and useful answer to this question. Here,
our reasoning starts with a brief summary of the normative framework concerning
capabilities and points out the empirically observed potential. A further discussion of
this potential leads us to review the negative effects of unintended targeted action and
to introduce alternative ideas.
Capabilities constitute the human possibility to leading one’s life according to one’s
view of the good, within the frame of universal morality. Nussbaum (2000) has advanced
a list arguing that everybody should be endowed with enough resources to realize such
possibilities; additionally, no capability should be denied to anybody on behalf on any
other one. Such list includes references to education at several points: for example,
senses, imagination, thought, emotions, practical reasoning, affiliation (caring, self-
respect), play, and political participation. The set of actual capabilities constitutes a
person’s freedom, which is the crucial leverage of development too. That is, develop-
ment consists of meeting people’s needs so that everybody is able to deploy his or her
capabilities. Freedom plays a constitutive role in development inasmuch as it estab-
lishes the ultimate criteria for its evaluation, but it also plays an instrumental role such
that some freedoms can effectively contribute to the achievement of other freedoms.
Sen (1999) provides several examples from his own research. For instance, women’s
autonomy is crucial for family planning and children’s health, democracy is the best
516 Rambla and Bonal

guarantee against famines, and universal services are able to enhance human develop-
ment despite low economic growth.
The points raised in previous sections highlight instrumental connections between
institutional and societal factors of educational development. Two institutional factors
offer potential positive outcomes that unfortunately have not been met in recent
decades. On the one hand, autonomous governments have started to experiment with
inclusive strategies that broaden former compensatory education programs. However,
co-ordination and intensification initiatives have not yielded a clear impact up to now,
probably because they have only been pilot innovations. On the other hand, upper
secondary education outcomes partially depend on educational expenditure, and pub-
lic educational expenditure in Spain has stagnated at the 4.9% GDP level, that is, one
point below the EU average (OECD, 2004). Thus, although better articulation of new
experiences and more resources could eventually produce positive change, this has not
so far been achieved.
The most decisive societal factor, it seems, is family educational level and educa-
tional aspirations, with economic development and policy as second factors. Family
aspirations already contributed to educational expansion starting some 50 years ago.
Despite a lack of school places, after the hard times of the 1940s, initial and tentative
indications of economic improvement, as well as increasing marriage and birth rates,
occurred simultaneously to growing enrolment in the post-compulsory “basic
baccalaureate” (Pérez, 2001). Paradoxically, this connection loosened when compul-
sory education was extended until fourteen in the 1970s, as the trend of graduation
rates stagnated (probably due to the chronic lack of resources and a strict reaction of
untrained teachers against massive schooling). However, in the 1980s new possibilities
emerged when democratic governments devoted more resources to schools, a reform
standardized across public and private state-funded schools. Both primary graduation
and secondary enrolment and graduation also rose (Carabaña, 1999). Interestingly,
family projects have been the main societal trigger for educational development, since
economic development only played a certain role in the 1960s and universal compul-
sory enrolment was not attained until the 1980s. The influence of a crucial institutional
factor such as expenditure has only been decisive for a short term between the demo-
cratic transition (1977–1978) and the early 1990s.
Therefore, educational action for justice eventually became an unintended form of
targeted action. Targeted action consists of anti-poverty initiatives that aim to profile
the poor in a precise way so as to concentrate resources on this population. Similarly,
educational targeting consists of defining what educational disadvantage means so as
to concentrate educational resources on this group. Thus, if educational expenditure
devoted to the whole system and to compensatory programs is severely constrained,
these very programs become partial and uncoordinated, with the logical consequence
that, at best, only some disadvantaged groups receive attention in Spanish schools.
According to this interpretation, in Spain inclusive strategies are likely to suffer the
main perverse effects of targeted action, namely information and incentive distortion,
stigma, high administrative costs and weak political sustainability (Sen, 1999). Certainly,
while the example given is not a pure case, since targeting is not an explicit political
aim, this particularity is relevant for this evaluation. The eventual incoherence of these
 The Limits of Compensatory Education 517

measures is crucial in order to understand why international comparative studies show

mediocre performance scores, moderate performance gaps and significantly low post-
compulsory enrolment in Spain (Duru-Bellat et al., 2005).
To start with, although informal and residual action is not likely to produce high
administrative costs, it is nonetheless likely to distort information dramatically and
threatens to stigmatize beneficiaries. The information problem is due to the general dif-
ficulty of combining urban and educational criteria as a means of selecting schools for
targeted intervention (EURYDICE, 2004). However, the problem is also enhanced due to
the blurred definition of catchment areas. Formally, all students attend public and private
state-funded schools located close to their home, but there are no general or explicit cri-
teria to decide the limits, extension and social composition of the areas of these schools.
Thus, the occasional concentration of immigrants or students with special education
needs can be compensated for, either with area-based (in Andalusia) or school-based (in
Catalonia) action or with participatory programs (Comunidades de Aprendizaje, 2005).
However, the deep processes that produced that situation remain unaffected. Even worse,
in Catalonia the specialists’ discussion summarized in Carbonell’s (2000) report has
already warned that the label “intercultural education” has become a real stigma for many
schools. In sum, many current practices of targeting eventually replicate or enhance these
negative effects.
Second, incentive distortion is secondary but salient in some “autonomies.” Doubt-
less, incentives are quite different if we make reference to anti-poverty income
schemes or to educational intervention. However, incentives are relevant in some pro-
grams as far as post-compulsory enrolment is concerned. In fact, the model summa-
rized in Table 2 points out a trade-off between (un)employment and (non)graduation
for young people between 20 and 24 years. Although non-graduation rates are not so
determined by youth unemployment as they depend on average levels of education, the
former plays a significant role. García Espejo and Gutiérrez (2000) have convincingly
illustrated this by comparing Asturias and Valencia. The former has a successful aca-
demic story together with massive unemployment due to de-industrialization, whilst
the latter has roughly the average education/non-graduation proportion for the whole
country. These researchers have found out that tertiary education yields a positive rate
of return in Asturias but a neutral one in Valencia. In order to explain this finding they
have signaled that light industries and tourism provide precarious but abundant labor
opportunities to early school leavers in the latter region which take students away from
school. Therefore, incentive distortion also constrains the effectiveness of compensa-
tory intervention in some “autonomies.”
Third, a rapid overview of the changes between the 1990 and the 2002 Education
Acts reveals the weakness of the political support for compensatory strategies and edu-
cational inclusion. The first reform aiming to tackle educational disadvantage drew on
curriculum adaptation and child-centered pedagogy. Before the Conservative govern-
ment drafted and passed the second reform, it had deeply damaged the popular image
of the former strategy by exploiting opinion surveys. The general conclusion was that
teachers and parents do not perceive pro-school attitudes in low performing students
(INCE, 1998), and the inferred recommendation is that a new culture of endeavor must
be instilled into these as well as other students.
518 Rambla and Bonal

All these unintended effects notwithstanding, targeted educational intervention seems

not to be completely without use. On the contrary, concern with educational inequalities
has doubtless stimulated pedagogic imagination and opened new channels of participa-
tion. For instance, learning communities and a few immigrant reception programs aim to
stimulate working-class and minority parents to engage with school activities. As we
have argued, the main obstacle for educational intervention in Spain lies in its improvi-
sation and lack of co-ordination. The experimental “intensive” initiatives are patchy, but
they might also be a first step to designing and implementing new strategies for educa-
tional inclusion that aim at universality. From this stance, any attempt at change should
take account of the following three questions. First, universalistic strategies are impossi-
ble unless educational expenditure is sufficient; second, catchment areas should be
defined in a transparent way so that monitoring the equity and effectiveness of both pub-
lic and private state-funded schools is possible; and third, regulation and provision are
viewed as important as pedagogy for tackling educational diversity.

Conclusion
Urban education is undergoing important transformations in Spain. Educational
de-centralization has coincided with a new interest in widening the scope of the com-
pensatory education programs implemented in the 1980s and a rich array of experi-
ments that have not yet been articulated as a comprehensive strategy.
Current initiatives broaden the scope of compensation rather than implement alter-
native strategies. Only the Basque Country has moved beyond this framework, for
example, by delivering generous scholarships to low income youth who decide to stay
after their completion of compulsory education. Other strategies include immigrant
reception programs, affirmative action in favor of certain schools or areas, learning
communities, distance education for rural areas, and participatory local planning of
after-school activities.
As far as achieving almost universal completion of upper secondary education, only
the Basque Country tells a success story, since at least most youth graduate at this level
there. On the contrary, none of the latter strategies has impacted on non-graduation
rates at the end of either compulsory or post-compulsory academic secondary educa-
tion. Our empirical conclusion is that average educational levels, public educational
expenditure, and youth unemployment are much more influential than any type of
compensatory educational inclusion.
Notably, neither the recent date of educational expansion nor economic development
can convincingly explain this mid-term educational geography. The most significant
pattern reveals inter-generational reproduction with regards to autonomous regions in
Spain. Where the population’s educational levels are high, more students from recent
generations leave school with their baccalaureate. As a consequence, the education
systems of some “autonomies” are not sustainable, either because they have low aver-
age educational levels and low graduation rates at secondary education (mostly,
Southern “autonomies”) or because they are extremely deviating negative cases with
regards to the general proportion (mostly, Balearic Islands and Catalonia).
 The Limits of Compensatory Education 519

Thus, positive and negative instrumental connections between educational factors

can be identified. In the end, inclusive strategies appear to be so partial that they only
target the worst off often in an unintended way that cannot be easily monitored.
However, this balance of pros and cons it is hoped provides a list of open challenges
towards a new universalistic strategy. Besides the very articulation of the initial new
experiences that draw on “intensive” compensation, a higher expenditure and a clearly
defined and equity-driven system of catchment areas might be the first steps in that
direction.

Note
1. The paper is an outcome of the Regional Schooling Regimes Project, funded by Fundació Carles
Pi Sunyer between 2002 and 2004. It was developed by SAPS and the Institute for Government and Public
Policy (IGOP-UAB). We want to acknowledge de contribution of Eduardo Calderón and Núria Pros.

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28

DUTCH URBAN SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS’

PROFESSIONALISM

Yvonne Leeman
Universiteit van Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Windesheim University of Applied Sciences,
The Netherlands

Urban life is a bundle of contradictions. The urban city offers opportunities to meet
people from all over the world. It offers all kinds of cultural stimuli through art exhi-
bitions, theatre and music. Opportunities to participate in sport are legion in the city:
you are not confined to just the one local handball club. There is a lot to choose from
but does everyone have such a wide range of choice? Poverty and cultural distinctions
prevent equal access. The big city, part of the global economy, with its constant activ-
ity, gives access, at least for the well-educated, to the international job market. Those
with lower qualifications have less interesting opportunities or simply no work. Urban
culture is highly individualistic: “I have the right to choose what I want and to express
what I think.” At the same time, however, there are neighborhoods with immigrants
from the rural areas of Turkey and Morocco, who keep their rural traditions alive, exer-
cise social control on each other and are not in the habit of crossing the borders of their
neighborhoods. Saucer antennas on balconies mark the streets where they live.
Dutch cities are relatively small. There are no huge, virtually isolated, suburbs like
the banlieus in Paris (van Zanten, 2001). The public transport system connects different
parts of the city. Some people who live in Amsterdam cycle from one side of the city to
the other every day to go to work. However there is a high degree of diversity among the
inhabitants, growing inequality of wealth, marketization of the public sector, and a ten-
dency toward segregation in housing patterns operating alongside a social housing pol-
icy that aims to keep communities socially and economically mixed.
Teaching in Dutch urban schools is complex and challenging. Over the course of
time, the concept of promoting equal educational opportunities has taken on a new
meaning. At its outset in the 1970s, equal opportunities policy was about making the
most of hidden talent and improving the educational careers of working class chil-
dren. Now there is a diversity of target groups and of factors explaining the poor per-
formance of these groups at school. No single educational approach has proved to be
simply the best to meet the challenges presented by the social and cultural diversity
of the pupil population and to improve academic achievement for all. The need for
523
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 523–538.
© 2007 Springer.
524 Leeman

tailor-made approaches has made the professionalism of school heads and teachers a
key issue in urban schooling.
Urban schools could be places that develop the multiple talents of young people:
young people who have a great deal of experience with the pluriformity of the urban
living environment and who have developed the social capital to live together in
diverse communities. This demands school success for all and trust, empathy, social
responsibility and democratic attitudes. Obviously, these are best developed in interac-
tion with others and, for those who live in a diverse neighborhood, some of these will
develop as a matter of course. They can also be taught deliberately in schools though
(Parker, 2003; Slavin, 1995), only if a communicative context for cooperation, reflec-
tion, and identity development is created. It is above all the teachers and head teachers
who are able to give substance to good education in urban schools, within broad
national frameworks and with varying degree of cooperation with local politicians and
local communities.
Since the 1990s, national education policy in the Netherlands has, in line with a gen-
eral trend in Western Europe, moved in the direction of management based on lump-
sum financing and increased local autonomy. This movement towards decentralization
was soon accompanied by a trend towards stronger central programming of educational
objectives. Nevertheless, in practice Dutch national policy has an instrumental charac-
ter, with a focus on management of output and a professional, efficient and effec-
tive approach. Development of educational content and the pedagogic development of
schools has been left untouched as far as possible, partly because of the Dutch system
of pillarization along religious and philosophical lines (Vermeulen, 2004). This pillar-
ization is a result of the “freedom of education” in the Dutch school system. Parents are
free to choose a school for their children and groups of individuals are, within certain
legal limits, free to establish and operate state-independent schools according to their
own religious, philosophical, or pedagogical principles. These schools, when they fulfill
the criteria set by law, are fully funded by state. This pillarization gives teachers and
school heads considerable freedom to design the curriculum of their schools. Currently
they are having to do this in a hardened political and social climate, in which the empha-
sis on the citizen’s personal responsibility and on integration of immigrants has weak-
ened the earlier solidarity with “the disadvantaged” which used to be taken for granted.
This has not made their job any easier.
In the first part of this article, I sketch urban schooling in the Netherlands, paying
attention to diversity and segregation, school success, and the political context. This is
followed by a presentation of a selection of the results of two research projects on key
contemporary issues of urban schooling: trying to achieve ethnically mixed schools
and trying to improve learning through developing a relationship of respect and trust
with all pupils. In these projects, primary school heads (Leeman, 2007) and secondary
school teachers (Leeman, 2003) were interviewed about their work in urban settings
and their professional identities. In the third and concluding part I highlight an
approach to urban schooling in which reflective teachers who are able to learn on-the-job
and combine teaching and care for pupils with appropriate professional detachment
are of crucial importance.
 Dutch Urban Schools and Teachers’ Professionalism 525

Dutch Urban Schools

Diversity and Segregation
The immigration of migrant workers and people from the former colonies changed the
populations of Western European societies in the second half of the last century. At the
start of the twenty-first century, 17.5% of the inhabitants of the Netherlands were born
abroad or had at least one parent who was born abroad. Of these, half originate from
European and other Western countries and the other half is predominantly made up of
immigrants from Turkey, Morocco, and Surinam, plus refugees from all over the world.
The larger cities, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht, have become most
multi-ethnic. Due to trends in the birth-rate of groups and in the settlement patterns of
immigrants and the Dutch majority population, approximately half of the school-age
children in these cities are now from a non-Western background. Immigrants prefer to
live in the multi-ethnic atmosphere of the cities nearby people of the same background.
In Amsterdam, for example, the city centre is the place for the cosmopolitan elite to live
while poor people, and especially those of non-Dutch descent, live on the outskirts of
the city. At the same time, the middle classes (Dutch and those of immigrant descent)
tend to move out to nearby towns. A concentration of people from Surinam and the
Dutch Antilles and refugees from Africa live in middle-class neighborhoods and in the
poorer parts of the south-east of Amsterdam (the Bijlmer).
The Netherlands is familiar with segregation along socio-economic and denomi-
national lines. In the major cities, segregation along ethnic lines is now developing too.
There is a tendency towards pupils of Dutch and of non-Dutch descent to attend different
schools. The majority of so-called “black schools” house a whole range of pupils with dif-
ferent ethnic backgrounds. It is difficult to find an all-Surinamese or an all-Turkish
school. In all schools the teaching staff is still predominantly white and of Dutch descent.
The issue of diversity belongs to the day-to-day practice of most urban teachers.
Teachers report friction with parents and friction between pupils associated with con-
flicting identities. Religion appears to be a marker of identity for some groups in Dutch
society. Christian evangelical parents ban their children from reading Harry Potter and
demand that the school respect this. Feelings can run high between young Muslims and
Jews, related to the political situation in the Middle East. In most mixed schools teach-
ers have to communicate with different communities; for example, to groups of parents
who were raised in the rural regions of Morocco and Turkey with a strong in-group cul-
ture and a system of cultural control, and parents with an urban life-style. Teachers have
to establish a safe atmosphere for girls from Surinam who follow the latest fashion by
wearing low bottom trousers and short shirts, and also Muslim girls who prefer to veil
their body from the eyes of others.

School Success
Segregation along ethnic lines parallels socio-economic segregation. Educational
inequality has a stubborn fixed hierarchy: Dutch pupils of well-educated parents score
highest in examinations, followed by Dutch pupils of poorly educated parents and
526 Leeman

pupils from mixed families with one parent of Dutch descent. These are followed by
the immigrants, who have their own hierarchy: pupils of Surinamese descent are on the
highest rung of the performance ladder while further down we find the pupils of
Turkish and Moroccan descent (Ledoux, 2005; Tesser, 2003). Poor performance in the
Dutch language is cited as the most intractable problem.
Individual and group characteristics play a role in school success but the school envi-
ronment also contributes. Major differences in quality of education between schools prob-
ably do not exist in the Netherlands, yet each town has schools where some would prefer
not to send their child. Research has been conducted into whether the composition of the
primary school contributes to this but we still do not know what the long-term effects will
be. Schools where more than half of the pupils are from an ethnic minority background
and have poorly educated parents have been found to score significantly lower in the
subjects Dutch and mathematics than schools with predominantly well-educated Dutch
parents, after controlling for the background characteristics of individual pupils (though
the effect is small). School composition is not found to affect pupils’wellbeing, operationalized
in “enjoying school” and “feeling accepted in the class.” We do not know whether segrega-
tion has an effect on self-image, identity, self-awareness, social skills, or the competencies
required for democratic citizenship (Ledoux, 2005).
The picture in secondary education may well be different (there are no general
research findings available). The Dutch education system is highly differentiated after
primary school, with early selection based on ability at the age of 12 for academic or
vocational track in secondary education.1 Differences in quality of education are found
between the different types of school and based on the composition of the pupils. Vmbo
schools which have a majority of students in the two lowest, most practical, trajectories
do not offer young people good qualifications for jobs or further schooling. Teachers
in these schools report that they have to focus on self-confidence, reducing the fear of
failure and addressing bad behavior. Because they have few opportunities to offer the
young people, drop-out rates are high (Leeman, 2003). For example, the majority of
the immigrant youth in Amsterdam attends the lowest trajectories of the vmbo, with
20% of young people aged 17–22 in Amsterdam leaving school without basic qualifi-
cations. They are the children of parents isolated from the mainstream in society, who
are not able to fight for educational opportunities (Aboutaleb, 2005). Paulle (2005)
describes the everyday state of affairs in a vmbo school in Amsterdam South East as
follows. A proportion of the pupils who attend this school are disruptive and restless
and they are the ones who dominate the school culture. According to Paulle, coping
practices form the backbone of the hidden curriculum: shaped “from below” by the
power of the dominant behavior of the disruptive youth. “The behavioural patterns
depended on the social composition of the class and the ability of the teacher to man-
age the emotional dynamics (in which they were themselves, also wrapped up) rather
than on the official curricula.” (Paulle, 2005, p. 259)

Political Context
In striving for distributive justice and social cohesion, combating educational disadvan-
tage was and is one of the most important stated objectives of Dutch education policy.
 Dutch Urban Schools and Teachers’ Professionalism 527

In former years proportionally more facilities were given to schools with a certain pro-
portion of immigrant pupils because of their greater disadvantages in terms of poor
mastery of the Dutch language and lack of socialization in line with the demands of the
school. Preschool and early school policy was developed to include family interven-
tion and parent counseling. These policies focused on the resources allocated to pupils,
leaving mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion largely untouched. Reform in urban
schooling has taken a rather narrow path recently. Funding targeted especially at immi-
grant pupils has been cut back. Recently money has been withdrawn from urban pri-
ority areas in favor of backward rural areas, and a coordinated approach to dealing
with “problematic youth” has been introduced. The scope of the school’s responsibili-
ties has been broadened, with social work responsibilities added to the task of teach-
ing. It has become the responsibility of the teacher to deal with violence in schools,
and problems arising from changing family structures and growing poverty. Schools
are currently seen as the pivot of youth policy and a network of social services. Black
community schools, in the official discourse, are seen as places for an interdisciplinary
but strict approach to youth, combined with education in citizenship and assimilation.
During the extended school day of these schools there is a focus on sport and assistance
with home-work. White community schools have moved to extended school days too,
offering all kind of activities as a form of child care for working parents (Emmelot &
Veen, 2004). The socio-cultural dimension of education for diversity has been given
less attention as the years have gone by. The promotion, since the 1980s, of intercultural
education, a form of teaching that promotes the concept of a multicultural society and
the bilateral or multilateral process of learning from and accepting and appreciating
each other, has recently been replaced by a focus on assimilation (Leeman & Pels, 2006).
Since the mid-1990s, a new wind of realism has been blowing in the Netherlands, a real-
ism that depicts the ideal of the multi-cultural society as “soft” and politically correct.
Holding on to one’s mother tongue and identity is now mainly viewed as an obstacle to
successful assimilation. The focus is on the core values of Dutch society and on “serv-
ice learning,” that is, learning civic virtues through serving the community for a certain
period. In reaction to the assassination of Theo van Gogh, the 7/7 bombings in London,
and the rioting in the banlieus in France, politicians are afraid that large numbers of immi-
grant youth, in particular Muslim youths, will rebel violently against their marginal status
and reject the values of liberal democracy. The current idea is that the school is the only
institution left that can socialize these youths to become good citizens and to develop a
sense of belonging to the Netherlands, thereby ensuring social cohesion.

Key Issues
The recent focus on assimilation and the personal responsibility of the citizen is a ten-
dency that can be observed in most West European countries. In the Netherlands this
focus is rather strong, and it is experienced as a radical break from the former liberal
and social politics. The murder of the politician Pim Fortuin in 2002 is often men-
tioned as a reference point for this shift. Being interested in what this shift means for
day-to-day practice in schools, I conducted two interview studies to chart the spectrum
528 Leeman

of dilemmas experienced by school heads and teachers in urban settings. In 2004,

I interviewed the primary school principals of three academically successful schools in
Amsterdam and Rotterdam.2 In the 2002/2003 school year, I interviewed 11 teachers
in different types of secondary schools in the Randstad (the area of the Netherlands
consisting of the large cities of Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Utrecht, and the Hague). Both
projects were about charting the spectrum of dilemmas regarding equality and social-
cultural diversity that school heads and teachers experience in their current profes-
sional practice. I selected principals and teachers from different schools (in terms of
pupil composition, neighborhood) who had been teaching for at least 5 years in urban
settings, and who were interested in education, equality, and the multicultural society.
Experts in the field recommended the primary heads and the secondary school teach-
ers to me. The interviews were exploratory, with an open structure in which the
researcher and the respondent reflected on the dilemmas mentioned. The respondents
were all asked to illustrate their dilemmas with an example. In the primary school study,
the interviews with the heads were supplemented with observations in the school, doc-
ument analyses and interviews with parents. All interviews were audio-taped and the
written versions were sent to the respondents for their comments. The school heads
focused on segregation and the teachers on balancing communality and diversity and
the relationship with their pupils.

School Heads Trying to Achieve Mixed Schools

As already mentioned, there is a tendency toward ethnic segregation in housing patterns
and school attendance in Dutch cities. Parental choice also contributes to segregation in
schools. In the Netherlands, parents have a genuine choice between public schools
and private schools with a distinctive religious or philosophical character (Dijkstra,
Dronkers, & Karsten, 2004; Vermeulen, 2004). Public-authority schools are freely
accessible to all students. The government guarantees that there is a public school
within a short distance from home, providing a “neutral” curriculum, which is open to
all students who want to attend. In addition, groups of individuals are free to establish
and run private schools according to their own religious, philosophical, or pedagogical
principles. This does not confer absolute educational autonomy. The private schools
operate within the national education system and are fully funded. They have to meet
educational standards, such as the minimum number of students required, national stan-
dards on the curriculum, national examinations, and conditions of employment.
The existence of private Islamic and Hindu schools influence ethnic segregation too.
There are currently 42 Islamic schools, all but two of them primary schools. The first
Islamic schools were established in the 1990s. With little political will to abandon the
system of “freedom of education,” the political parties are seeking other measures to
reduce ethnic segregation. One policy approved in 2004, is for no more funding for
new private schools with over 80% students from a low socio-economic background,
which will make it difficult to establish new Islamic schools, which tend to be attended
by students from immigrant groups with a predominantly low socio-economic status.
According to Dijkstra et al. (2004), a relatively large number of immigrant students
living outside the large cities currently attend public-authority schools but this pattern
 Dutch Urban Schools and Teachers’ Professionalism 529

is not evident in the cities themselves. As they have no statutory authority to influence
the composition of schools, the large cities use the strategy of encouraging school
integration by persuasion, a policy that is considered to be ineffective. The Ministry of
Education has forbidden the use of quotas per school for students from the Dutch
majority population and immigrant students. This is based on the argument that there
should be no selection based on ethnic discrimination.
It is said to be extremely difficult (no research data available) for school heads in the
urban environment to achieve a mixed population of pupils: that is pupils of Dutch and
immigrant descent with diversity in socio-economic status. For the three school heads
interviewed, the composition of their student populations is an important aspect of their
active school policies and strategies, both official and unofficial. The three schools are
situated in areas of Amsterdam and Rotterdam where the population is mixed, provid-
ing plenty of scope for policy on the composition of the student population. This is not
the normal situation of primary schools in the Netherlands; generally the population is
much more homogenous in smaller towns and villages and on the outskirts of the big
cities. The school principals interviewed, represented two types of reasoning about the
desired mixed composition of the student population. Two of the principals were actively
striving for a good balance in ethnic-cultural and socio-economic background. The
other emphasized community relations and therefore opted for a student population that
mirrors the mixed area in which his school is located. The three principals had a lot of
experience with ethnic-cultural diversity in their schools. It was not the children that
caused the principals most concern but differences between parents and between the
school and parents. They were all proud of their schools and reported both positive and
negative experiences related to ethnic diversity.
The school principals reported using external and internal strategies to realize what
they perceived of as the ideal composition. Policies targeting the outside community
like marketing profile and gate-keeping methods were rather important, and given the
population density in the cities, good transport facilities; also minimal differences
between schools in terms of government funding and the existence of genuine parental
choice. Internal measures to bond groups of parents and children to the school com-
plemented these strategies. These measures focused on pedagogical approach, the cur-
riculum, social safety and the composition of the teaching team. The accounts of the
three principals suggest that a school with a well-balanced ethnic and socio-economic
composition is exceedingly difficult to maintain. It is much simpler to become and
remain a black or white concentration school. With their direct policy of maintaining a
balance, the three principals were pioneers. It was clear that balancing diversity and
communality is an art about which there is still very little shared knowledge. One of
the principals, who has worked at his school for 15 years has a mixed school and puts
all his effort into keeping it like this, values cultural diversity but struggles with the
boundaries and possibilities:

After all these years it’s still difficult to give shape to diversity. I don’t do very
much, for example, about teaching philosophy. Precisely because all too often
you approach things from a Christian or secular background without realizing it.
As a public-authority school, at the moment we don’t go further than associating
530 Leeman

with each other, playing with each other, working together and telling each other
about what certain religions mean and trying to get respect for this.

The school heads interviewed put their faith in groups meeting each other and, up to
now, had had little affinity for or experience with well-thought-out forms of citizen-
ship education, which focus on how students can learn from each other, appreciate
their different experiences, develop skills and attitudes to work with and across differ-
ences, and develop democratic attitudes. The issue of identity-development of their
students, the possibilities for rethinking cultural heritages and dreamed futures were
issues the head teachers did not have access too. In this sense their policies are rather
superficial and uncritical.
Another example of balancing diversity and commonality concerned cultural differ-
ences in the reaction to problem behavior by children:

We recently had a problem with a group of children. It was about extorting money
and threatening each other. We invited the parents in question to the school. The
parents reacted very differently. Children from a Pakistani family started to greet
me every day. Apparently at home they’d been told: “now you’ll behave yourself,
you’ll follow the rules and that includes saying hello to the principal.” Another
immigrant parent said: “I want to send my child back to my own country, it’s
going to go wrong here.” One of the Moroccan parents denied that his son had
been involved, while we knew (from what other children said) that he was up to
his neck in it. These different reactions from parents make it difficult to tackle the
problem with the co-operation of all parents.

One of the principals, in his attempt to achieve a more mixed student population, had
focused on the relationship of the school with the different groups of parents. He had
studied the differences between them. This is his description:

Dutch and immigrant parents with a low level of education are more interested in
their children growing up in the neighbourhood and the social and family ties of
children and adults. Well-educated Dutch parents take their children from club to
club and find it useful to co-operate with other parents and share these tasks.
These parents have to see other advantages in placing their child at a school with
a one-sided poorly-educated student composition. A social network for them-
selves and for their children is naturally less likely to develop at such a school.
They have to “take and fetch” their children outside the circle of school contacts
to be able to organize the contacts and activities that they want for their children.

He pointed out that the cultural differences between parents at his school are the most
noticeable differences:

I want a mixed school where parents with either a high or a low level of education
and different cultures can feel at home. Immigrant parents come to this school
 Dutch Urban Schools and Teachers’ Professionalism 531

because they feel safe, because for example there are other mothers wearing a
headscarf waiting outside the school. Dutch parents ought to be able to feel just
as much at ease here. Dutch women, who create time to bring up their children by
reducing the hours they work in paid employment, don’t meet enough people to
talk to at our school. When accepting children for the school, I was unaware of
this for a long time. I was always defending the school. The educational achieve-
ments are good. It’s well organized. I always said, “We are a good school.” I notice
that I have to say that I understand the parents’ situation and that I basically have
the same problem and that I can only solve that problem with their help. We all
have to believe in something if we want to make sure that the population groups
mix and that their child will be better prepared later to work in a society with huge
cultural diversity (…) People think that mixed schools automatically promote
mutual integration. That’s definitely not the case. How on earth can I serve six to
eight different groups in my school? If you want to give information to immigrant
mothers, you have to start with tea, coffee and homemade biscuits. An interpreter
has to be present and a topic like “Who’s the boss at home, you or your child?”
has to be presented with the help of role-playing. If I organise such a session, the
well-educated Dutch parents will arrive at 9.30 and five minutes later say, “Aren’t
we going to start, I’ve got to leave at 10.30, as I’ve taken time off work.” Those
parents do like role-playing but say, “I don’t want to see that every year.” It’s nice
to see once.

The school heads were pioneering in balancing communality and diversity. They strove
for social justice, as well as distributive and cultural justice. They were searching for
the limits of the possible. They had limited autonomy in the field of admissions to
school but some autonomy in the field of the curriculum and use of facilities. One of
the factors influencing the limited ability of principals to respond to diversity is the
scarcity of teachers from minority cultures in the Dutch school system (Leeman &
Ledoux, 2003). Schools have virtually no class teachers from ethnic-minority back-
grounds, although immigrants do fulfill more marginal positions like cultural inter-
mediary, assistant and subject specialist. Owing to financial cuts at a national level,
those marginal positions are now hanging in the balance. It is interesting to see how the
head teachers interpreted their professional role. They had the necessary detachment to
examine their scope for action in the context their school found itself in. They had a body
of concepts they used to evaluate critically current education policy and the impact of
this policy on their work, and ideals and opportunities to achieve and maintain a mixed
school. They were able to place their school in its social environment and appeared to
have a good understanding of their communities, mainly acquired through observation.
They appeared to have practical hands-on knowledge that cannot be obtained from a
book. As good managers, they kept an eye on the market position of their schools and
the composition of their pupil populations, as these are factors essential to the contin-
ued existence of the school, but they also allowed themselves to be guided by their
ideals in the area of social justice. They were living examples of how difficult it is to
achieve and run mixed school.
532 Leeman

Teachers Trying to Develop a Relationship of Respect and Trust with all Pupils
The eleven teachers working at nine different urban secondary schools were asked what
intercultural dilemmas they had experienced in their work and how they judged their
professional skills in dealing with these dilemmas.
The teachers mentioned a diverse range of dilemmas and elaborated on their impres-
sions about the similarities and differences between pupils of different backgrounds.
While cultural-ethnic differences between students were emphasized in the dominant
public debate, and immigrant youth was portrayed as “problematic youth,” the teachers,
generally speaking, did see cultural-ethnic differences but emphasized similarities.
They clearly distanced themselves from negative image-forming in society about immi-
grants. They mentioned characteristics such as the materialism and rude behavior of
youth today, which troubled them as the older generation. Some teachers emphasized
that the second generation of pupils from ethic-minority groups at their school, like the
Dutch pupils from the majority population, embraced broadly liberal values. One teacher
said: “The second generation has become much more Dutch than many people think.”
She added that a typical comment of pupils is: “We live in a democratic country.
Everybody can make their own choices.” It is striking that the teachers in the interview
study were very careful about labeling a particular group of pupils as a problem group.
They did not want to follow the current trend of stricter rules and transfer of desired
norms and values, but focused rather on understanding, dialogue and the development
of a pedagogical and personal relationship with pupils.
This emphasis on similarities does not change the fact that all the teachers gave
examples of ethnic differences that they had experienced in teaching their classes.
They were concerned about some differences more then others. They mentioned, for
example, differences in, the thinking about and emotional involvement in subjects like
the position of men and women, homosexuality, and certain political issues and reli-
gion. An example offered from a teacher at a vwo, havo, vmbo combined school with
40% immigrant children is as follows:

It is the task of the school to educate children for Dutch society. Co-operative
learning serves that purpose. This method of working sometimes causes problems
if you allocate different roles to pupils. Moroccan boys in particular can display
gendered behaviour. They want the girls to do clerical tasks and take on the lead-
ership task themselves. The girls don’t comply just like that. The boys try to con-
tinue their manipulation until they get their way. Their comments to the teacher
about this include: “Yeah, but, I did that task last year.” “That’s what I’m really
good at.” “She’s not very good at that.” “If she does that, we’ll get a low mark.”

The teachers mentioned the different behavior of Moroccan pupils: “They communi-
cate differently”; “They’re not co-operative and shut themselves off ”; “It’s a group of
pupils who do not accept the authority of women teachers” and “A group who openly
display distrust of the Dutch (as part of their identity).” Alongside mentioning charac-
teristics of Moroccan pupils, the teachers offered interactive explanations. A history
teacher put forward the following viewpoint:
 Dutch Urban Schools and Teachers’ Professionalism 533

Their behaviour is a reaction to the negative image of them in society, a reaction

to poverty and the lack of prospects for their group. They don’t feel understood at
home or at school and have experienced that an aggressive, challenging approach
has success. Passers-by are scared. After such behaviour at school, just another
test, you’re not sent out, the mark doesn’t count anymore, etc.

A teacher of Moroccan origin expressed a somewhat different perspective as follows:

There are no fundamental differences in norms and values. There are feelings of
insecurity in combination with teachers’ prejudices. Most Moroccan children lack
communication skills and have little trust in Dutch teachers. The children don’t
want to see the good intentions of the teachers and, as part of their identity, have
developed the feeling, “We are not accepted in the Netherlands.” My colleagues do
want to educate them but at the same time are cautious, as they want to accept
Moroccans as they are. Their behaviour is based on ignorance and insecurity.

In the interviews most teachers did not talk in general terms about ethnic-cultural char-
acteristics of immigrant pupils. Rather, they emphasized the problematic situation in
which inter-ethnic contact took shape. They made a critical analysis of the social envi-
ronment, education and the attitude of colleagues to show that the behavior of immi-
grant pupils is closely linked to their interaction with their environment. In the teachers’
opinion, immigrant pupils are no longer newcomers but part of society and interact with
that society. Moroccan pupils were seen as difficult. While the trend is to keep a tight
rein on Moroccan boys and quickly reprimand them, teachers do not favor a harder
approach as a matter of course. They also see the responsibility of the school and ask for
attention to be paid to solutions in the field of relationships. Generally speaking, the
teachers I have spoken to demonstrated intercultural sensitivity. They were critical of
colleagues in this respect. The two main problems they mentioned were the one-sided
emphasis on personal autonomy and the lack of sensitivity to diversity. A teacher of
Moroccan descent said the following on this issue:

A large number of teachers accept immigrant pupils but they are too passive.
They don’t actively, as a kind of diplomats, look for solutions to problems they
encounter. My colleagues sometimes react too emotionally, for example to the
reluctance of Moroccan boys to accept the authority of women teachers. They
only interpret their behaviour in a culturalist way and don’t see the adolescent
side of it.

A Moroccan teacher working at a combined school with almost exclusively immigrant

pupils likewise said:

Many of my colleagues generalise and have difficulty seeing the pupil as an

individual. They don’t make enough effort to create a relationship of trust with
pupils. They feel a distance between them and their Moroccan pupils and make a
fool of them. Those teachers experience such things as being spat at in the face,
534 Leeman

pupils not accepting the authority of women teachers, and pupils putting them-
selves at a distance. They exaggerate incidents out of all proportion.

He found this difficult and it bothered him that the school did not take responsibility
for the pupils’ upbringing:

The children don’t know where they belong. The children need coaching. When
Dutch teachers see that Moroccan and Turkish pupils opt for their “own auton-
omy,” that is often sufficient reason for them not to bother about the relationship
with parents. But the joint responsibility of the school and the parents is impor-
tant. The school must take the relationship with the parents seriously. When
parents do not give a child enough freedom to go on school trips or travel back
independently, a teacher should contact the parents. If there is already a relation-
ship with the parents, this is then easier. You cannot leave pupils out in the cold at
such times and leave them to sort out the problem alone.

Like the head teachers interviewed, the teachers had developed good understanding of their
students and hands-on knowledge about good teaching in mixed classes. The teachers
described how over the years they had developed ways of tackling critical situations, such
as deadlocked discussions in which ethnic-cultural diversity was a significant factor. They
tried to make the pupils aware of multiple perspectives and succeeded in defusing the emo-
tional nature of discussions, making them more rational. Teachers have not only developed
individually; at some schools this has been done collectively and in a formalized way. An
example is given by a teacher working at a school with many immigrants:

During out-of-school activities, we regularly had troublesome incidents that are

offensive to pupils. A new element in the preparations for out-of-school activities
is the bus driver. Give him coffee, tell him something about the pupils and address
the busload of children yourself at the beginning to prevent the wrong tone being
set (too hard and intolerant in the sense of “this isn’t allowed, that’s not allowed”).

In short, it was the norm for all teachers interviewed, to try to develop a relationship of
respect and trust with all pupils by balancing diversity and communality. Some of
them noticed that other teachers and schools with less experience of ethnic diversity
found this peculiar. The teachers developed their views and refined their professional
skills on the job. They did not adhere to the hard line of assimilation emphasized in the
prevailing debate in politics and the media. Some of them were rather critical of this
saying that this climate influenced their students and made it more difficult for them to
encourage their immigrant pupils to stay committed to school and to Dutch society.

Professionalism
The experienced teachers and school leaders whom I interviewed, were aware that
schools are increasingly arenas for the multi-cultural society. They talked about their
 Dutch Urban Schools and Teachers’ Professionalism 535

successes and concerns. Their accounts show that distributive justice alone is insuffi-
cient to engage with the cultural complexity of today. Concepts of cultural exclusion
need to be part of social justice and hence of the cultural and relational dimensions of
social justice. The teachers and school heads interviewed, were confronted with largely
undefined new practices. They felt themselves to be pioneers in a process of social-
cognitive construction and emotional sense-making of their new experiences. The city,
as far as they were concerned, has much to offer. Giving pupils access to these oppor-
tunities provided them with a challenge. The city also presents young people with many
opportunities to go off the rails. With few tried and tested routines, teachers do not have
knowledge at their disposal that is tailor-made for the complexities of the situation and
all pupils.
It is interesting that the primary school leaders and secondary school teachers inter-
viewed, were inspired by care for and the personal development of their pupils, and
were trying to distance themselves from the issue of the day, which was the emphasis
on discipline in current national education policy. They revealed in their interviews, evi-
dence of an ability to analyze the social environment in which they were working and to
call into question the official task imposed on schools. At the same time most of the
teachers were working in relative isolation from their colleagues. In their schools, dom-
inant interactions tended to be about discipline and individual pupil problems rather
than curriculum goals like democracy and social justice.
As in other parts of the Western world, the professionalization of teachers is a hot
issue in the Netherlands. A policy document on competencies of teachers was pub-
lished recently (SBL, 2004), in which competencies are broken down into interper-
sonal, pedagogic, didactic, subject-based and organizational actions of teachers with
pupils, colleagues and other people from the surrounding neighborhood such as social
workers and parents. This competency-based approach can be interpreted as rather
reductionist, due to its emphasis on accountability and not on reflection and supporting
the holistic professional development of the teacher (Korthagen, 2004). Schools have
been rationalized and set in competition against one another for “clients” and the work
of teachers is mainly judged in terms of measurable academic success of their pupils
and the school’s position in the educational market (Hargreaves, 2000; Moore, 2004).
This trend could be judged as contradictory to the professionalism displayed by the
teachers and school heads interviewed. They emphasized the cultural, emotional and
societal dimensions of teaching. As experienced teachers, they considered it to be part
of their responsibility to question how the social environment affects learning in
school (Moore, 2004). They were able to notice and take responsibility for their own
role in education (Mason, 2002; Moore, 2004) and combined detachment with com-
mitment and concern. They were able to formulate realistic goals and to interpret edu-
cational problems in a social context (Windschitl, 2002). Are they then the prototype of
the good urban teacher? A crucial element in their professional approach is their care for
all pupils, which cannot be welded seamlessly with thinking in terms of production and
discipline. They combine this with appropriate professional detachment and a critical
reflective stance. In the urban mixed schools they work in they have been confronted
with the contradictions of schooling and have developed their professional identities on-
the-job. One possible way for reform is to confront the dominant concept of professional
536 Leeman

identity, with its emphasis on technical standards in teaching and its reductionist com-
petency-based approach, with a type of professional identity which is more holistic
and oriented at the quality of teaching in a special social context; indeed, the kind of
professional identity the teachers and school heads interviewed are developing.
Another possible way is teachers and school heads cooperating with critical forces
from outside the school. A good example of this is the recent initiative of school heads,
parents, civil agents and local politicians in Amsterdam, to work from the bottom up to
achieve more mixed schools. Observing that an accumulation of individual choices has
led to an outcome that nobody wanted, they developed a plan for city-wide agreements
on school admissions and enrolment and on initiatives of the parents themselves. The
essence of the plan is a fixed enrolment date for all children, an agreed school size and
the idea that mixed group applications are given priority over individual applications.
The idea is that parents who want to get their child into the school of their choice can
do something to achieve this by convincing an immigrant couple (or vice versa) of the
quality of the school and applying for places at the school for their children together,
making use of the priority rule (Grotenhuis, 2006).

Notes
1. In the Netherlands children go from primary school (years 1–8) at the age of twelve to one of three
forms of secondary education: vmbo is pre-vocational education consisting of four trajectories on a
range from theoretical to practical (four years); havo is general secondary education (five years); and
vwo is pre-university education (six years).
2. The interviews were part of an international research project on equity and school leadership led by
Goddard, University of Calgary. See Leeman (2007).

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29

URBAN REGIONS AND THEIR POTENTIAL FOR

TEACHER EDUCATION: THE HAMBURG
EXAMPLE

Eva Arnold, Johannes Bastian, and Wilfried Kossen

University of Hamburg, Germany

Introduction
There is an ongoing debate on teacher education in many European countries. The
experts agree widely in their criticism, surprisingly even across borders. While reform
in teacher education was at a low speed for many years, since the Bologna process was
started in the late nineties it has sped up considerably. In many countries the Bologna
agreement was taken as an opportunity for further changes. In those countries that did
poorly in international comparative studies like PISA and TIMMS, the efforts for
reform were more intensified. In the first part of our chapter we describe the short-
comings of current teacher education, as well as the ongoing changes in the countries
that participate in the Bologna process. In the second and third parts of the chapter the
characteristics of teacher education in large cities will play a central role. Based on
extended experience with reform projects and current research in urban areas, we argue
that while teacher education in these areas has unique resources it also faces specific
challenges.
The resources we see lie in the opportunities for cooperation. We find these oppor-
tunities in all phases of teacher education: these include pre-service teacher training
and continuous in-service training. In large cities the institutions responsible for
teacher education are closer together than in rural districts. While this may seem to be a
trivial and negligible fact, experience shows that proximity can be a “sine qua non” for
demanding projects that depend on intense cooperation. An extended example will be
given in a later section for where we examine the reform of teacher education in
Hamburg. Hamburg is one of sixteen Laender, the federal states. These entities are in
charge of education. The reform project we detail spanned a period of five years and was
brought to an end in 2005. Several institutions took part in this reform: the State
Office in charge of education, the universities of Hamburg, the State Institutes that
are responsible for different phases of teacher education, and representatives of

539
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 539–558.
© 2007 Springer.
540 Arnold, Bastian, and Kossen

the schools. We show how a network was established during the reform in Hamburg that
made good use of their proximity to each other.
The above mentioned challenges for teacher education in large cities arise from the
special needs of students there. As international student assessment study indicates
that about a quarter of German pupils can be described as “students-at-risk” (PISA-
Konsortium, 2005). These students do not achieve a level of competence in school sub-
jects that is sufficient for modern vocational training. This risk factor is interdependent
on the students’ migration background, the socioeconomic status of the family, and
parents’ educational attainment.
The heterogeneity of the population in big cities often is above the national average,
and in many cities segregation by class and ethnicity can be found. Subsequently, the
proportion of students-at-risk is especially high in some urban school districts: 13% of
Hamburg’s 15 year olds, who participated in PISA in spring 2003, possessed only rudi-
mental skills in math (below competency level I), while another 16% did not get
beyond the basic requirements in this subject (competency level I). As a consequence,
29% of the PISA age group were classified as “students-at-risk.” In the field of read-
ing competences the rate of “students-at-risk” was up to 28% and in science 29%.
Only Bremen denoted an even higher rate of 15 year olds with a disadvantageous
prognosis for successful transition to vocational training (see Vieluf, 2005).
The German school system unintentionally intensifies the effects of segregation. It
separates or “tracks” students according to their school performance. The aim is to
achieve homogenous learning groups, according to talent and previous knowledge. This
measure is supposed to allow learning environments that fit the pupil abilities and needs
best, but this objective is not met. Studies show that a concentration of students with
low abilities, low school performance and problematic family backgrounds in a
learning group weakens the student’s learning progress notably. A concentration of stu-
dents with these characteristics at a school is more likely to occur in a more subdivided
school system.
The linkage of school career in different branches of the school system to social and
ethnic background is quite direct: in the Gymnasium, which prepares students for an
academic career, 82% of the students come from upper and middle class families; at
the Hauptschule, the lowest branch, by contrast, only 24% come from these classes
(see PISA-Konsortium, 2005 p. 244). Only ten years ago, however, in the midst of the
nineties 48% of the students with a background of migration were attending the
Hauptschule and only 18% the Gymnasium (Gogolin, 2002).
Since social stratification is more polarized and the rate of migrants is higher, the
consequences for schools are more extreme in urban areas than in rural areas. The pop-
ulation of large cities like Frankfurt, Berlin, Cologne and Hamburg, for example, con-
sist of 20% to more than 30% of people with a migration background, while the rate is
less than 10% in most rural areas (Gogolin, 2002).
This situation poses specific challenges for education in large cities. These chal-
lenges suggest an urgent need for school development programs. In a later section of
this chapter we present models of such a development based on specific types of coop-
eration between schools and universities. Developmental processes gained from this
cooperation can be further refined as a result of repeated evaluation. The researcher’s
 Urban Regions and their Potential 541

feedback can be used to foster enhancements of the projects. At the same time, of
course, university students involved in the project profit from this hands-on research
activity. The power of these cooperative arrangements is that students experience the
challenges that teachers face in their profession, without having to bear the responsi-
bility for the situation. They also learn how to take part in developmental projects and
to reflect on teaching practice.

Teacher Education in Europe

In many European countries there are ongoing reforms in teacher education. These
reforms start from very different points due to the great diversity of educational sys-
tems in Europe. The discovered shortcomings of national teacher education models,
however, illustrate many similarities. Before we portray the reforms and its aims we
will describe some key findings of research on teacher education.

Findings on Teacher Education

There is broad empirical evidence for the influence of teachers on the learning of their
students. As some studies show, the performance of students in tests was much better
if they were instructed by highly effective teachers, than if they were instructed by
ineffective teachers (AERA, 2004, p. 2). Student’s learning gains can be several times
higher if they are assigned to particularly effective teachers (OECD, 2005, p. 26). It has
been claimed that, “differences among teachers explain up to 23% in student test score
performance” (OECD, 2005, p. 26).
The impact of teacher education on student performance is still disputed. Some
studies show a strong linkage. They give evidence that, “fully prepared and certified
teachers are generally better rated and more successful with students than teachers
without this preparation” (Darling-Hammond, 2000, p. 167). Others make the contrary
statement that is the kind and extent of teacher education does not affect teachers’
effectiveness (Ballou & Podgursky, 1999).
Promoting students’ learning is a crucial task for teachers. But the rated effective-
ness does not tell us much about what makes a good teacher. The OECD states:
“Teaching is a complex task that involves interaction with a great variety of learners in
a wide range of different circumstances. It is clear that there is not a single set of
teacher attributes and behaviour patterns that are universally effective for all types of
students and learning environments …” (OECD, 2005, p. 101). Teachers, of course,
are faced with diverse types of students, teach diverse topics and aim at diverse out-
comes of instruction (e.g., factual knowledge, competencies, and skills). Therefore,
they need a broad range of instructional strategies. They must be able to adapt their
practice to the current circumstances and reflect and evaluate their practice. A joint
statement of the ministers for education and the teacher unions in Germany itemizes
behavior and skills that make up a good teacher as follows: (1) good teachers’ plan,
organize and reflect on processes of instruction using their knowledge on the subject
and educational science, (2) they systematically evaluate these processes of
542 Arnold, Bastian, and Kossen

instruction, (3) they assess students’ performance in a just, responsible and competent
way, (4) they keep developing their competencies and make use of the in-service
training, and (5) good teachers also contribute to an atmosphere that supports learn-
ing and is motivating for the students. To fulfill these requirements it is argued,
teachers must acquire both sound subject matter knowledge and pedagogical knowl-
edge. They must also be able to adapt their instructional strategies to the student’s
age, knowledge, and abilities. This perspective notes that since processes of instruc-
tion and learning are quite different due to the subject, teachers also need subject
specific pedagogical knowledge. Moreover, teachers must develop skills to reflect on
their practice (c.p. OECD, 2005, p. 95).

Shortcomings in Current Teacher Education

Oser and Oelkers (2001) conducted an extensive survey of 1286 future teachers who
had just finished their final examination at 42 different institutions of teacher educa-
tion. Students were asked to assess teacher education in Germany. The respondents
praised the social atmosphere and the varied education, while they criticized teacher
education as not being sufficiently demanding. They also noted that there were no
quality standards to guide their studies.
When questioned about their studies, future teachers in Germany tend to rate their
school placements very highly. In particular, they validate them as useful, demanding,
and productive (Fried, 2003, p. 12). These findings, however, only partly match exter-
nal evaluations. Some indicate that practicals (teaching practice in schools) may have
some unwanted side effects. Fried notes that students may adapt to inadequate strate-
gies of instruction, while their self-efficacy might also weaken (Fried, 2003, p. 13).
These problems seem to be the result of two problems most inexperienced teachers
have. On the one hand there is an inability to relate pedagogical theory to educational
practice; on the other hand there is an insufficient reflection on their practice. It can be
argued, then, that school placements are most useful when they are thoroughly pre-
pared (e.g., when students are matched with good teachers) and when students are
encouraged to reflect about their experiences from the basis of current theoretical
knowledge.
Newcomers in the teaching profession meet similar problems. They can not inter-
link their pedagogical education with the demands of their practice. As a result, they
feel ill-prepared for the job of teacher. Studies show that teachers’ perceived self-
efficacy is higher the more they are able to ground their practice in subject matter and
educational knowledge (Fried, 2003, p. 15). This missing connection between the the-
ory and practice of education is a recurrent problem in teacher education in Germany
(Lange, 2005, p. 106).
The insufficient connection of theoretical background and educational practice, or
more generally of educational content, is linked to a lack of cooperation among insti-
tutions affiliated to teacher education. In the German system of teacher education, for
example, to change from theory to practice means to change from one organizational
framework to another. As mentioned before, teacher education is arranged in different
 Urban Regions and their Potential 543

phases: academic study including some school placements, the pre-service teacher
training, and the in-service training. Educational scientists in Germany came to the
conclusion that the phases of teacher education are poorly connected (Böttcher &
Kalb, 2002; Hericks, 2004; Keuffer, 2002; Tenorth, 2001; Terhart, 2000). Each phase
is carried out in different institutions and is supervised differently. Historically, these
organizations have worked independently from each other. Their contact remains loose
and cooperation is rare (Lange, 2005, p. 106). This disconnect and isolation of content
makes it difficult for students, and later on for teachers, to further elaborate formerly
acquired knowledge.
Similar problems of disconnection can also be found within one institution. At the
university, for example, in order for students to gain knowledge in the diverse subject
sub-areas, they have to attend different faculties. The faculties that take part in teacher
education only cooperate at a low level. Simply stated, the responsibility for teacher
education at universities is scattered and cloudy (Lemmermöhle & Jahreis, 2003,
p. 229). As a consequence, knowledge is frequently unrelated and incoherent (Fried,
2003, p. 14; Lange, 2005, p. 106).
A somewhat similar problem occurs at a smaller scale at the organizational level.
Until recently most faculties of education at German universities did not have a bind-
ing curriculum. The lecturers provided students with seminars and readings that often
were more related to their own research than to the needs of the teaching profession.
At the same time the students were quite free to choose courses they were interested in
without any guidelines about which might be useful for their future job. As a conse-
quence of these varied faculty and student self-interests, the content of teacher education
tended to be arbitrary (Lange, 2005, p. 106).
Some of these noted shortcomings of teacher education in Germany can be found in
other countries as well. It is a broadly shared opinion that teacher education does not
end when entering the workplace. Many countries expand the “opportunities and incen-
tives for ongoing professional development throughout the career.” (OECD, 2005,
p. 96). To foster teachers’ lifelong learning it is necessary that adequate tuition accom-
panies their career. This suggests developing a coherence regarding the content of
teacher education. This can be provided by curricula that reflect the knowledge and
skills needed as a teacher: for example it has been suggested that, “Such profiles are
necessary to provide the framework to guide initial teacher education, teacher certifica-
tion, teacher’s ongoing development and career advancement, and to assess the extent to
which these different elements are being effective” (OECD, 2005, p. 95). Such a frame-
work must be grounded in an organizational basis. Clearly, cooperation among the insti-
tutions in charge of the different phases of teacher education is needed: thus it has been
stated that, “The stages of initial teacher education, induction and professional devel-
opment need to be much better interconnected to create a lifelong learning framework
for teachers” (OECD, 2005, p. 95).
The inability to connect educational knowledge with educational practice contin-
ues to be a common problem in teacher education. Consequently, many countries are
recognizing the need to offer better support for teachers at the start of their career
(OECD, 2005, p. 96). Until recently, however, many countries lacked the kind of
544 Arnold, Bastian, and Kossen

backing required to support the ongoing professional development of teachers

(OECD, 2005, p. 8).

Reform of Teacher Education

In sum, the main deficiencies of teacher education in Germany and in other European
countries are (1) the lack of connection among phases with regard to organization and
content, (2) arbitrary contents within a phase, (3) inadequate backing for future teachers,
and (4) fragmentary supply of in-service training. Clearly, a variety of measures could be
taken to remedy these shortcomings. We will outline some actions that were taken
according to the suggestions of the Commission for Teacher Education that were imple-
mented by the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs
(Kultusministerkonferenz – KMK) (Terhart, 2000, p. 20 et seq.).They noted that the con-
tent of instruction must be connected within the phases of teacher education, and that the
three phases need to be interconnected. Curricula, they underlined, must be created that
emphasize the knowledge and skills that are essential for professional educators.
Historically, the sectored responsibility has hindered the development of a common
curriculum for teacher studies at German universities. Up until now the faculties taking
part in teacher education set priorities on their own and followed their own agenda,
instead of collaborating. Many universities faced this dilemma by installing Centers for
Teacher Education (Fried, 2003, p. 14). These centers work trans-sectorally and
represent the interests of teacher education in the faculties.
To develop and implement curricula as a framework for all phases, collaboration of
the involved institutions is necessary. Moreover, they must ensure that teachers can
enhance their professional skills based on previously acquired knowledge. In Germany
these institutions normally work independently. Their organizational cultures are quite
different, which makes cooperation difficult. Our description of the reform of teacher
education in Hamburg in a later section illustrates the problems that may surface as a
result of such collaborative activities.
As stated above, the disconnection of theory to professional practice is endemic
to the education of teachers in many countries in Europe. Because of this, we argue,
it has to become a focal point for program reform. Students must learn that good
practice needs reflection, evaluation and subsequent adjustment from a theoretical
basis. This interdependency can be learned best from one’s own experience. During
the students’ studies in Germany, for example, practicals in schools take place:
these provide the students with first-hand teaching experience in schools. It is evi-
dent that sound preparation for and reflection about these experiences are important
factors that shape the usefulness of these practicals for the student. Later, we will
show what this could look like in a reformulated program. We will also describe
projects of school development completed by university students where the power
of such real world experiences by university students is great. By doing practical
research in the classroom the students come face to face with some of the chal-
lenges of teaching practice. Here, they can reflect on instruction from both a theory
and research perspective, while developing possible solutions in cooperation with
the teacher.
 Urban Regions and their Potential 545

Diversity in European Teacher Education and the Bologna Process

The Bologna process is a reaction to the wide range of studies and university degrees
that exist in Europe. In the case of teacher education there are differences not only
among, but also within some European countries. As mentioned before, the federal
states of Germany are responsible for teacher education, not the federal government.
The federal states are supposed to cooperate but still some differences remain (see
Buchberger, Campos, Kallos, & Stephenson, 2000, p. 12; Hilligius, 2003, p. 170). In
many countries we also find differences in teacher education that correlate with the
type of school students prepare for.
Buchberger et al. (2000, p. 93 et seq.) give a systematic description of the variety in
teacher education within European countries. Differences may occur in diverse aspects.
Teacher education can be located at different institutions. The duration of teacher edu-
cation varies in many countries according to the school level in which the teachers will
later be employed (Buchberger et al., 2000, p. 96). In some cases, the subjects, educa-
tional methods, and teaching practice can be studied in parallel, independently yet at the
same time. In other cases the contents may be studied in an integrated fashion or con-
secutively (Buchberger et al., 2000, p. 96; OECD, 2005, p. 103). There is also a wide
variety in the number of subject areas, their proportion as well as the ratio of theoretical
and practical elements of teacher education (Buchberger et al., 2000, p. 97).
The Bologna process is confronted by the diversity of studies and degrees in Europe.
It aims at creating a “European higher education area” by 2010. While the Bologna
declaration of 1999 was signed by the ministers for higher education of 29 European
countries, 45 countries were involved in this process by 2005. Its stated objective is a
harmonization of studies and the implementation of standards for academic degrees.
The ministers have agreed on a set of actions to achieve this objective.
Under this plan the existing courses of study are to be transformed into a two-staged
structure. In most cases this finds its shape in the structure of Bachelor and Master
(BAMA) degrees. The bachelor degree is intended to qualify one for the occupation,
while the master degree is thought to deepen this qualification. In the winter semester
of 2004/2005 about 23% of studies at German universities were transformed into the
BAMA structure (Hochschulrektorenkonferenz [HRK], 2004, p. 205). The bachelor
degree normally can be achieved within 3 to 4 years, and the master degree within 1 to
2 years.
The course of studies is composed of a series of modules. These modules consist of
one or several lectures, seminars, and practicals. They provide a specified qualification
according to the general aims of the studies (HRK, 2004, p. 95). It is compulsory for
students to take modules assigned to defined content and qualification areas. There is
the possibility of choice among the range of modules assigned to the same area.
Progress within studies is measured by a system of credits. According to the workload
each module is rated with credits. One credit is equivalent to 25–30 hours of atten-
dance and private study (HRK, 2004, p. 129). The credits are rated according to the
European Credit Transfer System (ECTS). This system was already implemented in
1989 in the ERASMUS program. It was subsequently used to facilitate the assessment
of achievements from studies taken abroad (HRK, 2004, p. 128).
546 Arnold, Bastian, and Kossen

A so-called, “Diploma Supplement” is appended to the university degree. It describes

the degree’s character, context, content, and status (HRK, 2004, p. 154). To control stan-
dards of academic education in accordance with the Bologna process, each course of
study must undergo an accreditation process and frequent evaluation (Buchberger et al.,
2000, p. 35; HRK, 2004, p. 174).
At present most courses of study in teacher education in Germany are being restruc-
tured according to the outlined measures. This undertaking was in the planning stages
for some time. A controversial discussion focused on whether the deficits of teacher
education in Germany could be solved within the existing system, or whether the sys-
tem itself should be reformed (Oser & Oelkers, 2001). In the end the matter was deter-
mined politically. The governments of the German federal states decided to restructure
all teacher studies according to the Bologna declaration of 1999 (Lange, 2005).
This restructuring has proved to be a difficult task. It is required that a bachelor
degree qualifies the student for an occupation. In practice, however, a bachelor degree
received in teacher education will most certainly not qualify students for an occupation
as a teacher. The current task is to assign the content of teacher education to the bache-
lor and the master stages of teacher studies. In the existing models the content is
arranged in very different ways (Thierack, 2003). These models seem to be less com-
patible than in the former structure. Changing the university during the study period
proves additionally problematic, even within the same federal state.
Thus, the framework provided by the Bologna agreement does not necessarily
lead to a harmonization of studies. Even when the starting point is very similar the
guidelines can be fulfilled using dissimilar models. Hence, the reform runs the risk
of particularizing instead of harmonizing teacher studies.

Proximity of Institutions as a Resource for Teacher Education

in Urban Regions: The Example of the “Reform of Teacher
Education in Hamburg”
Necessity for Cooperation in Teacher Training
Our first thesis states that in urban regions where the various institutions that have
responsibility in teacher education are in close proximity to each other, such proxim-
ity can be a resource for innovations in teacher education. In this section, we want to
clarify this thesis.
In Germany teacher training is shaped by governmental laws for each Land. What it
takes to become a teacher may therefore vary somewhat in different parts of the country.
Nevertheless, teacher training has one thing in common all over Germany. Specifically, it
is divided into three phases, and different institutions take over responsibility for each
phase. In the first phase future teachers have to complete four years of university studies,
which include two subjects and educational science. In this phase they also have to pass a
state examination (the first Staatsexamen). Having finished the first phase, students have
to enroll for pre-service teacher training at a State Institute (staatliches Studienseminar).
This second phase (called Referendariat) involves an internship at a school, and it also
ends with a state examination (the second Staatsexamen). The third and final phase will
 Urban Regions and their Potential 547

be lifelong in-service-training. Most of this continuing education is provided by state run

institutions or by the State Institutes themselves. Up until now there were few nongovern-
mental providers of such training.
Traditionally, the institutions of teacher training in Germany have not been on good
terms with one another. Although they share a common task, most universities and State
Institutes do not work together on a regular basis. University lecturers and teacher train-
ers seldom come together. When they do, discussions on the goals and means of teacher
training often spark controversy. University lecturers argue that the second phase does
not make use of the knowledge imparted in the first phase. In turn, teacher trainers criti-
cize students not bringing enough previous knowledge from the university into the sec-
ond phase of the study. This discrepancy is partly due to the different ways these
institutions perceive their role in the process of teacher education. On the one hand uni-
versities convey scientific, researched-based concepts and methods. On the other hand,
pre-service teacher training aims at building up knowledge and skills which are useful
for school practice. Yet another difference can be found in the different principles of
knowledge transfer at school and at the university. As for school teaching, teachers need
a broad perspective on their subject. This enables them, it is argued, to more easily deal
with all topics they come across in their classes. At the university teaching and learning
by example is a common principle; a small range of topics are studied in depth, while
many others are not even mentioned. Because of these differences, many trainees feel
ill-prepared and suggest that they must work through the material of the subject first
before they can teach it to their pupils.
As mentioned before, the problems of teacher training in Germany are not restricted
to urban regions. Evidence suggests, however, that some solutions might be. That is
especially true for a project that tries to solve the problems by strengthening contacts
between the institutions of teacher training. Spatial distance is one of the obstacles that
prevent closer contacts in most parts of the country.
We would like to illustrate how the proximity of institutions in urban regions can be
helpful for the development of innovative educational concepts. The key, we argue, is
that such close proximity creates the opportunity for, and therefore encourages, a range
of contacts between institutions and persons involved. Short distances foster selected as
well as long-term cooperation. Extended networks of people interested or involved in
teacher education can grow in urban regions: this can invlove lecturers, teacher trainers,
students, teacher trainees, and also politicians and officials. Continuous and long-term
exchange, we suggest, can generate common traditions of thinking and acting. These
might be used to develop and implement new ways of teacher education. In the
following section we report a project which used cooperation among the institutions to
interlock the phases of teacher education. This project is named “Reform of Teacher
Education in Hamburg” and was in effect from 2001 to 2005.

Reform of Teacher Education in Hamburg: A Cooperative Project in an

Urban Region
For this reform cooperative partnerships were established amongst the four universities
in Hamburg, the State Institute for Teacher Education and School Development, the
State Offices for Education and Sports (BBS) and the State Office for Science and
548 Arnold, Bastian, and Kossen

Health (BWG). The major aim of this government sponsored project was to strengthen
the cooperation between the universities and the State Institute. This project was a
direct attempt to bridge the gap between the first, second, and third phases of teacher
training (Keuffer & Oelkers, 2001).
As a first step, a Commission for Teacher Education in Hamburg (HKL) came to
the conclusion that the connection between the phases and the cooperation of the insti-
tutions working on teacher education in Hamburg needed to be improved. While the
commission recommended keeping the phases of teacher education apart, it urged
installing obligatory structures of cooperation between the institutions involved
(Keuffer & Oelkers, 2001). Working groups should be established across the institutions
assigned with the development of core curricula spanning the phases. Additionally,
three priority issues were agreed upon that should be considered during all phases of
teacher education: “New Media,” “Cultural and Social Heterogeneity,” and “School
Development” (see also Daschner, 2005; Keuffer & Oelkers, 2001).
In spring 2001, a complex project structure was created to realize the intended steps.
The Hamburg government managed it through a Controlling Committee (Lenkungs-
gruppe), and a Project Team (Projektgruppe Lehrerbildung) provided the organizational
framework. The development of the core curricula lay in the hands of 28 Executing
Teams (called Sozietäten). In these groups persons from all institutions involved in
teacher training came together: university lecturers of school related subjects, didactics
and educational science, members of the State Institute and State Office, as well as stu-
dents and trainees. Most of the Executing Teams were organized around school subjects.
The Executing Teams’ main task was to work on the required core curricula in the
field of their subject. According to guidelines that were set out by the Project Team,
core curricula should not only describe contents of study but define standards of know-
ledge and competence that participants should meet at the end of the first and second
phase as well. The matching of the curricula of the two phases was kept in mind dur-
ing this work. In 2003, university faculties agreed upon the curriculum of the first
phase, and the State Institute decided on the content and standards of the second. After
a scientific review of the core curricula was finished in 2004 the Executing Teams
were charged with revising the curricula considering its annotations and suggestions
(Terhart, 2004).
It is too early to determine if the “Reform of Teacher Education in Hamburg” has
improved the competencies of teachers to deal with everyday tasks in urban schools.
The implementation of the core curricula started in 2003, therefore the State Institute
will not be able to measure their effect any earlier than 2008. Only in 2010 will the first
students who have been educated according to the new structure take up their service
as teachers in the Hamburg school system. It is a long way from teacher education to
teacher behavior and an even longer way from teacher education to pupils’ learning
and achievement (Blömeke, 2004). This will not make it easy to assess the effects of
the reform on both teachers and students.
Yet, it can be argued that the “Reform of Teacher Education in Hamburg” has
already been fruitful in that it stimulated more than 300 persons to think about and dis-
cuss the future of teacher education in Hamburg. It brought this issue back on the
agenda of those responsible for educating teachers. As these collaborative teams spend
 Urban Regions and their Potential 549

much time and effort on the development of the core curricula that apply to their own
fields of work, they have created a good basis for the realization and for further steps
of reform that will be taken in future years.
Another positive outcome of the reform is the foundation of a Center for Teacher
Education (Zentrum für Lehrerbildung) as a formal framework for future cooperation
between institutions and across phases. Whilst existing centers for teacher education in
other federal states only connect the faculties of a university, the center in Hamburg will
coordinate all the phases of teacher education as well. Therefore, both the university and
the State Institute will delegate personnel to the center.
Last but not least, the “Reform of Teacher Education in Hamburg” has created an
excellent basis for the transformation of teacher education into the BAMA system
which was described earlier. This will be accomplished in 2007. In order to develop
a bachelor degree that includes two subjects and educational science, the faculties
involved have had to collaborate and confront the very unfamiliar idea of modules
being run by more than one faculty. The core curricula can be used as a basis for the
construction of these modules. Practical training during university studies needs to
be based on cooperation between universities and State Institutes. This cooperation
can be based on the networks established in the “Reform of Teacher Education in
Hamburg.”

Long Term Cooperation between University and Schools:

Integrated School Placements
In the last few years, debates about educational politics have often demanded that
teacher studies should be more orientated towards vocational needs. Although some
authors do not agree (see Keuffer, 2005), the reinforcement of practical training is one
of the most often heard recommendations in the debate on German teacher training.
Future teachers it is argued shall learn to connect theoretical studies in the field of edu-
cation to practical experience from the first phase of teacher education. Practical train-
ing via school placements is an organizational solution.
In 1995, so-called “integrated school placements” (Integrierte Schulpraktika) were
implemented into the first phase of teacher education in Hamburg (Bastian, 1997).
Cooperation of university and schools is essential to achieve both scientific and occu-
pational teacher education. Lecturers and teachers jointly prepare, guide and evaluate
the school placements. The placements are embedded into a sequence of two seminars
to prepare the placement first and analyze the student’s experiences afterwards. They
last four weeks and take place in the semester break between the seminars. Many
teachers have taken part in school placements for several years in a row.
Teachers may take over two different functions regarding these school placements.
As contributing teachers they design the preparation and also the evaluating seminar,
together with a lecturer. As supervising teachers they work together with three students
during the school placements at their school. Each semester nearly 300 students expe-
rience a placement; 12 lecturers and about 100 teachers take part in this massive task.
The practice of integrated school placements was recently evaluated (Arnold &
Scherler, 2005). This evaluation illustrated that students consider the experience to be
550 Arnold, Bastian, and Kossen

a central element of their studies. They appreciate the coaching by the lecturers and the
teachers at school. Many students not only expand their knowledge about school and
instruction, but also check their abilities and their disposition for their occupational
roles as a teacher. The evaluation also notes that the contributing and supervising
teachers appreciate the task they take on and like to take part in the training of future
colleagues. However, it also surfaced that the cooperation among teachers and lectur-
ers is sometimes less intense than envisioned. Only a few teachers, for example, join
the preparing and evaluating seminars on a regular basis.
Again, the integrated school placement scheme depends on the proximity of university
and school, which facilitates cooperation among lecturers and teachers. Few lecturers could
possibly visit 24 students at their schools during their three weeks practical training if these
were as widespread as they are in rural areas. Few teachers who supervise students during
their practical training would voluntarily travel to a remote university in addition to their
tasks at school. As experience shows, then, even in a city like Hamburg, where all precon-
ditions are met, the cooperation among the institutions is not guaranteed. The readiness and
skill of lecturers and teachers to collaborate must be continually encouraged.
In the future, cooperation among the institutions will be increased because the polit-
ical guidelines for the bachelor and master degrees demand intensified practical train-
ing integrated into university studies. Students will be required to take a four week
school placement to reach the bachelor degree and a six month school placement to
reach the master of education. The six month placement will be jointly prepared and
guided by the university and the State Institute.

Environments in the City as a Challenge for Teacher

Education in Urban Regions: Patterns of Cooperation
Considering the Example of the Priority Issue
“School Development”
Schools in Cities Need Special Pedagogical Concepts – Special Pedagogical
Concepts Need Teacher Education as a Resource
The second thesis of this chapter states that social environments in the city challenge
education in particular ways. In addressing these challenges the involvement of
teacher education offers the potential for significant school development. The prob-
lematic social changes in parts of large cities require adapted pedagogical concepts.
Urban areas that are threatened by unemployment, impoverishment and social exclu-
sion, may become social hotspots. Not surprisingly, these areas are often problematic
for education. As stated in the first section pupils with a low socioeconomic back-
ground or a background of migration, are more likely to become students-at-risk.
Children from underprivileged families often lack sufficient support for their learning
from their parents: in this situation the demands and culture in school are unfamiliar
and schooling becomes problematic for them (Warlies & Wiest, 2002, p. 25).
Moreover, children with a background of migration often are handicapped by an insuf-
ficient knowledge of language and by cultural strangeness. The two described fields
 Urban Regions and their Potential 551

are connected since the average socioeconomic status of immigrant families is signif-
icant lower. Failing in school may lead to the feeling that attending is futile. This can
result in absenteeism (von der Groeben, 2002, p. 8).
One of us (J. B.) worked as a special needs teacher in the late 1970s. He notes how pupils
“forced him” to implement forms of individualization and action based methods. Only by
doing so were the pupils willing and capable of following the classes. The clientele of this
special school were so called problem students, namely, truants and pregnant teenagers.
This example shows how the ineffectiveness of a common pedagogy, which becomes
especially apparent in classrooms where pupils do not conform to the norm (e.g., come
from marginalized groups), can be an incentive for school development. Since several
social problems are tightly woven in urban regions, this amplifies the social pressure
on schools there. As a result, schools in urban areas are often pioneers of educational
development.
Experience with development projects in urban areas can under certain circumstances
be applied to less burdened urban regions and to rural areas. This transferability is higher
if the teachers face or anticipate similar pedagogical challenges. A key indicator for a pos-
sible transfer of development models is the experience of teachers who are no longer able
to teach their students effectively. Some teach classes for yesterday’s students, in which
they presume abilities and attitudes that no longer can be taken for granted for the urban
youth of today. Clearly, such student abilities and attitudes need to be built up: these can
be divided into (1) the will and the motivation to learn, (2) the ability to self-regulate the
learning process, and (3) the negotiation of meaning and sense-making in which learning
processes are embedded.
The models of collaboration of university and school we describe in this section
proved of value in schools located in social hotspots in Hamburg. The projects of school
development performed according to these models often are related to the problems
described above. They aim on individualizing forms of teaching, on connecting extra-
curricular experience with curricular contents, on project work with out-of-school
relevance and on feedback methods that increase pupils’ participation in school.
The goals of school development and teacher education may complement each other
in different ways. We present two patterns of cooperation here that are based on this
mutuality. They can be described as alliance of research on practice and school devel-
opment and as alliance of hands-on learning and school development respectively.

Alliances of School Development and Teacher Education

We want to link the results of professional educational research, with a discussion about
the goals and demands for teacher education. Many have argued that there is an inter-
twined double habitus in play here. The idea is that there are key teacher competences
that put each other in perspective namely, a research skill and a skill of routinized, prac-
tical mastery in the classroom. For the most effective training and development of these
competences we and other educationalists suggest an intermittent partition in the testing
of both sides: we suggest, for example, giving students the opportunity to familiarize
themselves with the role of a researcher, together with the role of assistant during both
the teaching and testing of differentiating forms of learning.
552 Arnold, Bastian, and Kossen

The “school development research project” can be seen as a temporary alliance of

research on practice and school development: Teacher education seeks sites at which
university students can develop an inquiring attitude about teaching and learning as a
qualification profile. Schools, on the other hand, seek competent support for both the
conceptualization and evaluation of development projects. Schools, typically, lack the
time and the methodical competences to do all this themselves. This pattern of com-
plementary interests is an important base for the development of a mutually beneficial
alliance.
During the second half of the 1990s in Germany, slightly differing forms of organi-
zation under the name of “research projects” were developed (Altrichter & Fichten,
2005; see Obolenski & Meyer, 2003). Practically these alliances were realized within
the settings of a research model. This model is specified in the research literature as
“action research” (see Altrichter & Fichten, 2005, p. 96), or as “student accompanying
school research” (Bastian, Combe, Hellmer, Hellrung, & Merziger, 2003). This means
that research work is executed by teams of university students. They independently
investigate aspects of their future profession under the guidance of a lecturer and in
agreement with school teachers. One important outcome of this activity is that the results
of the research are given to the schools along with options for reflection and if necessary,
development work. Later, the students base their final examination on the research they
have done at the schools. Our experience suggests that students are motivated for two
reasons to work on such challenging and time consuming papers: on the one hand they
are interested in establishing a relationship with their future profession while on the other
hand they are looking for a context in which they can influence something where their
actions are meaningful and appreciated (Feindt, 2005).
School development research projects in Hamburg last for two semesters and can be
divided into four phases. The documentation of the exam papers and the feedback dis-
cussion with the teachers take place after the second semester.
(1) In the first phase, the students prepare the fields of contents and research
methods. This means that besides studying literature concerning the particular
field, skills in research methods are acquired and practically tested (see espe-
cially Altrichter & Posch, 1998).
(2) In the second phase, research teams of two students are formed. These students
collaborate with each other and conduct the research process at one school.
(3) Contacting the selected schools and developing site-sensitive research questions
with the teachers take place in the third phase.
(4) During the second semester data are collected. The interpretation is completed
in the fourth phase. The methodology used in these research studies is qualita-
tive research (see Bastian, Combe, & Hellmer, 2002 on details about the
research methods used in the school development research project).
There is a variety of fields in which schools collaborate with researchers: the testing of sys-
tematic feedback, the impact of rituals in class, and the impact of self-directed learning
processes on rubrics or portfolios are good examples. We suggest that it is best when a
school development research project only investigates one area at a time. This primary inves-
tigation could, of course, be partitioned into several interconnecting sub-investigations.
 Urban Regions and their Potential 553

Such well-planned and coordinated research projects offer learning opportunities

for the integration of theoretical knowledge with practical knowledge. Again, these
two complementary dimensions can be understood as learning from research and
learning by doing research.

Learning from research

The independent realization of a project forces students to deal with several aspects
of educational science: the development of a relevant research question, the inter-
pretation of the data, and the writing up of the results. All force the student to have
intensive discussions on pedagogical theories, on methods of social research as well
as on questions and forms of action in the profession. In such a research process stu-
dents are guided and advised by lecturers in order to ensure that students meet the
required research standards. In this process there is a conjunction of questions about
the profession and about the research process. In short, the students are confronted
with key questions at both learning sites: they have to take a stand concerning the
current theories about pedagogy and research. They also have to take responsibility
for the results they present to the teachers in the feedback discussions. This can be
highly educative because the results are supposed to have an impact on the work in
school.

Learning by doing research

Students are required to arrange the seminars and the feedback discussions. In these
activities they create their research designs and advise each other in their learning and
research process in a guided, but independent way. Opportunities for reflective learn-
ing arise throughout the project which lead to the development of didactical and
methodical competence, as well as competences in counseling, communicating, and
working in a team.
In addition to such metacognitive processes, development processes related to con-
tent are also a focus of the project. Key here is the ability of the students to assess the
impact of the teacher’s action, without being under the pressure of that action. This
systematic scientific reflection on their future practice forms a preparation for later
competence of action and for a practical professional convention (see Helsper, 2000,
p. 160).
Teacher education seeks sites in which university students have the opportunity
to experience personal contact with pupils. The goal of this is to enable the students
to assess their motivation and aptitude for the profession and to experiment
with their own ideas in practice. There are schools that seek competent support in
the process of testing pedagogical concepts. Typically, these concepts are focused
on individualization and differentiation by using individual and team work, as well
as on the development of competences of self-direction. Such forms of education
need an immense amount of support from teams or groups, especially in the
beginning. One single teacher often cannot manage such a project. Here as well, the
complementary interests are the basis for a temporary alliance where both sides can
profit.
554 Arnold, Bastian, and Kossen

We illustrate this kind of alliance with the example of a seminar on project learning
in higher secondary. As stated above, teachers can take a collaborative role at the uni-
versity or a supervising role at school. The teachers collaborating in the preparing sem-
inars ensure that the students are well-prepared theoretically. They also encourage
contacts of students with teachers and pupils at an early stage. The students’ preparation
can thus be connected to the topics relevant for the learning group. Research project
teams of three students are built at this stage. Together with the teacher they are respon-
sible for the planning, undertaking and presenting of project learning.
The contributing teachers make sure that the students gain key competences, which
they need during the project phase and from which the supervising teacher can be
relieved. During this preparation the students experience how theoretical ideas about
project work are linked with the possibility of testing and developing learning concepts.
These concepts differ in many aspects from those the students experienced in their own
school life. They experience new perspectives on classrooms and professional action
that are grounded in a new teaching role. Visions and perspectives become tangible.
For the practical phase, students typically work as project assistants, while the teacher
takes full responsibility for the classroom. This role as a “development worker” enables the
student to experience a broad range of activities including exploring the content, creating an
outline for the project, giving support during the cooperative planning phase and supervis-
ing the group work during the project. In addition, the project assistant is expected to give
regular feedback regarding the quality of the work, give advice for the presentation, and
make suggestions concerning the evaluation of the process and the product. All of these
important activities take place within a context that encourages a link between action and
reflection. This keeps low the pressure to act for the students, and therefore prevents the dan-
ger of simply reproducing of reproducing common patterns of teacher actions. Students, then,
can create new patterns of action from their own experiences with teachers and classrooms.

Alliances of School Development and In-Service Teacher-Training:

Professionalizing of Teachers and Students, of the Controlling
Committee and Head of School of the Cooperation in the Region
As a result of 15 years of experience of school development three central ideas are
broadly accepted (see Altrichter, 2006; Bastian, 2004): these reflect projects in urban
areas and alliances of school development and in-service training for teachers.

The development of instruction is the core of all systematic

efforts for developing single schools
This has proved to be especially important in the urban context. The invention of
a New Pedagogy is necessary because of the failure of traditional education.
Developing new pedagogical strategies to meet the needs of the diverse learners in
urban schools is essential for the improvement of instruction in the context of school
development. Such pedagogy must provide opportunities for pupils to take more
responsibility for their own learning. Teachers should focus both on enhancing pupils’
learning and on the development of social skills.
 Urban Regions and their Potential 555

The development of instruction is possible only if embedded in the professionalizing

of students, teachers and persons in charge of this process
Development of instruction in the ways mentioned above depends on several precon-
ditions: the students must build up methodological and social skills, as well as subject
related competencies; the teachers must learn to support the students in fostering these
competencies; and the school must be organized to enable the supervision of this
developmental task. It is clear that this process of development requires systematic
planning, together with intense and close cooperation with individuals experienced in
the field of in-service training.

School development which is centered on instructional improvement

has the best chance for success if integrated into the development of
regional educational networks
Numerous projects have shown that the development of “new” instruction in urban
areas is most successful if it makes use of the region’s potentials. To facilitate this the
development of school and instruction must become a common goal in the region: this
means that the school, pre-school institutions, institutions of youth work and regional
companies should take part in a network. This network needs to be supervised by a
regional office for education. Most importantly, it must discover local potentials, initi-
ate collaborations and support a range of opportunities for joint learning processes (see
Bastian, 2000; Bastian & Rolff, 2002; Herrmann & Tschekan, 2004).
We argue that urban regions offer the best opportunity to test these concepts for
school development in which initiatives are maintained by regional networks, centered
on instruction, and supported by a systematic and school related in-service training for
teachers. Three insights from such work have emerged concerning the possibilities,
requirements and opportunities of reliable and effective networks of cooperation.
First, complex projects for school development, together with various kinds of in-
service training, require a high level of buy-in from the schools. It is necessary that at
least 70% of a school’s teachers must agree to collaborate in order for a project to be
successful. As described before, this willingness grows most strongly where the chal-
lenges of the environment make changes necessary. Experience shows that educational
institutions, schools and the regional agencies are more likely to cooperate if problems
in the region are perceived as increasing.
Second, it is important that experts in urban in-service training for teachers view the
developmental project as a test of their institutions. A key factor for the project’s suc-
cess is that the institutions for teacher education can quickly provide the involved
teachers with both innovative and flexible training focused on the “new” pedagogy. It
would seem that varied and short-course experiences in well established communica-
tion structures foster the required institutional flexibility.
Finally, it is clear that the concept of school development described above allows for
various forms of collaboration for students who are in their first phase of teacher educa-
tion. They may act as assistants or as researchers, for example, on school practice: experi-
ence shows that both roles are useful for realizing the schools goals and are much
appreciated by teachers. Experts on school development from the university and experts
for in-service training can complement one another in productive ways in such
556 Arnold, Bastian, and Kossen

coordinated projects. This is best done by conducting seminars, providing scientific guid-
ance and evaluating the developmental work as it unfolds over time. In this way, critical
synergy effects occur at all levels of school, teacher education and in-service training.

Conclusion
In this chapter we have tried to demonstrate that urban regions provide fruitful oppor-
tunities for modern and innovative teacher education programs. In the section on
“Teacher Education in Europe” we described the current German and international
discussion on teacher education, and we outlined the hitherto existing deficiencies of
teacher education. Evaluations show that problems seem to be very similar in several
European countries. We described the reforms which were started to remedy these
shortcomings while noting that a crucial point in these reforms is to better connect the
phases of teacher education both regarding content and teacher education. Large-scale
reforms, we note, must use the knowledge and resources of all the key institutions.
We used the five year reform teacher education program in Hamburg as a case, arguing
how the close proximity of institutions helps to facilitate cooperation between institutions
in teacher education. We presented two examples of this activity: the integrated school
placements scheme and the practical research on school development. Both activities func-
tion to foster the connection of students’ educational knowledge with the development of
their practical skills. In this way, a basic problem with the current preparation of teachers is
addressed.
We discussed how this reconceptualized combination of practice, study and school
development meets several needs both of teacher education and of schools: students
learn to observe practice and reflect on it, while they also learn to analyze problems
and to find ways to solve them. Moreover, students have the chance to do all this with-
out bearing the total responsibility for their own classroom. We noted how the teachers
who engage in the developmental processes also profit from this activity. Teachers
learn from the students’ observations and analysis, while they also have the opportu-
nity to collaborate with a range of experts who are concerned with the success of their
developmental projects. School development, we argue, can also be a centerpiece for
changes in the urban community. It is in large cities, where because of their close prox-
imity the cooperation between the university and schools is most likely to take place,
where social changes take place earlier and are more intense than in rural districts or
smaller towns. School reform in the future needs to maximize the power of collabora-
tion that is possible in the large urban centers.

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Section 4

LATIN AMERICA
30

URBAN EDUCATION IN LATIN AMERICA:

SECTION EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

Belmira Oliveira Bueno

University of São Paulo, Brazil

Latin America is usually thought of as a homogeneous block. Despite many things that
the countries from this region share and which provide them with a somewhat shared
identity, we must remember that Latin America is also characterized by a great deal of
diversity – in geography, language, ethnicity, culture, economy – and this is true even
within each country. British historian Peter Burke (2006) observes that the term “Latin
America” is full of ambiguities and “is not so neutral as it may seem, but it conveys politi-
cal associations and implications.” He remembers that when he first came to Brazil, in the
1980s, he was amazed when people talked about “Latin America” as if it were “somewhere
else”; in a very similar way, he says, Britons talk about “Europe” and Sicilians talk
about “Italy,” as not being a part of it. By drawing attention to the need of being careful
when utilizing such term, he reinforces Mignolo’s idea that “Latin America was not and is
not a place, a pre-existing entity, but a political project” (p. 7).1
This is my starting point to think about the issue of urban education in this
Handbook and the role of the school in Latin America. I want to think of it as a politi-
cal project, which due to the requirements and urgencies of the present, will be able to
make promises for the future without disregarding the past, including the historical
roots of each country and the values of each group of people from this region. For sure,
the intersection between past, present and future is included in the very idea of school.
However, faced with the threat of the disintegration of the school in Latin American
contexts, it is essential to reaffirm these ties, not as nostalgia, but as a way of review-
ing its meaning. By reviewing the itinerary through which school was made by moder-
nity in the service of progress, Tiramonti (2005), a collaborator in this section, notes
that school has always been an institution based on this time sequence: the past should
be “configured, invented, transmitted by the institution” so that an intelligibility of the
present could be reached and the claim of the future justified. About that, she says:

The school present is valued for its capacity to transmit a socially accepted ver-
sion of the past and for selecting the traditions that endorse such past and, on the
561
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 561–580.
© 2007 Springer.
562 Bueno

other hand, the present is justified because it contains an assumption of the future,
a promise to be reached. (pp. 902–903)

To what extent can the school today manage to hold this perspective in Latin America?
The profound changes that took place in the last decades, mainly the installation of a
new economic and social order, brought changes of all kinds, including changes in the
perception of space and time. The political and cultural practices underway tend to erase
identities and senses of belonging, overvaluing the present and the immediate, and this
compromises the vision of future. A review of the school’s role in Latin America thus
leads to a concern about the present and, in addition, to an appraisal of the past, since
this notion given by the memory and by history, which guides our references so that we
can act in the present and we can think of the future. However, although the countries
and people from this region are similar in many ways, it is essential to adopt a view that
includes, at the same time, what unites them and what separates them, to avoid the risk
of accepting abstract proposals, rigid and one-size-fits-all models, or panaceas.
Unfortunately, one of the strongest features uniting the Latin American countries is
their social inequality. Nowadays, there is consensus that Latin America is one of the
regions in the world with highest levels of inequality. The 2003 World Bank report –
Inequality in Latin America & the Caribbean: Breaking with History? says that:

Inequality in Latin America is extensive: the country in the region with the least
income inequality is still more unequal than any Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) or Eastern European country. Latin
American inequality is also pervasive, characterizing every aspect of life, includ-
ing access to education, health and public services; access to land and other
assets; the functioning of credit and formal labor markets; and attainment of
political voice and influence. Inequality is also resilient; in its modern form, high
inequality is rooted in exclusionary institutions that have been perpetuated ever
since colonial times and that have survived different political and economic
regimes, from interventionist and import substitution strategies to more market-
oriented policies. Significant racial and ethnic differences also continue to persist
even today. (Ferranti & Perry, 2003, p. 1)

Data from this report is shocking and gives us an idea about the great social disparities
that characterize the region, in which the richest one-tenth of the population of Latin
America and the Caribbean earn 47% of total income, while the poorest 20% receive
only 2–4%. Moreover, it is frightening to know that “only some countries in Africa and
the successor states of the former Soviet Union have comparable inequalities” (p. 3).
Even Costa Rica and Uruguay, “the most equal countries in Latin America,” have “sig-
nificantly higher levels of income inequality” (p. 3). Such income inequalities affect
all sectors of society. Concerning education, health, water, sanitation, electricity, and
communication inequalities “are also typically large and correlated with differences in
income. For example, differences in average years of education between the top and
bottom income quintiles ranged between 5 and 9 years for 31–40 and 51–60 year-olds
across the region” (p. 3).
 Urban Education in Latin America 563

Focusing on seven countries – Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, Guiana, México,

and Peru – the report shows, among other aspects of inequality, that male Indians
receive between 35 and 65% less than white men, and that the salary disadvantages
also adversely affect the African-descent populations, as well as non-white women
when compared to white women. Of greater concern is also the finding that inequality
in Latin America is increasing, “with more countries experiencing a worsening than an
improving trend. On balance, relatively equal countries experienced some worsening,
with a dramatic deterioration for Argentina both before and during its economic crisis”
(p. 4). Only in a few countries have such trends shown some reversal. Brazil, “histori-
cally the most unequal country in the region, experienced a modest but significant
decline in income inequality” (p. 4).
Such inequalities are extensive and pervasive but it is certainly in the large cities and
urban conglomerates that they are more acute and dramatic. For this reason, when deal-
ing with the theme of urban education in this handbook, it seems appropriate to consider,
even if only briefly, the urban issue of the Latin American large cities and metropolises.

The City, the School and the Urban World

Although in the countries from this region the term urban education is not widely
used, it is important to say that it is especially in the urban context of the large cities
and metropolises in the region that public education acquires its outline and character-
istic. From a school for the elite and symbol of distinction that it was in the past,2 it
became, in the social imaginary, a synonym of low-quality school, intended for the
students from the most deprived layers of the population. This process started between
the late 1950s and the early 1960s, when most countries in the region, encouraged by
the development ideologies, promoted mass education. Policies for greater access and
permanence in the school have been implemented since then, with the aim of expand-
ing the right to education to segments that had been previously excluded from the
school system.3 Of liberal nature, such policies were based on the ideas of social
progress, economic growth, modernization, social mobility, as instances in which edu-
cation should play a fundamental role. That is, without better levels of education there
would be no social advancement.
However, “this massification of education, of democratic concern, conveyed within
the germ of distortion,” as Portillo and Bustamante (1998) pointed out in the Venezuelan
case. With it, they say, “quality was rapidly replaced by quantity, to a greater number of
students came teaching of less quality,” until it reached the scarce levels of quality of
education today. There is no doubt that this situation ended up giving rise to great social
and educational inequalities due to the differences in purchasing power of families. This,
therefore, jeopardized the very principle of equality as part of the right to education.
Apart from some differences, what one notes is that, despite the measures that were taken
for decades to overcome this situation, a progressive deterioration of the public instruc-
tion systems has been evident in Latin America.4
In an effort to understand this situation, Argentine researcher Adriana Puiggrós
(1999) delves into history and shows that the public education systems in the region,
564 Bueno

historically centralized by the State, “became the fundamental place for the teaching
and learning of the public: the learning of collective values, norms, rituals, language.”
She shows that in the 1960s Latin America had one of the highest rates of educational
growth in the world. However, since the 1980s there has been a visible collapse in the
education systems in the wake of changes made by the military dictatorships for the
implementation of the neoliberal programs. According to Puiggrós:

One may have different ideological opinions about the political systems that were
successful in education in our region, but it is unsustainable that public education
did not have any perspective before a new repression began to unfold under the mil-
itary dictatorships and culminated with the neoliberal constitutionality. We believe
that many possibilities then opened up for educational change whose success
depended on modernity, debureaucratization and decentralization of the systems by
means of participative and extensive models.

The Latin American States – as they became prisoners of the contradictions of their own
development – have, since the 1980s, faced a double crisis caused by external debt and
by tax deficits, which extend to this day. Data from the World Bank noted by Carlos
Alberto Torres (2001) reveal that, in from 1970 to 1987, out of the 17 countries with
higher international debts, 12 were in Latin America. Torres concludes that in this con-
text, “the magnitudes of education,” that is, “the success of expansion, diversification
and improvement of the educational systems,” has been obscured “by the perverse mis-
eries of Latin American education.” In fact, “elementary and secondary education in the
region continue to be segregated by social classes, in which the poor go to public school
and the middle and upper sectors blossom educationally in private institutions” (p. 25).
These facts are closely related to the deteriorating living conditions of the poor pop-
ulations, especially in the great cities and urban conglomerates in Latin America,
whose uncontrolled growth, mainly due to the expansion of industrialization that
started in the early 1960s, made urban life increasingly hard and hostile. A report by
the United Nations, in 2003, shows that out of the 24 largest urban conglomerates in
the world, with over 8 million inhabitants, four are located in Latin America – Mexico
City (18.7 million), São Paulo (17.9 million), Buenos Aires (13 million) and Rio de
Janeiro (11.2 million).5
According to estimates, Lima and Bogotá will soon be part of this group of cities
that have grown at a staggering rate after the 1950s. Currently, most of the population
in Latin America and the Caribbean is urban (77.6%), larger than the European popu-
lation (73.3%) and a little smaller than the North American population (80.8%).
Around 146.7 million poor people live in the cities of the region, nearly half of them
in just two countries: in Brazil (30%) and in Mexico (17%). These high rates of urban-
ization result from rural exodus, or from other internal migrations, both from other
cities and from bordering countries, which took place mainly after the 1950s, giving
rise to the metropolization of these cities.
The imbalance between these large migratory flows and the infrastructure of the
city, added to the lack of planning and the considerable poverty of a large fraction of
these populations, resulted in severe shortages of transportation, health, housing, and
 Urban Education in Latin America 565

infrastructure in the urban conglomerates. The inter-relation of these phenomena with

the logic of capital, real-estate speculation and urban legislation resulted in a structure
of population distribution, of services and infrastructure that can be seen today in con-
temporary Latin American cities. Large poverty belts were formed in the urban out-
skirts, turning into ghettos and giving rise to increasing social segregation. A sector of
informal economy, made up by street vendors, has grown and changed the look of the
cities, bringing forth a series of social, economic, aesthetic, and cultural problems. The
ancient historic central areas, symbols of the foundation of such cities as idealized by
colonizers, have deteriorated and are openly decadent. In cities where there were
restoration projects for these areas, or where they are in progress, street vendors as well
as homeless people who used to live outdoors in the central streets and vicinities are
transferred to other places, in an effort to “clean up the city” and restore its glorious
past (Quesada-Avendaño, 2006).
The Latin American metropolises are characterized, in addition, by simultaneously
holding both a formal and legal city and an illegal and irregular city. According to each
country, these illegal cities receive different names: callampas, in Chile; pueblos jóvenes,
in Peru; favelas, in Brazil; vila miseria, in Argentina; vecindades or colonias populares,
in México; tugurios in Costa Rica; ranchos in Venezuela and Guatemala (Quesada-
Avendaño, 2006). This situation suggests that there is an order behind the apparent
chaos. “Urban legality” participates in this scenario, as a set of laws, decrees and norms
of urban and construction practices that govern the production of spaces in the city. By
establishing what is permitted and what is forbidden, it also defines territories that are in
and out of the law (Rolnik, 1997).
The center-outskirt logic, in the present context, also starts to go through changes.
Shopping malls, high-standard residential neighborhoods located in the outskirts, and
the business centers created in places where there was nothing before are some exam-
ples of new centralities which may come up anywhere with no compliance with tradi-
tional logic. According to Rachel Rolnik (1997), a new model of the city is configured:
an “unstructured city.” Not only the elites segregate themselves, but also the middle
and working-class sectors, which is also a means of protection against crimes and
delinquency. These factors, added to the increase of diversification of services in the
outskirts, bring forth the existence of several centers. “The Latin American megacities
and other capitals of ‘smaller size’ are nowadays polycentric, with several poles of
development,” notes Quesada-Avendaño (2006). This process, in her opinion, has
given rise to a great diversity of ways of living in the city, of thinking it and appropri-
ating its different spaces. Thus, a great change in the urban cultural model is underway,
with not only high rates of poverty, violence and social inequality, but also with great
multicultural complexity.
The situation depicted by the above author in the end of her paper gives the dimen-
sions of the challenge facing the cities and countries of Latin America, and conse-
quently are also present in the public schools of this region:

(…) how to reach the social inclusion of several social sectors within this urban com-
plexity and reestablish the public spaces of the city in the face of the continuous pri-
vatization of the space. How to incorporate the 146 million poor people – which the
566 Bueno

official cyphers cast – who live aside, excluded from the city – a hard and impos-
sible task with the present model of urban and economic growth that promotes
an increasing social segregation and polarization. And they exclude a bigger
and bigger “army” of indigent people which overpopulate the urban outskirts,
many of which attempt to earn their living since they were little kids, practicing
magic and cleaning windshields in the Latin American streets and traffic lights.
(Quesada-Avendaño, 2006)

The Educational Reforms in Latin America in the 1990s

From the 1990s, Latin America was hit by an overwhelming wave of educational
reforms, a kind of tsunami that caused huge turbulences in all public teaching systems
in the region. Even if we consider some reforms that were put in place during the pre-
vious decade, it is in the 1990s that they gain strength and visibility. The educational
systems in force, many of which were constructed and structured over a century ago,
remained in check. With the new millennium coming, systems were considered out-
dated, ineffective, low quality, and not compliant with what was expected from schools
in order to meet the needs of the twenty-first century. Actually, this feeling was not
exclusively in Latin America. Other parts of the world were already going through
similar processes. Many of these had been anticipated in the reform of school systems
as a result of the pressures exerted by neoliberal policies and by globalization – multiform
and strongly interrelated processes, which were enhanced in this period. It became
increasingly evident that the great transformations, or mutations, that were affecting con-
temporary society were a consequence of the new economic order, of the changes
brought forth by the technological revolution and by the new systems of information
and communication. These processes did not allow societies to keep school insulated
from such changes. On the contrary, arguments of all kinds, from a varied range of
social sectors, were convincing about the urgency of reforming the educational systems.
The idea of globalization, which underlines all these discussions, has been utilized
exhaustively, both by the international bodies and governmental representatives, and
by theorists affiliated in different academic fields. The theories about the origins of
these processes and how to understand them are controversial (see Burbules & Torres,
2004; Castells, 1999; Dale, 2004; Santos, 2001, among many others).6 Some authors
prefer to use the word mundialization when referring to structural transmutations of
contemporary society; others argue that this idea is nothing but a myth, a powerful dis-
course, “which fulfills the belief ” (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 48). These discussions are out
of the scope of this Introduction. However, it is important to mention, even if briefly,
at least two points that are essential to understand the educational reforms that are
underway in Latin America, and which somehow are present in the chapters of this sec-
tion. First of all, we must recall that the 1980s opened an era under the sign of business
transnationalization, financialization of wealth, and structural reforms with the aim of
withdrawing the State from the role of coordinating social artifacts and assign them
“markets” – a passage from the organized capitalism towards a reorganized or
disorganized capitalism, such as some authors understand the dynamics of these
processes (Moraes, 2004). In addition, and without underestimating the importance of
 Urban Education in Latin America 567

in-depth discussions, one has to highlight that, either talking about “mundialization”
or “globalization,” the focus is the extra-national (Dale, 2004).
Taking this into account, one may understand the homogeneity of the discourses that
are the basis of educational reforms that proliferated in the 1990s throughout Latin
America. These policies emphasized the need for innovation in the schools and the
promotion of greater educational equity and quality. These are, in fact, new discourses
and strategies to overcome old educational and persistent problems in the region.
Unlike a not very distant past, in which policies emphasized the modernization of the
education systems, the current reforms insist on the idea of school innovation. This
emphasis meant that it was crucial that the reforms reached the education systems as a
whole, including their forms of management, administrative and pedagogical organi-
zation as well as forms and strategies for their funding. Yet the changes (innovations)
were to be elaborated by the subjects in the school’s everyday life (Cros, cited by
Zibas, Ferretti, & Tartuce, 2006, p. 87). As a result, ideas such as competence, effec-
tiveness and decentralization became key words in the proposals that were put in place
in this period, whose policies are aligned with the spirit of reform of the State since the
1980s – strongly driven for and by the market. When referring to the regulatory role of
the State, Portuguese researcher João Barroso (2005) affirms that since the beginning
of the 1990s there has been some strain between the logic of the State and the logic of
the market. This tension has given origin to intermediate institutions between the State
and the market, such as the associations, the communities and the partnerships. His
position is that “we cannot be prisoners of a false dichotomy between these two mod-
els” – State and market. For that reason, he defends the need of revitalizing other
modalities of regulations for the public action. (p. 744)
This scenario applied to both the developed countries and to developing nations, but
certainly the ways in which these guidelines were translated were eventually not the same.
In the case of the peripheral countries, it was about proposing tax adjustment policies,
which had severe implications for the reforms implemented in the field of education.
Proposals with that spirit emerged throughout Latin America. Virtually no country in the
region was free from the effects of the reform storm of the 1990s. This led to a change in
the General Law of Education for many of them, so that they could fit to this new ideology:
Paraguay and Dominican Republic changed their legislation in 1992,7 Argentina and
Mexico, in 1993; Colombia and Bolivia, in 1994; Uruguay, in 1995; Brazil, only in 1996.
Chile was the country that took the lead in this process, by introducing reforms in 1985
and by approving its new education law in 1990. The pioneering nature of the Chilean
reform is explained by the fact that it was put in place by the Pinochet government, which
took the lead in the pushing the neoliberal education in Latin America (Puiggrós, 1999).
In the Brazilian case, the delay in passing the new National Education Guidelines and
Basis (law 9394/96) was due to the pressures from several sectors of society (professional
associations of education, scientific associations, unions), all of them against the policies
that involved strategies for the privatization of public schools. Adriana Puiggrós (1999)
notes that after Pinochet, the other governments from Latin America

received political-educational orientation and the program package from the World
Bank, without adapting it to the reality of the country and without moderating any
568 Bueno

aspect of the reform demand. Neither the heads of government nor the experts had
an interest in the concrete subjects of education. Their work focused on “adjusting”
the educational system as was taking place in other areas of the State.

Indeed, several analyses have observed that the World Bank, operating in tune and in
partnership with a series of other transnational bodies, such as PREAL8 and CEPAL,9
has developed a strong agenda and influence with the aim of promoting and stimulat-
ing the institutional reforms in Latin America, justified as a strategy to fight inequali-
ties. In fact, the 2003 World Bank report, previously quoted, says that:

The key to reducing inequality in Latin America is institutional reform. To overcome

the inequality that undermines their efforts to get out of poverty, poor people must
gain influence within political and social institutions, including educational, health
and public services institutions. To enable them to achieve such influence, the insti-
tutions must be truly open, transparent, democratic, participatory – and strong.

This move, however, is not recent. Actually, it only continues the positions that the
Bank has maintained since the 1970s: a former project financer with an increasing
political dimension. Marília Fonseca (1998) notes that “in order to offer a basis for the
social policy, the Bank produced, along the 1970s, a humanitarian discourse, backed
up by principles of sustainability, justice and social equality.” According to her, this
discourse may be summarized as follows: (1) fight poverty, by promoting equity in
income distribution and social benefits; (2) search for effective handling of public
policies; (3) search for administrative modernization through decentralizing policies,
with the aim of making the community more independent in the handling of social
services; (4) dialogue as a strategy of interdependent interaction between the Bank and
the borrowers. The author highlights that “despite conveying a wide-range humanita-
rian rhetoric” such principles “undergo a reduction when they are incorporated to the
Bank’s economic project for the developing countries.” Thus, she says that in the analy-
sis of documents what first comes to mind “is the gradual substitution of the notion of
equality for term equity.” And this is not a minor issue, as we will discuss later.
Although the implementation of reforms was different in each country, one may say
that the reforming policies were pervasive throughout Latin America. Of course, the
explanations given by the international bodies to the movement were not the same as
those produced by the academic milieu. Nevertheless, quite often, the discourses and
jargons utilized give the impression that they share the same principles. In this respect,
Zibas (2002) identifies two theoretical strands.
The first one, which she calls hegemonic, proposes that the reforms are a response to
the needs of the countries to adapt their schools to the new international reality, in which
the basic social conflict is not made clear but disguised. From this point of view all the
education systems should change in order to meet the new needs and to be able to join
the new world order in a more competitive way. From this perspective knowledge would
install “a new economic and social order, fairer and more democratic,” and the reforms,
in their turn, would fulfill the function of facilitating “the formation of a citizenship
especially aimed at the cooperation and construction of consensus” (p. 234).10
 Urban Education in Latin America 569

The other strand, called critical by Zibas, emphasizes the relationship between the
educational reforms underway and the current change process of the State, which is
called on to restrict its spending with the social areas in order to accomplish the new
logic of capital accumulation, as already mentioned. This process ends up generating
new social dynamics, which produce new modes of cultural expression and social
conviviality, creating the need to shape a new type of worker: “a human being who
thinks, feels and lives in a way different from that one of few years ago” (p. 235).
The analyses resulting from this perspective have been merciless in denouncing the
neoliberal policies. Among the several aspects that have been analyzed, highlights are:
the action of the international bodies, particularly the World Bank; and the market-
oriented policies, with the consequent formation of an “educational market” that by
prioritizing profit become exclusionary and antidemocratic. Such policies stimulated
the implementation of programs that have led public education to be privatized in sev-
eral countries, such as schools under concession and the vouchers system, among other
modalities.11 Analyzing the voucher schools, Cosse (2003) notes that, despite much
research have pointed out its ineffectiveness in other countries, here in Latin America
this system continues to be utilized. In addition, he stresses, the most serious point
ignored what has been exhaustively shown by a vast literature: that school achievement
is strongly related to the socioeconomic condition of students, regardless of being a
public or private school. Data presented by Raczinsky and Muñoz in their chapter con-
firm the exclusionary nature of the market-oriented policies, in the sense indicated by
Stephen Ball (1995):

The implementation of market-based educational reforms constitutes essentially

a class strategy and one of its major effects is the reproduction of advantages and
disadvantages linked to social class. (p. 197)12

One can see why certain authors argue that in the neoliberal ideology education gets
the meaning of property: a property of special type, which only a few can have, as just
they have the “right to possess it materially; the right to utilize it and enjoy it; the right
to exclude other from enjoying it; the right to sell it or assign it in the market; and the
right to possess it as an income factor” (Gentili, 2004, p. 243). Daniel Suárez (2004)
seizes another aspect of this logic: the erasing from the social imaginary the idea of
“public education as a social right and as a democratic accomplishment, partially
acquired after years of struggles under the slogan of equal opportunities and historically
associated with the social process of constructing the notion of citizenship.” (p. 260).
This author draws attention to the reformulation of other concepts and categories of the
progressivist discourse set forth by the reform, which replaces, borrows, and/or simply
eliminates some of them. A clear example of replacement is the case of the notions of
equality and equal opportunities. Initially associated with the democratic-liberal ideas,
then, as banner of movements for democracy these two concepts are gradually dis-
placed to make way for the notion of equity: a judgment founded in the appraisal of
what is due to each one, considering man in his environment, according to the analy-
sis of Fonseca (1998). As she puts it, “equity does not guarantee the equality of devel-
opment standards, but it ensures the minimum amount required so that the countries
570 Bueno

may rationally be inserted in the global mode, without threatening the system’s
balance” (p. 49).13 Many other notions went through a similar process, but we will not
be able to examine them here. The important thing is to highlight that this discursive
strategy corroborates the installation of a new logic, which utilizes a discourse that
imprints new meanings to social life. In other words, what is at stake is the production
of a new culture, whose purpose is to replace old values and representations, stimulating
new practices to produce a new social consensus. In the case of education, this consensus
relates to school and its functions.
Moreover, the privatization strategies introduced by the current Latin American
reforms are clouding the idea of public education. With the initiation of such policies
over the last 15 years, the perception and meaning of what is public, as well the differ-
ence between public and private in education, has become more and more indistinct.
This involves both conceptual and identity issues. A process which, apart from the dif-
ferences between the several countries, seems to characterize a type of fragmentation
similar to the one Tiramonti describes with regard the Argentinean case: the rupture of
meanings and a concomitant dynamic of fragmented multiplication that dissipates the
possibility of recovering unity. The allusion made early in this text (see Chapter by
Faria Filho & Vidal) to a similarity between the Latin American public schools and the
American urban schools, seems to crumble.
The 1990s were also the stage of many reforms in the domain of teacher education.
These reforms came together with those of basic education, following in this case the
agenda of countries from other regions, mainly from Europe. Thus, the guidelines
came from several international bodies,14 and therefore had similar political matrixes.
For this reason, the proposals and changes caused the same types of discontent and
adverse reactions. The multiplication of various modes of training courses is one of the
emphases in the current policies, opening up huge areas for the entry of the private
enterprise. The worsening conditions of teacher work and the unsatisfactory quality of
many programs have heated up the debates about teacher education and professional-
ization in part due to the fact that they produce new hierarchies and forms of exclusion.
The analysis of the Normal Schools in Mexico City in this section reveals several
aspects of these politics. These institutions, which in the past were elite schools, today
are sought by students who mostly come from impoverished social milieus, with the
expectation of getting greater opportunities for work and some kind of social ascent.15
These expectations make it evident that the school still conveys a promise of the
future. It is quite possible that the expectations of the young are slim, maybe because they
are driven by the urgencies of the present and marked by some skepticism regarding the
future. In any case, they indicate where we should look at if we intend to answer “how
can we educate today?” By posing this question Tiramonti (2005, p. 907) proposes a
review of the cultural substratum in the schools, their institutional organization, their artic-
ulations with the plots of the social world. Thus, it is important to remember that for many
youths, and children, this everyday world is their workplace, such as Maria de Ibarrola
portrays in her chapter. In addition, paying attention to this universe de-stabilizes the idea
that growth in schooling levels is the major factor in improving labor conditions and
wages. Ibarrola shows that these instances influence each other in different ways,
depending on the interests at stake and the actors involved, on time and space, on the type
 Urban Education in Latin America 571

of schooling and the nature of the labor market. In other words, school cannot be a sep-
arate world, with delimited borders as it used to be in the past – a project conceived
somewhere else, without the assent of those who work in it, including the youths.
The nine chapters that compose this section offer a broad view of the situation of
public schooling in Latin America. Although the texts refer to contexts and educational
experiences from just six countries – Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Argentina and
Uruguay – it is fair to assume that, on the whole, these chapters draw a representative
picture of the current educational problems in this region.
Certainly, many different readings can be made of these texts. I wish, however, to
draw attention to one of the ideas that guided the project of the Handbook: that local
contexts shape, in critically important ways, what will be effective at the school level.
By that, I wish to refer to the specificities of each country, to local experiences of var-
ious levels without, however, disregarding the homogenizing forces and trends. The
chapter by Raczinski and Muñoz, for instance, claims more power to the schools,
based on studies that point to the importance of certain local initiatives at the school
level as a condition for the improvement of teaching, not under any circumstances, but
as part of a proposal that, understands the school as a system and suggests the approxi-
mation of micro politics and macro politics. Around 20 years ago, Mexican researchers
Elsie Rockwell and Justa Ezpeleta (1986) put forward a similar conception manifesting
their rejection of reductionist and functionalist views. They said then that the school
“is certainly not the same throughout the capitalist world, or even in Latin American
countries,” and emphasized that the school is the result of a social construct, insisting
that such conception does not leave room for “any ambition of unifying it in an abstract
and formal way” (p. 11).
Other critical views have added to that, particularly when the neoliberal reforms
became more threatening. In the mid 1990s, Argentinean Daniel Suárez (2004, p. 268)
wrote vehemently about the double challenge that educators had to face: on one side
“to contest urgently the devastating impetus of the neoconservative and neoliberal
offensive” through a new pedagogical discourse that questioned in a radical way the
logic and the politics of the cultural reform undertook by the New Right; on the other
side, “to (re)construct new analytical and interpretive categories that allow linking the
understanding of the institutionalized educational processes, relations and practices to
the cultural (and also pedagogical) meanings constructed outside school, but that
include it and determine it.” He understands that the redefinition of a new ethical lan-
guage implies, among other aspects, a greater appreciation of the role of memory and
history, not just “to recover the democratic sense of old struggles and achievements,”
but also as a way of “intensifying the collective debate around values that give priority
and demand equality, respect for diversity, for solidarity, for the public good, for
justice” (1995, p. 268).
The chapters of this section have been organized into three groups. In the first group
three texts (Chapters 31 to 33) approach issues related to the Brazilian education sys-
tem. The first text discusses the history of primary school, which established itself in
Brazil during the mid nineteenth century. The other two texts refer to the school that
takes shape with the expansion of the public school systems, and changes its features
to cope with the high levels of school failure that were then observed.
572 Bueno

In History of Brazilian urban education: space and time in primary schools,

Luciano Mendes de Faria Filho and Diana Gonçalves Vidal discuss the constitution of
primary schooling in Brazil, showing that in the nineteenth century a new model of
school is set up, aiming at civilizing the nationals and nationalizing the foreigners. The
goal was to reach the level of progress of the European nations, and the focus fell upon
the architecture of school buildings and the organization of school time. It also shows
how the urban environment was decisive to the form and values that prevailed in the
organization of the Brazilian school. The primary school appears in Brazil in the later
half of the nineteenth century, inspired in the European mutual teaching model, so that
the time the working class dedicated to studies did not impact their working hours, an
issue tightly related to modernity and capitalism. At a later stage, the efficiency of ele-
mentary schooling is associated with the school building as a means to defend the
superiority and specificity of official education when compared with other forms of
socialization. That is, when the Graded Schools appear – the monument schools –
schooling in grade levels becomes the definitive model of education for the nineteenth
century. It was only under the New State (1937–1945) that proposals for a significant
standardization of the school organization begin to emerge via an architectural model
that tried to develop patriotic values in children. This model still had an elitist charac-
ter. In the following decades, with the expansion of school systems, with proposals for
simpler construction, start to emerge. Through the decades, the time spent in school
progressively increased, but the length of eight years for fundamental education
appeared only in 1971. The authors argue that the institutionalization of the elementary
school has still not happened in Brazil. Today, contrary to what the analysts of the nine-
teenth and twentieth centuries suggested, there is no shortage of school buildings, but
they are irregularly distributed across the Brazilian territory.
Learning cycles as transition policies for a new logic of compulsory schooling in
Brazil (the Chapter 32) is a review that shows how the idea of cycles as a way of break-
ing the rigidity of school serialization in Brazilian public schooling gains impetus in
Brazil in the mid twentieth century. Elba de Sá Barretto and Sandra Zákia de Souza
argue that the adoption of learning cycles is a democratizing policy that can help assur-
ing the continuity of schooling and prevent failure. The text highlights the multiple ini-
tiatives that have been developed in the country since the 1960s and 1970s, and also
the justifications presented for the different proposals adopted. The data presented
show that in 2003 18.9% of Brazilian schools in fundamental education had adopted
learning cycles, exclusively or otherwise. Most of these schools were public and urban,
and located in the Southeast region, although the Northeast region also showed a high
proportion. Belonging to municipal or state school systems, these schools are more
concentrated in populous metropolitan areas, where the extremes of poverty and
wealth, violence and precarious functioning of schools are to be found. The text also
discusses: the various principles commonly invoked as the foundations of learning
cycles; the conditions for their implementation in the school systems that have adopted
them; the implications that followed to the structuring of teachers’ work; the demand
for their better training; and the enduring resistance that the implementation of learn-
ing cycles has faced. The authors assert that the history and trajectory of learning
cycles in Brazil show the validity and applicability of their principles today. However,
 Urban Education in Latin America 573

one has to admit that the pedagogical resources and the school practices have been
inadequate or insufficient to cater for everyone.
The issue of school failure is taken up again in the third chapter – School failure
and public school: theoretical and pedagogical challenges in Brazil. Denise Trento Rebello
de Souza and Marilene Proença Rebello de Souza present the several explanations put
forward for the high levels of school failure and dropout during the last decades. The
authors stress the explanations originated in Psychology, given that this discipline has
historically been one of the sciences in which Education has more frequently sought
theoretical support. In the first part of the text, various statistical data and the contro-
versies around the strategies to promote the democratization of public school are pre-
sented. The analyses carried out show that there is consensus in the mainstream
educational literature concerning the issue of the educational coverage (access to the
educational system) and the need for improving its quality as the real challenge for the
policy makers. Several explanations for the phenomenon of school failure are dis-
cussed, and also how the phenomenon has been approached by various psychological
schools of thought. The authors understand that it was only the theoretical and method-
ological revisions in Latin America in the 1980s led by the more critical educational
researchers that has enabled the overcoming of reductionist explanations. Such revi-
sion has brought a crucial change in the approach to this issue: from the analysis of the
child who fails to the description and analysis of school practices and processes
involved in the production of the difficulties in the schooling process. In the conclu-
sions, the authors reflect on the fact that, despite significant progress in the way of
generating knowledge about the schooling process offered to the poorer populations,
little of this knowledge is reaching the groups that create, and decide upon, the public
policies addressed to those populations.
The second group of chapters (34 to 36) refers to educational reforms currently
under way in three countries: Chile, Colombia and Uruguay. Discussing these reforms
together makes it easier to distinguish the features that give them some homogeneity,
and at the same time highlights the differences they exhibit in the different contexts.
The Chilean reform is paradigmatic of the region, due to the fact that Chile has pio-
neered the implementation of these policies and permits a reasonable evaluation of
such experiences. In the cases of Colombia and Uruguay, the programs are still in
stages of development that could be classified as initial, although some results can
already be known or felt, either positively or negatively. The focus of these texts is var-
ied, as are the positions of the authors with respect to the way of conceiving and inter-
preting the reforms.
In the chapter, Chilean educational reform: the intricate balance between a macro
and micro policy, Dagmar Raczynski and Gonzalo Muñoz-Stuardo depict the reality
of schools located in poverty-stricken sectors. They question the success of the
reforms carried out during the last 25 years, in view of the excessively centralizing
character of these changes. They argue that the reforms of the 1980s have weakened
the public education system by the adoption of two mechanisms: municipalization, and
the implementation of the voucher system. In the 1990s, the State recovers its leading
role, characterized by a reform focused on the improvement of the quality of teaching
and greater equity of the results of learning. It maintains, however, the provision of
574 Bueno

resources through public and private financing agencies, and the voucher system. The
results indicate that the opportunity of school access for pupils from the poorer areas
has improved. However, the quality of education is still unsatisfactory as the inequal-
ity in learning conditions persists. Overcoming these difficulties implies a political
vision that considers schools as systems, supporting actions that seek the improvement
of educational conditions and that increase the school effect. From the observations
made at the schools, several factors were identified that distinguish effective from
ineffective schools. Based on that, the authors propose alternatives that can help
improve the less effective schools (which constitute the larger portion of schools): to
link more closely macro politics and policies of the schools; to strengthen the auton-
omy of schools and the responsibility for results in the education system; to promote
greater equity through funding differentiated by socioeconomic level and mechanisms
that prevent schools from choosing their pupils. These alternatives depend on changes
in the organization and functioning of the system and not just on the availability of
inputs and infrastructure as prioritized so far.
Public policies and educational equity in the city of Bogotá is the problem investi-
gated by Glória Calvo in the Chapter 35. Her line of argument revolves around the
issue of the expansion of educational opportunities to the impoverished social strata,
and the permanence of pupils at the school. The text discusses the public policies
implemented in Bogotá since 1998 to deal with its problems. The ongoing programs
are classified according to their objectives: (1) to promote equity, trying to make sure
that children and youngsters from the lower social layers enter and remain inside the
education system; (2) to improve the results of educational actions; (3) to develop pro-
fessional competencies, focusing on excellence in secondary education. The issue of
educational equity is examined under different theoretical perspectives, highlighting
the difficulties faced in achieving this goal within the Colombian context. According
to the author, the search for pedagogical equity expresses a concern with democracy
and with the possibility that different social segments can exercise more fully their
rights and duties. The text describes the five currently active programs proposed by the
Colombian Secretariat for Education of the Federal District: Schools in Concession;
Funding the Demand; Assessment of Basic Competencies and Citizenship; Leveling to
Excellence; and Competencies for Work. After discussing criteria for the promotion of
pedagogical equity, some recommendations are made: the need to guarantee the qual-
ity of education for the lower social segments; actions that foster the adequacy of the
study plans to those pupils’ “deficient conditions”; and the revision of the basic edu-
cation cycles as to their duration and to the minimum competencies necessary to their
certification, based on principles that pay attention to the development of the human
potential.
The reform in Uruguay is analyzed by Juan Bogliaccini in the chapter – Primary
education: changing mainstay of Uruguay – with a focus on the tensions this reform
has been causing due to the implementation of Full Time Schools. The author calls
attention to the prominent position that the public primary school had in the past as one
of the main instruments to the formation of the nationality and citizenship in Uruguay,
a country with one of the highest levels of educational development in Latin America.
Despite that, since the 1970s the educational system has been under threat, especially
 Urban Education in Latin America 575

from the growth of private schooling and territorial segmentation. The reform of 1995
had the equity in the distribution of resources as its main axis, and the creation of the
Full Time Schools as one of its main programs. Such changes, according to the author,
came in response to the transformations required by the inequality, segregation and
segmentation that the country has been facing in the last decades. Analyzing the
tensions created by the confrontation of the traditional structure with the emerging
model, the text points out the biggest challenges faced today by the Uruguayan system:
the job stability of teachers, the type of link between the school and the central admin-
istration, the cultural impoverishment of the least favored social segments and the need
of the expansion of the new model to be based on a series of indispensable resources.
The assessments show that the Full Time Schools have been showing favorable results,
but they are in small number and the expansion of this model can only be assured with
the same positive results if the level of resources is maintained. The author thus pro-
poses the creation of a carefully formulated decennial plan.
The last three chapters (37 to 39) do not have a thematic unity, but that is precisely
why they bring elements to expand our understanding of the educational problem in
Latin America. The first two texts refer to the Mexican context, and the last one, while
having Argentina as a reference, goes beyond this context and touches upon an issue
that is common to the whole of Latin America: the fragmentation of schooling.
The chapter, Educational policies and realities: teachers’ initial education in
Mexico, presents an analysis of the Normal Schools in Mexico City. Etelvina Sandoval
discusses the current proposals for teacher education policies in Mexico, a society
more and more complex and heterogeneous and with severe inequalities. The Mexican
teacher education system is large, diversified, and marked, just as the other levels of
education, by realities strikingly uneven with respect to quality of teaching and of the
institutions that form teachers. Contrary to the international tendency of pushing
teacher education to the universities, Mexico prevails in maintaining the Normal
Schools. However, in spite of the various demographic phenomena that have propiti-
ated the crossing of cultural frontiers in the country, the initial education of teachers
has been characterized by its uniformity. The author argues that this initial education
must have as its main focus the diversity of the Mexican context and the realities in
which the teachers will work, because these aspects have been neglected – revealing a
clear inconsistency with the prevailing discourses about diversity and interculturality.
The text shows that, at variance with the complex realities and needs of the teaching
profession in that country, the dominant idea in the Normal Schools is that teachers
will work with a homogeneous population. Considering the policies that defend the
preservation of these institutions, the author discusses the importance of strengthening
the Normal Schools under new ideas and perspectives in face of the social changes that
permeate urban education in Mexico and present teachers with major challenges.
María de Ibarrola deals in the chapter – Learning to work in an industrial Mexican
city in transition (1990–2000) – with the education of young that are preparing to enter
the world of work under the changes brought about by NAFTA. She examines the
opportunities open to youngsters between the ages of 15 and 24 to learn a profession
in their immediate environment: the city of León and its shoe industry. In the cities of
contemporary Mexico, the inequalities in working conditions are conspicuous. The
576 Bueno

informal job market, despite absorbing a considerable number of people, is not ade-
quately included in official statistics and initiatives. The author argues that, whilst access
to schooling has been on the rise, the economic crisis and the income discrepancies have
also intensified, indicating that other factors may also play an important role in the dif-
ferentiation of working conditions and wages. Among other findings, it has been seen
that in-service training has been recognized as an important factor for facing the
changes caused by economic globalization; and that in the shoe industry the most
intense form of learning was the one resulting from the direct contact between work-
ers, in which each one shares his/her knowledge with the others. In the conclusion of
the chapter, the author presents some suggestions to link the school and the work
world: to ensure the participation of the child in compulsory basic education; to create
a wide learning system situated at the workplace; to evaluate what is being learned by
the students that have just finished compulsory education; to formulate specific and
innovative programs to ensure the quality, relevance and equity of education; and to
take tacit knowledge and the informal ways of transmitting it as the basis of proposals
for change that respond to the challenges of implementing new technologies, work
organizations, and production processes.
This section is concluded with a text by Guillermina Tiramonti, from Argentina. The
fragmented face of the Argentinean education system is a study that spans the bound-
aries of public schooling by comparing widely different urban schools located in the
city of Buenos Aires. They are urban schools because they are in urban space. The
analyses take as their point of departure the identity crisis that befell Argentina in 2001
and established a watershed between what constituted the image of “being
Argentinean” – literate, citizen and inserted in the work market – and the new situa-
tion, in which these references were lost. In face of that, the author discusses the need
of repositioning the debate around the issue of inequality. She proposes a closer look
at this system. The unequal configuration of educational opportunities requires the
analysis of asymmetries in the processes that pervade the whole education system and
of the fissures and differences that can be seen in the features of schools, giving shape
to subjectivities. Fragmentation is understood as the loss of unity and common refer-
ences. The fragment is itself a self-referred space, in which one can distinguish conti-
nuities and differences. The school has a different meaning to each group, and such
classifications do not necessarily correspond to the rigid divisions between social
strata. This fragmentation also affects those that dedicate themselves to teaching.
There are several signs of the loss of social roots and strong asymmetries in their
expression. The school is turned into the boundary of integration, but it does not offer a
vehicle to deliver pupils from their situation of vulnerability. Two main lines of differ-
entiation seem to demarcate the boundaries between the fragments. One of them is the
kind of work intended, some of them inspired by the aesthetics of consumption, others
based on the ethics of labor. The other differentiating factor is how the youngsters
operate in the globalized space. The line separates those who have more freedom to
change and choose more interesting scenarios for their lives, and those who are tied to
national borders or forced to emigrate because of hardship in that country. To some,
such options do not even exist. These are the pupils of the public schools. The poorer
children inhabit globalization bound to the local. A level of mobility, the freedom to
choose the places where one’s life happens, and the possibility of deriving gratification
 Urban Education in Latin America 577

from work constitute the ingredients of a full life within the globalized context. The
new factors of differentiation seem to reproduce the ancient experience of inequality.

Acknowledgements
In different ways, I was helped by many people along the time I worked in this project.
I thank Adolfo de Oliveira, André Bocheti, Denise Trento, Elba Barretto, Elza Pino dos
Santos, Flávia Sarti, Gláucia Toni, Isabel Bello, Jessé Rebello de Souza Jr., Luciana
Viviani, Luiz Ramires and Romualdo Portela de Oliveira. I also thank my family –
Lino, Daniel, Mariana and Bernardo, Arthur and Flora. Special thanks to George
Noblit and William Pink for their invitation and encouragement.

Notes
1. Burke makes these comments when he analyzes two books that have been recently published: The idea
of Latin America (Mignolo, 2005) and A história do conceito de “América Latina” nos Estados Unidos
(Feres Junior, 2005) [The history of the concept of “Latin America” in United States].
2. See chapter by Faria Filho and Vidal.
3. This issue appears in most chapters of this section. About school failure and policies addressed in
Brazil, see the chapter by Barretto and Souza, and the chapter by Souza and Souza.
4. The profile of American urban schools presented, for example, in Challenges of Urban Schools
(McClafferty, Torres, & Mitchell, 2000) and in Reinterpreting Urban School Reform (Mirón & John,
2003), allows us to note that there is a great deal of similarity between these schools and the Latin
American public schools. This suggests comparative studies, including research on the use of the
expressions urban school and public school, as although they may be taken as synonyms at first, they
are not wholly equivalent.
5. This statistical data was presented in a text by Florencia Quesada-Avendaño (2006), Imaginarios
urbanos, espacio público y ciudad en America Latina [Urban imaginaries, public space and city in
Latin America]. See also: Nuñez-Estrada, 1992, about the uncontrolled growth of México City;
Rolnik, 1997, about urban policy in the city of São Paulo; Santos, 1996, about time and geographic
space, including in the era of globalization.
6. It is worthwhile to highlight what is discussed by Dale (2004) who, by analyzing the relations between
globalization and education, compares two theories: the one by John Meyer and his collaborators,
which he calls “Common World Educational Culture,” and the one by himself, referred to as
“Structured Global Agenda for Education.” According to him, essentially, those who propose the first
perspective “argue that the development of the national teaching systems and the curriculum cate-
gories are explained by means of universal models of education, State and society, rather than by
means of distinctive national factors”; whilst his position is based on recent works on international
political economy, “which face the change of nature in the world capitalistic economy as the driving
force of globalization and seek to establish its effect even if intensely mediated by the local, over the
teaching systems” (pp. 425–426).
7. In the case of the Dominican Republic, that was its Decennial Education Plan (cf. Braslavsky & Cosse,
1997).
8. The Program for the Promotion of Educational Reforms in Latin America and the Caribbean
(PREAL), founded in 1996, is co-directed by the Interamerican Dialogue, USAID and IDB. The pro-
gram does research commissioned by the World Bank or funded by it and has, in addition, the support
of representatives of the great transnational capital. Its head office is located in Chile.
9. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (PREAL) is a branch of UNESCO, whose
work started in the post-war period. Several authors, such as Oliveira (1995) and Almeida Filho (2003) have
drawn attention to the redirecting of CEPAL in the 1990, which became one of the major sources of the ideas
guiding the educational policies throughout the Latin American continent and the Caribbean.
578 Bueno

10. To build these arguments Zibas uses a document by CEPAL (1992). According to her, this optimistic
view has weakened lately due to the remarkable increase of social inequality and exclusion, including
in the central countries.
It is interesting to note that the assessments of the reforms undertaken in this perspective are lim-
ited to focusing on the role played by the State and the internal dynamics of each country. They often
bring important elements and details when, for example, they identify the presence and action of dif-
ferent actors – the State itself, the businessmen, the trade unions, in addition to others. The several
logics in the game, the tensions generated by the changes in various levels of the systems and their
segments, ignore one of the basic principles that presided over the installation of such processes: the
logic of the market. An analysis of this kind may be found in Braslavsky and Cosse (1997), a docu-
ment of PREAL.
11. In this respect, see the chapters about the reform in Chile and Colombia; and also the chapter on
Argentina that analyses the issue of the fragmentation of the Argentine educational system.
12. Raczinsky and Muñoz (Chapter 4) confirm the Cosse’s evaluation about the increase of social
segregation.
13. About politics for educational equity, see Garcia-Huidobro, 2004.
14. BIRD, CEPAL, UNESCO and their various programs and workshops, such as: PROMEDLAC
(Principal Project on Education in Latin America and the Caribbean), which meets every second year
and is made up of representatives of the State members of UNESCO in the region; OREALC/
UNESCP (Regional Office of Education for Latin America and the Caribbean); also, UNICEF (The
United Nations Children’s Fund), among others.
15. Something quite similar is also seen in Brazil. See Bueno (2005).

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31

HISTORY OF BRAZILIAN URBAN EDUCATION:

SPACE AND TIME IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS

Luciano Mendes de Faria Filho* and Diana Gonçalves Vidal†

*
Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil;
†
University of São Paulo, Brazil

Our purpose is to sketch the process of the institutionalization of primary schooling in

Brazil. We will focus on the historical constitution of school times and spaces, under the
assumption that together times and spaces play a major part in the social and school orders.
They are always personal and institutional, individual and collective, and the effort to cir-
cumscribe them, control them, materialize them in charts of years/series, schedules, clocks,
sirens, or in specific rooms, schoolyards, individual or double desks, must be understood
as a movement that has had or has proposed multiple trajectories for the production of the
school. Hence it’s educative strength and it’s centrality in the school apparatus.
The organization of this chapter around three topics – home schools, monument
schools, and functional schools – explores the three main moments in the history of
primary education in Brazil. These are examined from the viewpoint of the physical-
architectural place occupied by the school, as well as by the multiple temporalities
experienced in it, and seen from the perspective of the pedagogical innovations and
education reforms. Although we will examine some of the aspects of rural schools, our
focus is on the urban schools as most of the changes occurred in the capital cities.
This analysis also touches upon the material and methodological changes intro-
duced by the reforms as part of their strategies of pedagogical renovation. They indi-
cate the response to social problems in the establishment of a hegemonic school model
throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Here the focus was to civilize the
nation in the aftermath of the abolition of slavery, and to nationalize the foreign, with
their origins in immigration (subsidized or not): this often involved the confrontation
between a school (and state) government and a home government. The changes
processed in school contents in the last 200 years can be understood in the same man-
ner. The modifications effected in what we now call syllabi and curricula were also
intimately related to the challenges faced by the affirmation of the modern school
form, both in what it required in terms of production of new social practices, and in
what it meant in terms of revising the pedagogical principles governing the exchanges
between the school world and the social world.
581
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 581–600.
© 2007 Springer.
582 Faria Filho and Vidal

Writing about the grammar of schooling, David Tyack and Larry Cuban (1999, p. 85)
stated that “little has changed in the ways that schools divide time and space, classify
students and allocate them to classrooms, splinter knowledge into subjects, and award
grades and credits as evidence of learning.” They were referring largely to the last 150
years, in which they identified a remarkable continuity of school practices in the United
States. In particular, they regarded the introduction of the Graded Schools, already com-
mon in North American big cities in the 1860s, as a landmark for primary education.
Although we agree with the authors when they argue that the organization of school
times and spaces, together with the classification and hierarchial ordering of pupils
and contents have been the pillars of the structuring of modern education systems, it is
also necessary to stress that when they are taken in direct correspondence to the pre-
cepts of the pedagogical field, the configuration of these elements is not always
observed for what it reveals about the social struggles in which the school is involved
in its institutionalization as a place of passage for all childhood. The long process that
allowed the school to establish itself as a specific institution, with its own doings, not
infrequently clashing with other social institutions, particularly the Church and family,
is sometimes obscured by the huge triumph it achieved in society’s imagination.
The reverence we display today towards the imposition of school’s time, knowledge,
and practices over the social (Church, family, community, and social groups), together
with the normative belief about the need and importance of schooling as a means of
human formation and preservation of cultural unity, were not constructed without both
forward and backward steps, in which the limits of the school’s actions were constantly
reassessed, the objectives redefined, and the modes of action revised. If the school has
conquered an elevated position in society, this does not mean that it has not accepted
demands, adapted to tensions, and assimilated many conflicting interests from the var-
ious groups (themselves jostling each other within society). Quite the opposite, the
longevity of the school institution has only been possible because it was (and still is)
in permanent change, despite apparent immobility.
It comes as no surprise that to the distribution and daily use of time in schools in the
first half of the nineteenth century were connected to one limited teaching “program.”1
Such programs, in their extension and depth, were very different from those created
during the last decades of the nineteenth century.2 and first decades of the twentieth
century.3 The reforms in the programs closely matched the proposed changes for the
use of school time. These changes in school time were themselves tightly related to the
principles pedagogical methods and materials, and with the construction of school
spaces, while also responding to the wishes of the governing souls.
Our focus is on a school that organized itself above all in the urban landscape, to
meet the growing demands for reading, writing, and calculation abilities. It was in the
environment of villages and small towns that, initially, during the eighteenth and nine-
teenth centuries, there developed a sociability that assumed the practice of reading and,
sometimes, writing. Likewise, it was in this same locus that the economic and cultural
development turned indispensable the three basic abilities we mentioned. It was this
urban school model that, mainly since the last quarter of the nineteenth century, was
publicized throughout Brazil in an intense movement to give the country a school sys-
tem that would allow it to partake in the progress achieved by the nations regarded as
 History of Brazilian Urban Education 583

civilized. Before we move on in the characterization of primary schooling in Brazil, it

seems fit to draw a few comments about the relation between school and urban.

The Urban School: Some Issues

To begin with, it is necessary to note that the intertwining of the school and the urban does
not follow a unique pattern. Despite many studies calling attention to the fact that school-
ing in modernity is a phenomenon observed firstly in the cities (Chartier, 1991), and,
moreover, that the strengthening of school as a socializing institution is tied to the large
transformations that took place in cities from the sixteenth century in Europe (Vincent,
Lahire, & Thin, 2001) and in Brazil from the nineteenth century, it can also be seen that
other factors intervened in this relation in a way that rendered it more varied.
Thus, phenomena such as the constitution of capitalism and industrialization, of reli-
gion and of religious fights, of variegated cultural and social formations, all stand as
necessary to our reflection on the relations between the urban and the school. There are
here continuities and ruptures in the representations and practices that produce (and are
produced by) this relation, and understanding them is essential. In Brazil, one must con-
sider the weight of the Iberian tradition in the construction and in the dealings with the
public and the private, as well as their respective places in the forms of cultural produc-
tion and reproduction, so that one can give a measure, for instance, of how much the city
could – or could not – have been constituted and represented as the privileged locus for
educative action. On the other hand, to build a slave-trading and Catholic society severely
limited (without quite impeding) the development of schooling within our cities, even in
those with greater sociocultural complexity.
We can then say that there are themes and moments of the historical doing in which
it is possible to see very clearly the intertwining of the school and the urban. The first
of those is the theoretical production and that of the urban and educational ideas in the
last centuries. It is indeed possible to say that the urban and school ideas and utopias
were, above all since the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, born out of the same
thought matrices, as Cynthia Greive Veiga (2002) has already demonstrated. Both car-
ried the weight and the belief in the redeeming view of modern sciences and rationali-
ties. Both participated in the rationalization of culture and, faced with the heterogeneity
of subjects, cultivated a homogenizing utopia. Both worked theoretically and rhetori-
cally with a set of dichotomies such as barbarian and civilized, archaic and modern, old
and new, rural and urban, among many others. Finally, in such ideas and utopias, to
redesign both education and the urban, was to conceive of modernity.
The theme of citizenship is another topic in which the urban and the school inter-
lock. Both from a conceptual point of view and from the standpoint of historical expe-
rience, the theme of citizenship constantly refers to the city, to urbanity and civility,
and thereby, via intricate paths, to education. If the modern political and educational
thoughts have made school the entrance door to citizenship, they have also connected
the notions of urbanity and schooling. It is no accident that in many Brazilian
preschools at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries one of
the basic disciplines was Urbanity.
584 Faria Filho and Vidal

At the same time that the relationship between the school and the urban is charac-
terized by all kinds of utopias that seek to articulate various memories and social proj-
ects, they are both indebted to the mercantilization of social life observed under
capitalism. Established since the founding moment of the educational thought and of
modern urbanism, the perspective of the city and of education as business seem fully
realized by the end of the twentieth century.
The relevance of this theme makes it an object of the concern of a considerable
share of social thinkers – the education thinker here included – in the last centuries
(some would say, since antiquity). They undoubtedly offer us incentives to understand
and criticize the ways in which the intertwining of the urban with the school has taken
place. There is, in fact, on a theoretical level, another interlocking here: the use of com-
mon theoretical tools in the understanding of the school experience and the urban
experience. Obviously, it is no accident that the widely known work of an author such
as Michel de Certeau serves the dual purpose of helping us understand the city and
the school, or more to the point, the experience in/of the city and the experience in/
of the school. By making explicit the differences between the discursive rationalities of
the urbanists, writers, and prescriptions in general, on one side, and the astuteness of the
tactics of the walkers, readers, and practitioners in general, on the other side, Certeau
gives us essential elements to help us avoid the traps of apparent obviousness and lack
of conflict hidden under terms such as citizenship and rationality, when they refer to
the school and the urban in modernity. In fact, the most varied conflicts of interest are
explicitly and articulated around those two points, offering themselves to our view
under the multiple facets taken by the historical process of schooling society.
Under this perspective, to focus on the public school in Brazil during a significant part
of the period analyzed means to understand the history of a school that develops within
the urban environment, and that is made public in the dual sense it has acquired to us: of
something that takes place within the public sphere – in opposition to happening within
the private sphere of the home – and of something that constitutes an institution main-
tained by the public authorities for the whole population. Mostly in the nineteenth cen-
tury, there were many private or domestic schools in Brazil. They were created by parents
or a great farmer, maintained by these people with their own resources and installed in
the teachers’ home or some other private place. Bringing these schools to the public
sphere was a dynamic commonly found in almost every Brazilian state or province,4
making state or public a primary (or elementary) school formerly organized by a private
teacher/master. That required the government to take responsibility for paying the teach-
ers and supplying the schools with materials in addition to adapting or constructing
schools buildings.
In this analysis we are therefore most concerned with the history of the process of
schooling and the constitution of the school model of socialization of new generations.
We try to display its general features, always keeping in mind that it develops very
unevenly across different Brazilian regions and that consequently our analysis will
often only capture its most important and defining lines. To delve into more specific
moments and environments would require a study based on different sources and a
different theoretical and methodological framework, quite impossible for us at this
moment and under the bounds of the present text.
 History of Brazilian Urban Education 585

We intend to follow the debates that took place in the field of education throughout
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and more specifically those debates that referred
to the distribution and organization of pupils, classes, and school spaces. This procedure
highlights the challenges the school had to face, both of a pedagogical order and of a
social and political order, in its process of institutionalization.

Home-Schools
The colonial period (1500–1822) gave us only a small number of royal schools or pub-
lic chairs of first letters, created mainly since the latter half of the eighteenth century.
With teachers recognized or labeled as such by the public bodies responsible for edu-
cation, these schools operated in improvised spaces, such as churches, sacristies, local
council rooms, entrance rooms to Masonic Lodges, commercial buildings, or in the
residences of the masters themselves (Barbanti, 1977; Hilsdorf, 1986). In the latter
case, the teachers sometimes received a small allowance to help with their rent. It was
not unusual for the four-hour teaching period to be divided into two sessions: from 10
to 12 A.M., and from 2 to 4 P.M.
However, we cannot say that only those who went to school had access to the first letters.
On the contrary, there is evidence that a network of domestic schooling, that is, of teaching
and learning of reading, writing and of calculation, particularly of the first of these, served
a number of people well above that of the state public system. Until well into the nineteenth
century, as far as one can tell, these schools, sometimes called private, sometimes domes-
tic, exceeded in number those with a direct link with the State.5 They made use of spaces
provided and organized by the parents of children and youths the teachers were to instruct.
It was not unusual to find neighbors and relatives alongside those children. Paying the
teacher was the responsibility of the head of a family, usually a farmer.
Another school education model that established itself during the nineteenth cen-
tury was characterized by the initiative of parents as a group creating a school then col-
lectively hiring a teacher. The fundamental difference in this model, quite similar to the
previous one in other respects, is the fact that the school and its teacher kept no links
with the state, despite the growing efforts of the latter in several moments to subject
these experiences to its designs.
It is this multiplicity of school models, to which one could also add the boys-only and
girls-only college, and the preceptorship, that we note existed in the nineteenth century.
The word ‘college’ is used here with the same meaning it had during the Modern Age
(see Hamilton, 1989). All of them, with the exception of the single-sex college, made
use of improvised spaces in families’ or teachers’ houses and in public or commercial
buildings. Slave children were largely forbidden to attend those schools until the last
decades of the nineteenth century: this did not mean that they did not have contact with
letters, and were not instructed, simply that they were educated in a more familiar or
communal model of schooling.
The issue of the space in which to harbor the public primary school began to surface
mainly in the second decade of the nineteenth century, when intellectuals and politi-
cians initiated the debate around the need to adopt a new teaching method in Brazilian
586 Faria Filho and Vidal

schools: the mutual method (Bastos & Faria Filho, 1999). They argued that the way in
which the school was organized, with the teacher teaching each pupil individually,
even when their classes were composed of several students (the individual method),
prevented the school from being offered to a larger number of people, making the
school costly and less efficient.
Brazilian politicians and intellectuals demanded faster, cheaper schools with better
trained teachers.6 The method they advocated (largely employed in Europe) made it pos-
sible, according to its proponents, for a single teacher to have up to 1,000 pupils. They
only required adequate space and materials and, above all, the help of teaching assistants.
Everyone recognized that to accommodate dozens or even hundreds of apprentices it was
necessary to build new school spaces. Moreover, such spaces were regarded as indispen-
sable to the success of the school project they defended. Such space should take into
account not just the number of students, but also the mobility of assistants among
classes, the mobility of students inside the classrooms, the need to affix notices and other
materials to the walls, among other innovations proposed.
The advertising to promote the superiority of the mutual method was intense during
the first decades of the nineteenth century. Emperor Pedro I himself to called for its
adoption and, in 1827, made it mandatory in all first letters public schools of the Empire.
The first educational law of independent Brazil was sanctioned on October 15, 1827
and determined that:

in each capital of province there shall be a School of Mutual Teaching; and in

those towns, villages, and more populous places in which a public building can be
found suitable to the application of this method the school shall be of mutual
teaching, its teacher being obliged to instruct himself at the respective capital
within a given period, and at his own expenses, should he lack adequate training
in this method. (Villela, 1999, p. 150)

It was as part of the advertising of the mutual method that in 1825 the Minas Gerais
newspaper O Universal circulated the following concern: “The problem to be solved is
therefore: how can we generalize a good elementary education without large expenses
by the Government, and without taking from the working classes the time they need to
dedicate to the various pursuits of their occupations?” (O Universal, July 18, 1825).
This preoccupation, as regards time and its use, in school or otherwise, was at the cen-
ter of modernity itself, and was naturally a central aspect within the schooling processes.
The discussion turned, on one side, to the relation between the school and other social
institutions or occupations, among them the family and work, seeking especially to make
parents realize the importance of the school and of making sure their children attended
school regularly.
However, it seems to us that this was not the main issue. The central aspect here was
the progressive establishment of the school time, which needed to be in constant dia-
logue with other social times. This school time was gradually invested, in the discourses
of that period, with a specificity that showed up in a more productive perception of
teaching, made possible from the repartitioning and sequential organization of school
contents, necessary to the activities of teaching assistants in their relation with the
group of apprentices (divisions).
 History of Brazilian Urban Education 587

Beginning in 1834, the distancing of the central government in the Empire from the
expansion of elementary public schooling, signaled a transfer of responsibility for
schooling to the provinces. The diversity of economic and political activity across sev-
eral Brazilian regions, together with the relatively high costs of maintaining mutual
teaching (e.g., expenses for notice boards, geometric solids, benches and desks for all
students, pointing sticks and daises for the assistants, bells and rattles for sound signals,
sandboxes for writing, slates and blackboards), appears to us to be two of the major rea-
sons for the decline of mutual teaching as early as the 1840s. This was followed by its
progressive combination with simultaneous or individual teaching, creating the hybrid
method, or of its substitution by individual teaching.
The material and spatial reality of the Brazilian school remained a topic of debate
for the next 30 years. In the 1870s the diagnostics from the various professionals work-
ing at schools or in the administration of the services of instruction, or still from politi-
cians and other people interested in the education of the public, such as doctors,
engineers, and lawyers were unanimous in stating the precariousness of the spaces
occupied by the schools, particularly the public ones, but not just these, and defended
the urgency of the construction of buildings specific to the carrying out of preliminary
education.
The newspapers of the time circulated texts denouncing the destitution of primary
education:

Since the teacher is poor, and meager is his salary, the school is installed in any
room, as long as it is cheap and can absorb his wages. For furniture, he will seek
two or three wooden benches, a chair for himself, a desk upon which he can at
least rest his elbows and make notes, a pot and a mug, and so we have raised the
well-appointed palace of instruction. Inside, twenty, thirty or forty children will
group, having as their sole horizon the somber cracks of a lattice, and during four
or five daily hours they will torment the ears and the larynx vocal chords in a dis-
mal uproar, breathing vitiated air and dust, ruining their health, tiring the intelli-
gence, killing the will to learn, the natural child curiosity and the patience (…).
The result is the school becoming the children’s bad dream. (Editorial of A
província de São Paulo, 13/01/1876, apud Hilsdorf, 1986, p. 104)

This editorial summarizes several of the arguments used by the critics of nineteenth
century schools: the poor salaries of the teachers, the lack of buildings adequate for the
teaching, the material and methodological poverty of the classes, and the disrespect for
rules of hygiene. Nevertheless, in this same decade the province of São Paulo saw the
start of investments in school buildings with the inauguration in 1876 of the first
school building in the borough of Arouche, with “benches made in the American sys-
tem at the Ipanema plant,” followed by others in the boroughs of Luz and Santo
Amaro. (Hilsdorf, 1986, pp. 104–105)
It was particularly in the last quarter of the nineteenth century that the efficacy of
elementary schooling finally managed to associate itself to the school building,
thereby indicating the victory of those who claimed the superiority and specificity of
official education with respect to other forms of social formation and socialization
such as the family, the Church, and even of communities. Such representation was
588 Faria Filho and Vidal

articulated at the junction of various factors, among which we wish to emphasize those
of political-cultural, pedagogical, scientific and administrative orders.
With regard to the first of these, we must consider that the institutionalization of
schooling and the strengthening of the Imperial State were both phenomena of a political-
cultural order. Related to this is the fact that schooling, in the modern world, has emerged
as an institution that has functioned to display and strengthen state power structures. Some
even mark the realization of modern statehood as the point at which education was for-
malized. In Brazil, as demonstrated by Ilmar H. Mattos (1994), school education during
the nineteenth century was progressively taking the features of a fight of the state gov-
ernment against the home government. In these terms, symbolically, to take the school
away from the domestic environment also meant to distance it from the cultural and
political traditions around which the domestic space organized and presented itself.
Second, the pedagogical discussions, especially those that referred to the method-
ological proposals, demonstrated the need to build places dedicated to the school as a
condition for it carrying out its specific social function. Thus, the defenders of the
intuitive method in the third quarter of the 1800s, just like the proponents of the mutual
method at the beginning of the century, argued that the classroom space should respect
the new pedagogical principles then associated with the lessons of things. The new
method insisted on the importance of changing teaching from abstract to concrete,
allowing the student to acquire knowledge through the senses. It made necessary use
of an innovative arsenal of didactic-pedagogical materials (globes, notices, collections,
desks, notebooks, books) that were supposed to define a school. Such a standardiza-
tion would limit the places where schooling could take place, thereby maximizing the
benefits possible by the newly conceived spaces for schools.
The development of scientific knowledge, notably that of medicine, and within it of
hygiene, and its approximation to the pedagogical doing had a decisive influence upon
the definition of the need for a specific place for the school (Gondra, 2000). At the
same time that they developed a sharp criticism of the awful conditions of habitation
and of the other buildings to the general population’s health, the hygienists emphasized
above all the damage caused to children by the appalling school buildings, regarded as
detrimental to their health and learning.
Finally, the lack of adequate spaces for schools was also seen as an administrative
problem, in the sense that the school institutions, isolated and distant from each other,
ended up not being inspected, failing to offer reliable indicators of the development of
teaching and, moreover, absorbing a significant part of the budget in renting the school
house and that of the teacher. So, teachers were not controlled, statistics were forged,
teachers mixed their teaching activities with other professional pursuits, and many
times the classes literally did not take place.

Monument Schools
It was necessary to wait until the mid-nineteenth century, first in São Paulo and then in
several other Brazilian states, to propose the creation of Graded Schools. In and through
these schools, the Republicans tried to make visible the Republic and its exemplary, and
sometimes spectacular, educational project.
 History of Brazilian Urban Education 589

The Graded Schools, conceived and built as veritable temples of knowledge (Souza,
1998), embodied simultaneously an array of knowledge and of political-educational
projects, and introduced the ultimate nineteenth-century education model: that of the
graded schools. Presented as the way in which the Republicans could break free from
the Imperial past, the Graded Schools looked forward, projected a future in which,
under the Republic, the people, reconciled with the nation, would beget an orderly and
progressive country.
Often monumental, these schools were built from blueprints according to the number
of pupils, usually four, eight, or ten classrooms, distributed along one or two floors, with
spaces allocated to school library, school museum, staff common room, and administra-
tion. Erected symmetrically around a central courtyard, they offered separate spaces for
the education of boys and girls. To the formal division of the drawing, a wall was some-
times added, creating a physical barrier and preventing communication between the two
sides of the school. These buildings had separate lateral entrances for boys and girls.
Despite being based on standardized blueprints, the buildings took on varying features,
having their façades altered.
Many designs proposed a variation on the size of the classrooms according to the
grade of teaching. The classrooms for the first series were larger than those for the
final years of primary schooling. This was in agreement with the constant dropout of
older pupils observed during the process of establishment of the Graded Schools (but
not only then). Normally, toilets were not part of the main body of the building, being
connected to it by covered passageways.
The materials of intuitive teaching, the desks affixed to the floor, the central posi-
tion of the teacher, all seemed to indicate predefined places for pupils and teachers in
the classroom. Outside it, the courtyard was the place for the distribution of children.
Activities such as gymnastics or singing that took place in it sought to give it appro-
priate uses. The rigid division of the sexes, the precise definition of individual places
inside the classroom, and the control of body movements during class breaks gave
shape to a dispositional and motor economy that distinguished the school pupil from
one not attending a school.
On the other hand, contact with the monumental architecture, the wide corridors, the
tall ceilings, the grand dimensions of windows and doors, the rationalization and clean-
liness of spaces, and the way the school building stuck out among the other city build-
ings were designed to impress upon the students the appreciation for rational and
scientific education, valuing a cultural and aesthetical symbolism constituted by the
lights of the Republic.
If new school spaces were necessary to accommodate graded schooling, to allow the
respect for the hygiene standards of the late nineteenth century, to facilitate school inspec-
tion, to favor the introduction of the intuitive method and to disseminate the Republican
ideology, new school times also commanded attention. In an environment where the
school was until then an institution that adapted itself to peoples’ lives, characterized by
isolated schools insisting on having their times and spaces organized according to the con-
veniences of the teacher and pupils, and taking into account the local customs, it was not
enough to produce and legitimize a new place for education. It was also necessary that
new time references and new rhythms were constructed and legitimized.
590 Faria Filho and Vidal

A first dimension of school time to be changed was the definitive imposition of

simultaneous teaching. After dividing the classes according to level of knowledge and
age, the pupils were assigned to a teacher, sometimes helped by an assistant, who
should propose collective tasks. Each and every student was supposed to perform the
same activity at the same time.
Following the principles of wellness in vogue at the time, which made use of the idea
of mental fatigue, the school contents were distributed along the daily journey, approx-
imately 4 hours, in a rigid schedule. Each period of 10 or up to 25 minutes, depending
on which state of the country the school was in, corresponded to a class, and therefore
to an exercise. After around three classes a 10-minute pause was made, when the pupils
would march and sing inside the classroom. At noon there was a 30-minute lunch break.
The detailing of the class schedules proposed by the Programs of Instruction, contem-
plating daily, weekly, monthly, and annual distributions of the teaching, learning, and
evaluation process indicated the intent of delimiting the school time.
To enforce schedules thus determined, in which minutes were counted and disciplines
were distributed along their respective times for every day of the week and every year of
the course, it was considered fit to provide these schools with norms and instruments for
the control of time and school schedules. Instruments such as bells and tinklers were
made part of the basic materials of Graded Schools, and many times of isolated schools
as well. The Internal Regulation of Graded Schools and Isolated Schools of Minas Gerais
determined that “every period of classes or of break shall be announced by the prolonged
ringing of an electric bell or tinkler, at the discretion of the principal,” and furthermore
that “disciplines programmed for each school day shall not be replaced even if there is
shortage of classes in the week” (Article 13, paragraphs 5 & 6).
The Regulation gave centralized control of the time to the principal of the school,
subjecting the teaching work in one of its more fundamental aspects, namely, that of
the daily distribution of disciplines along the period of a few hours in which the pupils
remained in the school, to a predetermined order and logic, forbidding the substitution
of disciplines or their displacement in time.
The association of time and discipline is illustrated in the account of São Paulo
inspector Mário Bulcão:

The whole program of our schools should be organized distributing the disci-
plines along the days and hours of school work. In short: a schedule-program. In
this way, the teacher would have before his eyes the discipline he should teach at
any time of any day, and the inspector entering a school would know, by a simple
look at his watch, which service would be being carried out. (Report, 1900, apud
Souza, 1998, p. 220)

And so it was this artificial time, adequate and ordered by human reason that the teach-
ing regulations tried to impose on teachers, principals, pupils, and even families. Not
by accident, this process occurred inside a social movement of rationalization of time,
fitting to the capitalist relations that were then being established. The assessment of
implementation of these tasks was one of the many functions of inspectors. At the
Graded Schools we must note that the school principals tended to organize the time in
 History of Brazilian Urban Education 591

their schools according to parameters other than those of the linearity and rigidity of
the regulations.
Despite the fact that the actions of teachers, pupils, principals, and even of inspec-
tors were never a pure submission to the school order then imposed, we must recognize
that, over time, the school acquired its own time and space, in spite of customs, health,
hygiene, and culture of those attending it. Attendance, by the way, being for some a
“fantasy” throughout the year, as some principals would express in their reports, was
even more fantasized in months as December, a month of celebrations. Again, over
time, we must acknowledge that the school simply stopped functioning during the last
month of the year.
The schooling in 4 or 5 years proposed by the Graded Schools, with readiness by the
end of it in various knowledge areas of an encyclopedic character did not reflect to the
wishes of the popular strata, who saw in the school (and not necessarily in schooling)
a means of access to certain socially valued contents, such as reading, writing, and
counting. Associated with the mandatory nature of teaching already announced since
the 1870s, such schooling reinforced the intrusion of the State in family times and
doings, dictating a new organization of daily tasks and schedules for the family, and
also questioning the authorities constituted within the family sphere. It outlined con-
flict zones on what was regarded as the ideal school by the different social groups. The
low attendance and the dropout rates in the final years of primary schooling can be
seen as indicators of those disputes. At the same time, the lay orientation of the teach-
ing in the Graded Schools and the establishment of a calendar of classes that respected
few religious holidays pointed to other conflicts that would persist for almost a century
in the standardization of state education in Brazil.
It is inside this tension zone that the school culture developed, having the Graded
School as its pivotal point. This is similar to what happened in the United States and
described by Tyack and Cuban as promoting a grammar of schooling that crossed into
the twentieth century: this grammar of schooling serves as a fundamental reference for
the graded organization of classes, as well as for the rationalized use of time and
spaces. It also guided the systematic control of the work of teachers and administra-
tors. We can, however, identify changes that occurred over time, as we shall detail next.

Functional Schools
Despite the fact that the first Graded Schools were built in São Paulo during the last
decade of the nineteenth century, the construction of similar spaces was still a demand
of a good part of state capitals in the 1920s and 1930s. In the city of Salvador, for
example, at the few public schools:

The teacher would meet with his own salary the costs of renting a classroom or a
school building. There was no school furniture. It was up to the students to bring
to the teacher’s home the chairs and desks, but poverty would not allow them to
do so. The best they could do was to improvise with barrels, boxes, small board
benches, narrow and precariously balanced stools, leather or rush chairs. Most
592 Faria Filho and Vidal

common was for pupils to write while lying down facing the newspaper-covered
floor, or else to perform their tasks kneeling around benches or chairs. (Nunes,
2000, p. 377)

Regarded as models of a new form of school education, particularly insofar as they

made possible a better use and performance of school time, the Graded Schools had
quite distinct histories in the various Brazilian states. Such differentiation, generally
speaking, followed the evolution in the organization of the states’ public systems of
primary education up until the New State (Estado Novo) in the 1937–1945 period,
when nationwide guidelines on education put forward by a central body (the Ministry
for Health and Education) tended to homogenize school contents, methods, times, and
spaces. Until then, education in several Brazilian states (and several provinces of the
Empire) followed guidelines defined by the Departments of Public Instruction for the
primary, professional, and normal (teacher training) levels: a legacy of the division
into provincial and Imperial jurisdictions that took place in 1834.
Regardless of not being established throughout the country, the Graded Schools in
the 1920s and 1930s suffered changes in the form and culture of schooling they repre-
sented. The teaching reforms inspired in the New School ideas, the diversity of pro-
posals they advocated and their different realizations notwithstanding,7 had the
tendency of resignifying times and spaces of primary schools.
In search of greater homogenization of the aesthetic and cultural message that the
school buildings transmitted, a survey about colonial architecture was carried out in
1926 by Fernando de Azevedo on behalf of the O Estado de São Paulo newspaper.
Collecting the impressions on Brazilian architecture of architects, educators, and
physicians, the survey allowed Azevedo to propose a new standard for school archi-
tecture: the neocolonial. In their conception, school buildings should carry the dis-
tinctive mark of Brazilian identity so as to advance in children the attachment to the
nation’s values and the signals of nationality. In this sense, evoking a supposed colo-
nial architectural tradition, Azevedo pointed to the neocolonial architectural style as
the school architecture par excellence.
In the following year, when taking charge of the General Directorate of the Public
Instruction of the Federal District (Rio de Janeiro), therefore the Brazilian capital’s, he
initiated a construction program of school buildings, which in three years put up nine
school buildings in neocolonial style. The principles that should guide the construction
of these edifices were based on pedagogical needs (e.g., adequate lighting and ventila-
tion, playrooms, play courtyards, toilets, etc.), aesthetic (e.g., promoting the taste for the
beautiful and for the artistic), and patriotic (e.g., promoting Brazilian identity by recall-
ing colonial architectural values, and by the cultivation of Brazilian traditions). The
environment, according to the reformer, should be educative, that is, joyful, pleasurable,
picturesque, and with a captivating landscape.
The blueprints gave visibility to several aspects of the New School ideals. They incor-
porated spaces such as dental and medical clinics and laboratories, a requisite for school
buildings from the 1910s. The single school entrance for boys and girls consolidated the
principles of co-education promoted by the New School supporters in the 1920s. School
libraries and museums were once again valued. Against the mere observation of pupils
 History of Brazilian Urban Education 593

recommended by the intuitive teaching, the active school advised the constant activity of
the student. Thus, instead of places of visitation, museums and libraries also became
spaces of experimentation.
The rigid division of schedules in the primary school was questioned by the new
methods, particularly by the design method. The sequential division of school time in
activities, previously related to hygiene and biological features of the pupil, was now
replaced by the psychological time of the pupil’s interest.

It is not the time that indisputably fixes the limit of the lesson, it is the psycho-
logical need, the interest raised of which the master must make use, working the
subject without time limits, developing the work because the class is interested by
itself, and therefore would not want to stop it. (Azevedo, 1930, p. 15)

The high costs of the school buildings proposed by Azevedo earned him severe criti-
cism from Rio de Janeiro educators and from the press. After all, given the shortage of
public schools in Rio and the huge sums invested in the construction of just nine
schools, Azevedo’s architectural plans were not satisfactory at a time when the expan-
sion of the population attending primary school in Brazil was being emphasized. If, on
one side, his project permitted a better rationalization of uses, with different spaces for
each activity carried out inside the school, it was still attached to an aesthetical ideal of
building that was reminiscent of the monumentality of the first Graded Schools.
Expensive, the sumptuous school buildings of the first decades of the Republic
absorbed a significant amount of the already meager budget for public instruction. The
effort and expense made to bring to light the Republican realizations in the field of
popular education became the target of criticism as movements for the democratiza-
tion of the public school took shape. The monumental buildings began at this point to
signify the restriction of education to the elite, and the contempt towards the education
of the poorer. By criticizing the construction in the Fernando de Azevedo reform, a
movement was to begin that would allow a change in the architectural conception of
the school in Brazil.
In the 1930s in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo a new policy for the construction of
school buildings was taking shape. In 1933, Anísio Teixeira in Rio, and in 1936
Almeida Júnior in São Paulo introduced proposals for the construction of simpler and
more economic school buildings. In this same period, in 1934, the Brazilian Education
Association organized the first exhibition about school architecture. The standardiza-
tion of the plants was also reaching the façades. The functionalist architecture offered
scalable models of standard schools. The dialogue with the New School principles was
being revitalized.
A new survey, promoted by Almeida Júnior in São Paulo and published in 1936,
revealed several criticisms of the school buildings of the 1890s–1930s. Educators,
architects, engineers, doctors, hygienists, and psychologists were asked to express
their opinions on the school buildings.
To the São Paulo architect and teacher José Maria das Neves, the new buildings
should be simple and inexpensive, refusing the colonial style. Of huge dimensions the
school architecture did not admit symmetries; neither should it submit the placement
594 Faria Filho and Vidal

of doors and windows to aesthetic standards. It was to the functional, rational archi-
tecture, making use of local materials, and respecting climate conditions, uses and cus-
toms, and not to architecture of façades, that the design of school spaces should be left
(Apud São Paulo, 1936, p. 63).
Noemy da Silveira Rudolfer, teacher of educational psychology at the Normal
School of São Paulo, established the necessary relation between school time and
space. By defending a closer approximation between the physical spaces and the activ-
ities of students and teachers, she affirmed that only thus the space would mean time:
possibility of dilation of the school period to a more real, more integrated life (Apud
São Paulo, 1936, p. 95).
Almeida Júnior’s proposal projected school buildings varying from 4 to 25 class-
rooms, each classroom receiving 40 students, distributed along two or three floors,
according to the population density of the borough where the school was located. They
should have spaces for gymnastics, medical and dental clinics, showers, and orchards for
the botanical studies and school hygiene. Buildings would be used in two daily shifts.
In Rio, similar issues were discussed. Combining a model of nuclear schools or
class-schools with that of park-schools or school parks, the Anísio Teixeira adminis-
tration came up with even more original answers to the challenges of building inex-
pensive schools in different regions. Drawing support from the urbanist remodeling
plan proposed by Alfred Agache, the Department of Education created a project of
school building that sought to serve evenly the different boroughs of the city.
Less densely populated areas would have school buildings of “minimal type,” with
three classes or 240 pupils. To serve up to 1,000 students, up to 12 classes, “nuclear
schools” were proposed. Approximately every four “nuclear schools” would correspond
to a “park-school,” responsible for the gymnastics, musical and hygiene instruction, food
assistance, and the practice of reading in children and youth libraries. The use of those
spaces would be alternate, so that in the first shift the child would have the teaching
“proper,” and in the second shift a fully equipped school park (Teixeira, 1935, p. 199).
To complete the plan, “platoon” schools would still be built in three different models:
25 classes, for up to 2,000 pupils, 16 classes, for 1,300 pupils, and 12 classes for 1,000
pupils. The advantage of the “platoon” system consisted in optimizing the use of the
school space. Classes did not have their own classrooms. Split into platoons, pupils
moved between classrooms distributed according to preordained disciplines and sched-
ules. By the end of 1935, 25 new schools had been built in the Federal District, two of
the “minimal type,” eleven “nuclear 12 classes,” one “nuclear 8 classes,” five “platoon
12 classes,” one “platoon 16 classes,” three “platoon 25 classes,” and one “park-school,”
apart from the reconstruction of the Machado de Assis school as a special, 6 classes
school (Oliveira, 1991, p. 167).
This intricate project associated different needs of space according to the location of
the school, Secretary of Education financial resources, topographical conditions of
each region, and pedagogical principles of social demands. The integration of the
class-schools with the park-schools in alternate periods again displayed the time-space
relation pointed out by Noemy Rudolfer. The proposal to reinterpret school space went
even further with the abolition of the fixed desks. Chairs and tables constituted a new
way of using the space in the classroom. Distributing the pupils in groups, the position
of the furniture was altered, denying the posture facing the blackboard, and removing
 History of Brazilian Urban Education 595

the teacher from the central position. In the reorganization of space and reordering of
time, a new relation between teacher and pupils was being established.
Changes in the conception of school time, brought about by the introduction of the
design methods and of the centers of interest, changes in pedagogical relations as a
consequence of the emphasis on the child’s activity, changes in the school space with
the appearance of new school places such as children’s libraries and the hygiene edu-
cator office, these were some of the demands that the expansion of schooling imposed
on the State. To value the experience and activities of the children, even if to discard it
later, was a way found by the public offices to attract a growing number of pupils, with
the aim of keeping them inside the school for a longer period, decreasing the distance
between the school doings and the social doings of the popular classes.
It was no small issue. To assess attendance, retention, and dropout rates, Teixeira car-
ried out a survey which showed that school dropout reached all social categories in which
pupils have been classified (indigent, poor, modest, and well-off). The average primary
school attendance in the Federal District was around three years.8 After that period,
poorer children would begin to work, and the well-off would prepare to enter secondary
education. With the intent of adjusting to that reality, schooling was divided into two
cycles: primary (first 3 years, with the objective of teaching reading, writing, and count-
ing), and intermediate (the following 2 years, to improve the pupil’s cultural back-
ground). The goal was to fulfill the demand for elementary knowledge by the popular
classes, as well as the general cultural honing by the elite.
The new school buildings were also targeted at full-time education.9 This offered the
opportunity for the school to realize the more cherished ideals of the New School edu-
cators namely, the laboratory school. Opening up to test these new proposals would
allow for the observation and systematization of child behavior, the experimentation
with new pedagogical methods and practices rooted in the Brazilian reality, and the
construction of scales and measures, making it possible to define local scientific
parameters. It also permitted the study of new social habits and their evaluation under
Brazilian standards, as well as made visible the impact of the changes implemented by
the action of the new educators in Brazil.
In 1947, the full-time school project based on the articulation of class-schools and
park-schools was implemented by Anísio Teixeira, this time in Bahia, when he became
the Bahia State Secretary for Health and Education.
It was based on similar principles to the Rio de Janeiro experience. To every four
1,000-pupil class-schools there would correspond one park-school for 4,000 pupils,
working in alternate shifts.
School times and spaces were distributed, according to Teixeira, in the following
manner:

The body of pupils would enroll in the four class-schools, where they would be
organized into classes and series established by each school and where they would
spend half of the complete nine-hour school period, divided into 4-1-4-hours. The
other half of the time would be spent in the park-school, organized differently from
the conventional school, with pupils now split mainly by age group and type of
aptitudes not into groups of forty but of twenty pupils, which should during the
week take part in work activities, physical education activities, social activities,
596 Faria Filho and Vidal

artistic activities, and activities of organization and library. Each morning, half the
students would be in the park-school and the other half would be distributed
among the four class-schools. At noon, the students at the class-schools would go
to the park-school, where they would have lunch, have a resting break, and then
would be distributed, according to the program, among the different activities of
the park-school. And the pupils who had spent the morning in the park-school
would, in their turn, have lunch at the class-schools, and then be distributed among
their school activities. (Teixeira, 1967, pp. 249–250)

In 1950, the Carneiro Ribeiro Primary Education Center (the first and only institution
to associate class-schools and park-schools in Bahia) was inaugurated. The experience
was publicized by the United Nations, and the Center remained in operation until
1998. The Center also proposed offering a home to abandoned children.
Full-time primary education was not, however, the biggest challenge faced by educa-
tors at the end of the 1940s. The expansion of the school system to the countryside, bor-
der regions and areas of immigrant colonization in the south of the country seemed to
demand more immediate attention. At least, that was how the government would speak
about the issue. The tone of official discourse was very similar to the diagnostics made
at the end of the nineteenth century about Brazilian education.
The statistics presented by the federal bodies were alarming. Of the 6.7 million
school age children, only 3.2 million were enrolled in schools. Of the 44,000 schools
in operation, only 6,000 had been built as schools and belonged to the government. All
arguments, however, pointed to a watershed: urban schools and rural schools. The best
buildings and most of the enrollments were in the cities. The countryside was pre-
sented as the focus of this attendance problem: it was suggested that virtually all of the
population of school age students (from 7 to 12 years old) who were not served by
schools were located in the rural areas.
The proposal for the construction of rural schools was based on the ideal of simple
buildings, without a well-defined standard, determined by a set of essential requisites,
such as classrooms, covered patios for recreation, toilets, and a house for the teacher
containing a living room, kitchen, and two bedrooms. Of the 6,160 buildings planned
for construction between 1948 and 1949, only 1,216 had actually been built. The build-
ings were a result of agreements between the National Institute of Pedagogical Studies
and the Brazilian states and territories, drawing from the National Fund for Primary
Education (Presidential Bill No 4958 of January 14, 1942) (Brasil, 1942).
The growing simplicity and economy of school construction proposed in the 1950s
and 1960s, both for the city and for the countryside, pointed to changes in conceptions
about school spaces and, therefore, about the place of the school in the Brazilian social
environment. Instead of the lavishness displayed at the outset of the Republic, the strug-
gle for the democratization of schooling made itself felt in functionalist buildings, tech-
nically designed for a quick and efficient education. They included specific places for
machinery, such as a mimeograph, and in the more rustic solutions associating formal
teaching to the teacher’s house in the rural areas.
School times were also progressively dilating, both vertically (duration of the
course) and horizontally (school schedules and length of school shift). Nevertheless,
with the exception of isolated experiences, it was expected for children to stay in
 History of Brazilian Urban Education 597

primary school for approximately 5 hours daily for 5 years. The extension of funda-
mental education to eight years would not come until the 1970s, with the approval of
the Law of National Education Bases and Guidelines 5692/1971, and with the extinc-
tion of the Graded Schools. That, however, has not become a reality to this day.
According to the 2003 census carried out by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and
Statistics (IBGE),10 the average schooling of the Brazilian person is 6.4 years, and illit-
eracy among those 15 years old and older reaches 11.6%.

Final Comments
The institutionalization of elementary, preliminary or primary school as a place of pas-
sage for all children was a long process in which the imposition of certain definitions
of time, knowledge and school practices, sustained by the State, had to be constantly
negotiated with the different social groups. Even though it involved reassessing the
limits of school’s actions, redefining its objectives and revising its modes of action, a
grammar of schooling was structured. Developed initially in urban areas and based on
a written and industrialized model of society, this grammar of schooling managed,
over time, to dictate all forms of schooling.
Although this process has been going on for two centuries, it is still not totally con-
solidated in Brazil, especially in the rural zones. Recent statistics show very clear find-
ings. Even though the 2003 census promoted by the IBGE reveals that only 2.8% of the
population between 7 and 14 years of age were out of school, a breakdown of the data
shows that a considerable fraction of school age children have not managed to finish the
first cycle (first four series) of fundamental education, which grosso modo correspond
to the old primary schooling. Data show that the average years of schooling for people
between 10 and 14 years of age is 4.1 years: this would be the desirable schooling for
students in the 7–10 years old range.11 If we isolate the rural context, this statistic is even
more problematic. In 2000, almost one-third of the rural population was analphabet
(29.79%). This rate decreases to one-tenth in urban areas (10.25%) at the same period.
Contrary to the diagnostics made in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the
schooling problem is no longer due to the shortage of places at school. According to
Mansano Filho, Oliveira, and Camargo (1999, p. 40), since the 1980s there are,
numerically speaking, enough places at school for all the population between the
ages of 7 and 14. They warn, however, that the difficulty remains because of the
series/age gap, and because of the criteria for the distribution of schools in the coun-
try, promoting a surplus of places in some units, whereas in others there is a short-
age of places.
The concern with guaranteeing that pupils remain at school has, again, provoked
changes in the school times. According to the Law of National Education Bases and
Guidelines promulgated in 1996 (LDBEN 9394/96):

basic education can be organized in annual series, semestral periods, cycles, regu-
larly alternating periods of study, non-serial groups, be based on age, competency
and on other criteria, or by other forms of organization whenever the interest in the
learning process so recommends.
598 Faria Filho and Vidal

The Law still allows the reclassification of pupils, and the adjustment of the calendar to
regional peculiarities, as long as the minimum of 200 school days per year is respected:
an extension instituted in this law on the minimum of 180 days per year of the previous
legislation (Law 5692/71).
The relation between series and final exams, constituted at the end of the nineteenth
century by the creation of the Graded Schools, was replaced by the “continual and
cumulative evaluation of the pupil’s performance, with predominance of quantitative
aspects over the qualitative, and of the results along the period over those of final
exams, if they exist.” Lastly, the LDBEN fixed four hours as the minimum duration of
effective daily work in the classroom for the fundamental school, which must be
progressively extended aiming at the implementation of full-time schooling “at the
discretion of the education systems.”
The new mechanisms put in place try to give an answer to the tensions faced, still
today, in the schooling process for all the population between 7 and 14 years of age, and
therefore in the institutionalization of primary school in Brazil. These lingering prob-
lematics also stimulate us to keep asking questions: three questions are key, (1) “What
type of school do the various contending groups in society want?” (2) “What are the mul-
tiple representations of school, of school time and space, at play in those desires?” and
(3) “what can those representations tell us about the various social functions attributed to
school and schooling by the distinct groups, as well as about the living conditions of
those populations, and about the inequalities in Brazilian society?”
Our own hope is that we might find in the understanding of these different hopes
placed upon the school institution a path to the construction of a truly democratic school.

Notes
1. As determined by Article 1 of Law No 13 published in Minas Gerais in 1835, which is quite similar to
other laws published around the same time in other provinces, “the primary instruction is composed of
two degrees. In the first, reading, writing, and the four basic arithmetic operations shall be taught, and
in the second level reading, writing, arithmetic up to proportions, and general notions of moral and
religious duties.” Second-degree schools are those located in larger towns and villages, and first-
degree schools are located in places with smaller populations. Wherever there were second-degree
schools, first-degree schools would not be installed. As to the contents, in schools for girls, besides the
contents for the first-degree school, there would be “orthography, prosody, general notions of moral,
religious and domestic duties” (Article 3).
2. “In the list of disciplines that became part of the syllabus of preliminary schools in the State of São Paulo
since 1892 one can find all those disciplines of a scientific and moral nature that had been introduced in
the syllabi of primary schools in several European countries and in the United States of America from the
second half of the nineteenth century. They included: reading and fundamentals of grammar, writing and
calligraphy, counting and calculating with integer numbers and fractions, practical geometry (tachyme-
try) with the necessary concepts for its application to the measure of surfaces and volumes, metric deci-
mal system, freehand drawing, moral practice, civic education, elements of general geography,
cosmography, Brazilian geography, especially of the State of São Paulo, notions of physical and natural
sciences in their simpler applications, particularly to hygiene, Brazilian history and readings on the lives
of great names of history, music reading and singing, gymnastics and military exercises appropriate to
age and gender. An encyclopedic syllabus for a republican and lay school. From it the Christian doctrine
had been excluded, denoting the lay character of the Republic” (Souza, 1998, pp. 171–172).
 History of Brazilian Urban Education 599

3. The complexity of the syllabi in the 1920s and 1930s led to the creation of teaching books and guides. The
contents of the programs were no longer included in the text of the education laws and regulations, as was
then usual, and appeared in specific publications. That was the case of the editions prepared by the
Fernando de Azevedo reform (1927–1930) and Anísio Teixeira reform (1931–1935) in Rio de Janeiro. To
mention just a few examples: Programma para os Jardins de Infância e para as Escolas Primárias (1929),
Rio de Janeiro: Officinas Gráphicas do Jornal do Brasil; Programa de linguagem (1934), Departamento
de Educação do Distrito Federal. Série C. Programas e guias de ensino, no. 1. Rio de Janeiro: Cia. Editora
Nacional; Programa de ciências sociais (1934), Departamento de Educação do Distrito Federal. Série C.
Programas e guias de ensino, v. 1, no. 1, 2, 3 e 4. Rio de Janeiro: Cia. Editora Nacional.
4. The Brazilian history traditionally recognizes three political-administrative periods. The first,
Colonial, goes from the arrival of the first Portuguese ships in 1500 to the Proclamation of
Independence in 1822. The second period is called the Imperial, since with the separation from
Portugal the monarchic regime is installed in Brazil. The third period begins with the establishment of
the Republic in 1889. During the Imperial period, the various political-territorial units were called
Provinces, which became the States after the Republic.
5. The Minas Gerais experience, which does not seem to be unique in this respect, clearly demonstrates
it. In 1827, Bernardo Pereira de Vasconcelos claimed that in Minas Gerais there were 23 public schools
and 170 private schools.
6. The first Normal School created in Brazil, in Niterói in 1835, aimed at disseminating the principles of
the mutual method, preparing its pupils for its use (see Villela, 1999).
7. The decentralized character of the administration of primary education caused the Provinces, and then
the States, to develop the education in their own territories. Hence the difficulty to analyze globally the
changes made to primary education in Brazil. Transformations were local and differentiated. Despite
topical variations, however, in the 1920s and 1930s several reforms were made in various States based
on the ideas of the New School, particularly in São Paulo (Sampaio Dória, 1920–1925, M. B. Lourenço
Filho, 1930–1931, Fernando de Azevedo, 1933, and A. F. Almeida Jr., 1935–1936), Minas Gerais
(Francisco Campos, 1927–1930), Rio de Janeiro (Carneiro Leão, 1923–1926; Fernando de Azevedo,
1927–1930; Anísio Teixeira, 1931–1935), Ceará (M. B. Lourenço Filho, 1922–1923), Bahia (Anísio
Teixeira, 1925–1927) and Pernambuco (Carneiro Leão, 1928–1930). For a study of the reforms, see,
among many others, Nagle, 1976, and Carvalho, 2000.
8. The distribution of pupils in 1932 in primary education was: first year: 39.978; second year: 19.265; third
year: 13.544; fourth year: 7.593 and fifth year: 4.150. Less than one third of the pupils enrolled in the
third year. The fourth and fifth years represented just 10% of total enrollment (Teixeira, 1935, p. 36 e 77).
9. For full-time education we are referring to schools where students stay all day long (morning and after-
noon), taking class and participating in other activities for about eight hours a day.
10. Results for the census were retrieved at http://www.ibge.gov.br on June 28, 2005.
11. In the 1999 census carried out by the IBGE we can see that 11.2% of the population between 8 and
14 years of age had not completed even the first year of the fundamental education, and that 27.4% of
the population between 11 and 17 years of age had not completed the fourth year. At that time, the
average schooling of a Brazilian was around 6.1 years.

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Filho (org.), 500 anos de Educação no Brasil (pp. 371–398). Belo Horizonte: Autêntica/Prefeitura
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Architecture of Public Schools in the Federal District].
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Diretoria de Ensino. [New Buildings for Primary Schools].
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Departamento de Educação do Distrito Federal. Dezembro de 1934. Rio de Janeiro: Off. Gráphica do
Departamento de Educação. [Public Education: Administration and Development. Report of the Head of
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do século XIX. Bragança Paulista: EDUSF. [Citizenship and Education in the City Net: The Construction
of Belo Horizonte in the Late 19th Century].
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L. de. M. Faria Filho (Eds.), A escola elementar no século XIX: o método monitorial/mútuo (pp.154–176).
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mutual Method].
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33, 7–47. [On history and the theory of school form. Education in Review].
32

LEARNING CYCLES: TRANSITION POLICIES

FOR A NEW LOGIC OF COMPULSORY
SCHOOLING IN BRAZIL

Elba Siqueira de Sá Barretto and Sandra Zákia Souza

University of São Paulo, Brazil

The idea underlying learning cycles is to correct the school fragmentation arising from
the grading system by adopting a flexible school work organization. It is argued that
this best fits the learning needs of compulsory school students, since it is able to avoid
repetition between one or more academic years.
Learning cycles started to develop in Brazil in the middle of the last century. At that
time, Brazil was one of the countries presenting the highest retention levels in Latin
America according to educational statistics: schools retained almost 60% of the stu-
dents who were supposed to be promoted from the first to the second grade of primary
school. Retention was so connected to school failure. There were many reasons to
address this problem, other than political ones, such as the urgent need to make the
four years of compulsory school universal, guaranteeing the Brazilian population the
education required by the country’s quick pace of growth and urbanization. In order to
conserve resources, it was necessary to look for alternatives that would make a greater
supply of vacancies possible, since retention caused great harm to the public school sys-
tem because it restricted its ability to meet the demand for education. There were also
pedagogical and psychological reasons, such as the importance of fully developing
students’ potential and enhancing their self-esteem.
Fifty years later, organizing schools in cycles became a primary measure to democ-
ratize education in the sphere of public policies outlined for primary education. What
has changed and what remains the same about the reality of Brazilian schools that may
justify this point of view. Although Brazil has better development levels than other
Latin American countries in many aspects, it has comparatively bad education indica-
tors. Although the compulsory eight years school was established in the 1970s, the uni-
versal schooling was accomplished only by the end of the twentieth century. Moreover,
although school indicators have gradually improved over the long term, retention has
remained an obstacle for many Brazilians. At the turn of the century, almost half of pri-
mary school students presented an age/grade mismatch. This means that the number of
vacancies required to enroll all students of this school level was much higher than the
601
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 601–618.
© 2007 Springer.
602 Barretto and Souza

number of those which would be necessary to educate children from 7 to 14 years old,
if they could study during the eight years of compulsory school without being inter-
rupted by retention. This also means, of course, that correcting this mismatch would
make it possible to raise more resources to improve school quality, as well increase the
number of vacancies in the subsequent levels.
In spite of these faults in the Brazilian school system, Brazilians have also been facing
new school requirements. In response to these new demands, the Federal Constitution of
1988 and the Brazilian Law for Education Guidelines and Norms (Lei de Diretrizes
e Bases da Educação Nacional) enacted in 1996, have considerably extended the scope
of basic education. Since then, the public basic school encompasses both primary school
and early childhood education (for children aged 0–6), as well as high school (for stu-
dents aged 15–17): this shift also indicates a progressive universalization of this last edu-
cation segment. Under these circumstances, the extension of high school in a reasonable
period of time also supposes the removal of barriers to the conclusion of primary school.
According to the school census of 2003, however, about half (50.5%) of the 9.1 million
students aged 15–17 were still in primary school,1 whereas only 49.5% of students of this
age range attended high school. These data reveal the need for measures to correct the
student flow from primary into secondary schools.
Being admitted to school and then to be retained at that grade level for the follow-
ing year, means to undergo an exclusion process of dimensions that are more tragic
than the prior exclusion of students due to lack of schools in the past. Today, the fact
that many students do not master basic knowledge and are not, therefore, able to meet
course requirements in schools, is typically attributed to personal incompetence
(Dubet, 2003). Learning cycles are a central part of policies intended to reverse this
interpretation of student failure, such as policies also seeking to guide public schools
to build an inclusive culture.

Learning Cycles: A Concept Under Construction

We may point out a number of initiatives adopted by the Brazilian school system involv-
ing the concept of learning cycles. The shades of its meanings, resulting from different
historical contexts and from concepts of education which have changed over time, indi-
cate that the concept of learning cycles is to be built by the multiple experiences that
intend to guarantee every citizen’s right to education.
The first proposals of this nature date back to the 1960s and 1970s and are based on
the school organization adopted in England. The English model was made known as a
reference in Brazil in the middle of the last century. In the Brazilian case, they have
generically been called continued progression and are characterized as intermediary
stages between the graded school regime and the age promotion regime in force in the
English system: note that in the latter, student progression is not interrupted during the
years of compulsory schooling. The Brazilian experiences during this period, by contrast,
were not much publicized.
The use of the term learning cycle for alternatives to the non-graded school organi-
zation is recent. This term first appeared in the mid-1980s. Since then, many different
 Learning Cycles: Transition Policies 603

names have been assigned to learning cycles, according to the specific arrangements of
school systems.2 Some public school systems implemented learning cycles encompass-
ing only the first two or three primary school years, where literacy is concentrated.
In these cases, the learning cycle is usually called basic or literacy cycle. Other initiatives
with learning cycles encompass all of primary school. Among them, some use students’
development stages as an organizer, setting the three so-called human development
cycles for students as childhood, preadolescence, and adolescence.3 Furthermore, there
are also continuous progression cycles that divide primary education into two sets of four
years each: One goes from the first to the fourth year, when students have generalist
teachers, and the other goes from the fifth to the eighth year, with specialist teachers.
The introduction of literacy cycles in the 1980s marked a period of greater synergy
between the education systems. Since the 1990s, many schools have adopted learning
cycles in their whole primary school. Thus, they may now either simply connect the
former initial grades, or reorganize all grades in several groups.
Learning cycle proposals that are committed to the democratization of education go
beyond striving to make student flow more regular. Specifically, they incorporate more
encompassing social and cultural dimensions, together with a new understanding of
the nature and the ways of knowing, teaching, and learning. Even in the most conser-
vative formulations the explicit mention of grades as a basic reference for curriculum
planning is kept, while the strict interval of the academic year is no longer considered
the final term for students to acquire the expected knowledge. There are, however,
learning cycle school systems which have invested in deeper changes to school work
organization, school culture, and educational practices with the purpose of reversing
their prior exclusionary character.
Although there are differences between the meanings assigned to learning cycles in
different policies, it is possible to find common characteristics among them: in particu-
lar we note the purpose of overcoming the selective character of schools, of making them
more flexible in order to accommodate students’ differences, and the practice of sharing
this project with the school community. The emphasis given to these three elements in
the various projects, how they are taken and translated into actions capable of making
school changes possible, varies both in time and in the school contexts even within the
same school system. It is also very much related to management changes enacted, even
when the same political party that is leading the Executive branch remains in office.
The duration of cycles has also varied greatly among school systems. However, jus-
tifications for the number of years learning cycles should last, usually resort to a range
of theories: these justifications center around assessments of students’ biopsychological
and social development, pedagogical reasons, and factors referring to school system
structure, or combinations of them (Barretto & Sousa, 2004).
Reconsideration of the experiences of learning cycles suggests the need to over-
come the excessive tendency towards psychologization of the periods marked by learn-
ing cycles in some school systems and suggests the need for a deeper analysis of social
and cultural factors in the determination of the contours of the students’ school progres-
sion. In short, we argue that admitting the existence of multiple causes for low achieve-
ment in schools, can increase the probability for school to become more sensitive and
responsive to the reality of the student’s life.
604 Barretto and Souza

Learning Cycles: A Typical Organization for Urban Schools

Educational alternatives which aim to break free from grading have been implemented
in urban schools, primarily because these schools have traditionally followed strict
organization of students in classes. The decision to pass students to the next grade or
to retain them in the same grade for another year, is a structural element of the way
such schools are organized.
Although the primary education system in rural areas has 97,000 schools, repre-
senting 57% of schools in the country (School Census 2003), virtually every one of
these are small schools, with a small number of students due to the geographical dis-
persion and relatively small number of people living in the countryside. Because of
the intense urbanization the country has gone through, only 15% of the population
lives in rural areas (National Sample Household Survey – Pnad, 2003). Currently,
there are about 72,000 urban schools, but they account for 82% of primary school
students.
More than half of these rural schools have only one classroom and they offer only
the three or four initial grades of primary school. These schools are referred to as iso-
lated or single-teacher (unidocente) schools, because they usually have multi-grade
classes under the responsibility of a single teacher: this teacher teaches all students,
who are not separated according to their education level. Although these rural schools
have problems, arising mainly from the poor conditions of life and work in rural areas,
these schools have an organizational and work dynamic that functions to minimize the
artificial fragmentation of content frequently found in the grading system. Many chal-
lenges must be faced in rural education: these include the access-related issues and the
time students can stay in school and the organization of school work to make multi-
grade classroom work viable. Such schools must also contend with teachers who are
less well-prepared, as well as the low availability of teaching materials and the lack of
funds for equipment and repairs. However, it does appear that rural schools use school
time and space in a more flexible way compared to urban schools.
Urban schools that adopt the cycles are, usually, public schools. It is up to the state or
municipal4 governments to adopt them or not. Private schools, by contrast, usually pre-
fer to maintain the traditional organization in grades, but they only account for about
10% of all primary school students. The small number of students enrolled in private
schools, as might be expected, usually come from the middle or upper class. Students
who go to public school, however, represent the full range of Brazil’s social strata.
Thus, we cannot use the urban school category in Brazil, to explain the differences
in public school services.
In some municipalities and areas, urban public schools are the only ones available
and students from all social strata attend them. In large towns and cities in metropolitan
regions, by contrast, the types of public schools available tend to differ according to
geographical location and the population that they serve. In Brazil, for example, a fre-
quent distinction is that between the schools available in poor areas vs. the more afflu-
ent areas. We should note that schools located in poor areas, in decaying urban regions
or popular neighborhoods especially where low-income people are concentrated, are
not considered a formal category.
 Learning Cycles: Transition Policies 605

How Many and Where are Schools with Learning Cycles?

Although there was a large increase in the number of schools with learning cycles in
the 1990s and while the importance of implementing learning cycles has been
acknowledged both in the pedagogical discourse and by school management, this form
of school organization is not the standard practice in Brazil: the graded regime remains
the most common organizational arrangement.
Learning cycles were adopted by 18.9% of primary schools in 2003, and 11% of
them have exclusively this form of organization. However, if we consider the number of
students attending schools with learning cycles, the percentage of enrollment is much
higher due to the size of schools and their geographic location. In 2003, for example,
about 36% of primary school students were enrolled in schools organized exclusively in
learning cycles, or having more than one form of organization. When the option for
cycles is made, it is usually extended to the set of school units of an entire school sys-
tem. Sometimes, however, system managers give each school the option of deciding
whether to adopt this kind of organization or not. This is one of the reasons why we need
to understand learning cycles as a policy of school systems, rather than as isolated
school policies (Franco, 2003).
The number of enrollments in schools with learning cycles is not equally distributed
among the five Brazilian geographical regions. When we focus on the data in the Table 1,
we can see that schools with learning cycles are concentrated in the Southeast of Brazil.
Here, fully 86.7% of students are attending schools organized exclusively in learning
cycles: the States of São Paulo and Minas Gerais have the largest number of these stu-
dents. In the remaining regions, by contrast, the percentage of enrollment in schools
organized exclusively by learning cycles is relatively low.
Moreover, 41.3% of enrollments in schools adopting mixed regimes (grades and
cycles) are also located in the Southeastern region. Among other mixed regime schools,
the next highest percentage of enrollments is found in the Northeastern region (36.9%).
That means that although very few Northeastern schools are exclusively based on learn-
ing cycles, a very substantial number of students attend schools adopting mixed regimes.
However, there is a relatively large undefined area regarding the precise identification of

Table 1. Primary school – Brazil 2003. Number of Enrollments per region according to school organization

(Attendance in Total Exclusively More than one

millions) learning cycles form of organization

Deloitte % Deloitte % Deloitte % Deloitte %

Brazil: 34.4 100.0 12.4 100.0 7.1 100.0 5.3 100.0

North 3.3 9.6 0.2 1.5 0.0 0.7 0.1 2.5
Northeast 11.9 34.5 2.3 18.8 0.4 5.2 2.0 36.9
Southeast 12.4 36.0 8.4 67.2 6.2 86.7 2.2 41.3
South 4.3 12.6 0.8 6.8 0.4 5.7 0.4 8.2
Central West 2.5 7.2 0.7 5.7 0.1 1.6 0.6 11.1

Note: Enrollment numbers represent millions.

Source: MEC/INEP/SEEC.
606 Barretto and Souza

the number of students attending learning cycle classes in schools adopting more than
one form of organization: an analysis of the number of students involved in cycles is
complicated because data are collected based on the school and not on its students.
Suffice it to say that the statistical indicators used by the Brazilian Ministry of Education
should be more sensitive in order to clear up these uncertainties. Nevertheless, the avail-
able information makes it possible to affirm that there is a significant movement in
Brazil, which is relatively widespread among the different Brazilian regions, to change
the form of organization of schools.
According to the distributions observed in Table 1, the level of regional development
is not a determining factor for cycle adoption policies. Stated more directly, learning
cycles are concentrated in the richest and most populated Brazilian region (the Southeast),
and they tend to spread into a large number of schools, particularly those in the poorest
Brazilian region, which is also very populated (the Northeast).
It is possible, however, to associate the implementation of the cycle regime to both
poverty and population density (Franco, 2003). There are proportionally more schools
with learning cycles in the Brazilian state capitals than in their respective state school
systems. In spite of having more resources than many of the other municipalities in
their state, these urban centers tend to have dense pockets of poverty: this poverty is
unlike the widespread poverty found in the interior of the country.
State or municipal schools with learning cycles, especially in the Southeastern
region, tend to be concentrated in the metropolitan regions, the most populated ones,
which is exactly where both extreme poverty and wealth are found. This is the case in
Greater São Paulo, one of the largest urban concentrations in the world, Greater Rio
de Janeiro and the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte, in the state of Minas Gerais.
In these areas, there are many schools in poor neighborhoods. These areas also have
high rates of violence and their schools do not work as well as schools in other regions.
These factors mean that the conditions for implementing the changes demanded by
learning cycles are very adverse, both from the point of view of the school culture and
given the typical levels of the support offered to teachers and students.

Learning Cycles Analyzed by Academic Studies

Studies on learning cycles intensified after the 1990s, when there was an increase in
the number of schools adopting them. We will discuss key issues raised by these stud-
ies: this discussion is based on Cycles and School Progression in Brazil, conducted by
a research group from the School of Education of the University of São Paulo (USP)
which includes a series of publications from 1990 to 2002 (Sousa & Barretto, coords.,
2004),5 as well as more recent work.
This work encompass not only reflections about the fundamentals and conditions
for the implementation of learning cycles which have, in turn, given rise to discus-
sions about their assumptions and practical implications, but they have also included
some important analyses. Such analyses focus on specific initiatives in the introduc-
tion of the cycles and examine the policies as they were formulated and implemented.
Most of these studies, as might be expected, relate to state and municipal schools
 Learning Cycles: Transition Policies 607

in the states and capital of São Paulo and Minas Gerais, especially those located in its
capital, Belo Horizonte. This happens, of course, not only because the Southeast
region has the most schools with learning cycles, but also because this region has
the greatest number of graduate programs, where there is a focus on scientific
publications.

Learning Cycle Fundamentals

Despite the diversity in formulating learning cycles, there tends to be a consensus
about the political, social, pedagogical, and psychological principles declared as fun-
damentals of the policies that propose them. Although several decades have gone by
and the society, the world context and even educational systems have undergone many
changes, the justifications for adopting learning cycles remains essentially the same
(Barretto & Mitrulis, 2001). The cycle principles, however, lend themselves to differ-
ent objectives. First, they have the potential to contribute by guaranteeing the right to
education and to the democratization of teaching. Second, they play an important role
in the preservation of the students’ self-esteem: it has been argued that they contribute
to student development, while both respecting their differences and offering them
quality learning.
There have been some questions raised concerning the economy of resources when
adopting cycles. School managers argue that the adoption of cycles usually results in
good use of public money and a reduction in the money wasted when students repeat
grades. A current reaction among some educators, by contrast, is to speak out against the
implementation of learning cycles. They claim cycles have been adopted just because it
was necessary to reduce expenditures on education. Typically, teachers do not identify
investments compatible with the possibility of improving working conditions in schools
with the quality of teaching. In spite such controversies over the economic arguments
associated with the adoption of learning cycles, to date there are no studies which
assess their real impact on investments and on government spending. Such studies
would also be important to compare the gains in student performance resulting from
their introduction.
It is a common assumption among teachers that there are external influences from
multilateral organizations in the determination of learning cycle policies: this is seen as
a support for the economy of resources, which stems from the suppression of grade rep-
etition. However, in the surveys examined there was no evidence that the adoption of
learning cycles stems directly from pressure from these institutions, let alone that finan-
cial support is received from them. In this case, it is probably the general emphasis of
the educational policy carried out by some school management teams in particular
which can suggest this association.6
Another aspect which is greatly emphasized in the studies is that it is necessary to
guarantee adequate conditions for the development of learning cycles. The most fre-
quently mentioned conditions are the need for commitment of social actors to the pro-
posal, adequate working conditions for their development, and teacher training.
Besides working conditions, there is also an emphasis on the involvement of teachers
and administrators who can reflect critically on the nature of the traditional school
608 Barretto and Souza

culture. This reflection is important for stimulating a conversation about breaking the
current selective character of schools.
These data also suggest the need for an investment in teacher training programs
that go beyond their typical focus on the technical character of teaching. It has been
argued that such new programs for teacher education should incorporate the politi-
cal dimensions proposed in the reorganization of work in schools. Arroyo (1999), for
example, places great emphasis on teacher training programs that are offered in
exemplary schools. We must recognize that as learning cycles are not a finished pro-
posal waiting to be put into practice by schools, their successful implementation
depends greatly on the capacity of teachers at the school level to transform these
general guidelines into a concrete project. Moreover, a more comprehensive reflec-
tion on the development of learning cycles suggests that it is also necessary for ini-
tial teacher education courses to include content that can lead future teachers to
bring new perspective to their work, such as that required by the adoption of learn-
ing cycles.

Implementation Conditions
It is noteworthy that in schools that have adopted learning cycles, this has been fol-
lowed by the assignment or extension of collective work hours, as well as by the cre-
ation of mechanisms that enable individual students’ needs to be met. Among these
mechanisms, the most frequent has been the catch-up programs offered to students in
smaller groups outside of class or during regular classes. Nevertheless, according to
many teachers, the proposed measures and resources made available have been insuf-
ficient to support the desired changes. This opinion has been voiced with higher or
lower frequency depending on the state or municipal school and on the ability of the
management team to support such conditions. Regardless of the context, however, this
negative voice has been present.
All too frequently, teachers do not identify themselves as co-participants in devel-
oping and implementing these cycle proposals: this is the case even in those schools
that try to assure more participation of educators within a democratic management
process. An often voiced concern of teachers is that they feel that the responsibility for
all students’ learning success tends to be almost exclusively theirs. They believe,
rather, that this responsibility should be shared by all levels of the school system.
Research by Fernandes (2003) adds new and valuable insights into the working con-
ditions in schools with learning cycles and the attitudes of the teachers who work in
them: this is important because this is study of a school in a poor neighborhood of
Niterói, a city in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro. Instead of the typical
research that focuses on the micro universe, the author’s thesis expands the survey to
the whole nation by analyzing the questionnaires answered by teachers from a repre-
sentative sample of schools in the tests of the 2001 Brazilian Basic Education
Assessment System (SAEB). The analysis suggests that, new relations are likely to be
established between schools with learning cycles and their neighborhoods.
Working in particularly difficult social contexts, these schools tend to have a higher
turnover of teachers. Overcrowded classrooms make it difficult to use alternative
 Learning Cycles: Transition Policies 609

spaces for extra help to students, and therefore, this specialized attention is frequently
not viable. The lack of staff is more frequent and the scarcity of pedagogical resources
is more severe, which confirms the regressive character of public policies that end up
more seriously affecting populations with less bargaining power.
Nevertheless, though tending to move away from the conditions required for a ped-
agogical concept of learning cycles, which demands the continuity of the educational
work and the solidarity of everyone in the school, the study suggests that it is in these
schools and not in graded schools that teachers tend to be more committed to their ped-
agogical project and more involved with students’ learning. This probably happens
because the very logic of the learning cycle contributes to destabilizing the way schools
traditionally work, even though it has not affected radical change.
In spite of adversities, Fernandes also points out some positive results for students,
which stemmed from the adoption of learning cycles. This work demonstrates that by
eliminating repetition, learning cycles have been responsible for the increase in the
time students stay in school, for the advance in school progression and for the decrease
in student absenteeism. It is hypothesized that students gain more from school because
its role as the students’ socialization environment increases: thus, the significance of
the school often replaces that of the streets, which is especially important for inhabi-
tants of areas where violence and crime rates are high.
Other authors have examined the impact of learning cycles. Bonel (1993), analyz-
ing the implementation of learning cycles in the large school system of the State of
São Paulo, suggests that the complex management of schools mediates between sys-
tem management practices and what happens in the classroom. Bonel suggests that
this mediation effect has made it difficult to be clear about learning cycles: as a result
of this lack of clarity, they end up undergoing endless reinterpretations before they
reach the classroom and frequently emerge in a form very distant from the original
formulations.
Several authors have pointed out that the discontinuity in the support of learning
cycle implementation that arises from changes in the school management staff, has
functioned to compromise the consolidation of these policies: they note that the suc-
cessful implementation of learning cycles demands a longer period of time than the
typical tenure of a school management team to produce the desired effects.

Learning Cycles and Curriculum

The curriculum implications stemming from the implementation of learning cycles are
not addressed in the literature. Just a few works include the required longer analyses of
these issues. Duran (1995), for example, points out that the deep change in literacy
paradigms occurring during the mid-1980s in Brazil with the dissemination of Emília
Ferreiro’s research and of studies derived from sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics,
found fertile ground to develop in the proposal of the basic cycles. In the 1990s, there
were a number of state and municipal schools that adopted learning cycles and guide-
lines for interdisciplinary approaches, and who also developed curriculum that inte-
grated work projects or thematic complexes. These initiatives try to join the approach
of issues with a strong social appeal to the treatment of the areas of knowledge, and
610 Barretto and Souza

connect that in turn to a perspective that values the cultural lives of students who come
from different social backgrounds. In this way, the students are assured of the proper
conditions to express themselves and to be recognized as individuals (Alavarse, 2002;
Dalben, 2000b; Krug, 2001).
It is worth pointing out one of the activities developed by the Plural School of Belo
Horizonte, for instance, because of the questions it raises with respect to new appro-
aches to literacy. The project is directed at adolescents from poor neighborhoods who
live in conditions of great social risk. Although they are attending the final cycle of pri-
mary school, they have not been able to catch up with their age bracket in reading and
writing. In most cases, students who fall into this category are black male teenagers
with consecutive school failures, who are much stigmatized. Like others in similar con-
ditions, these students typically limit themselves to performing school rituals. In gen-
eral, they refuse to get involved with school projects, while they are frequently involved
with violent acts which result in the school disciplining them. Authors such as Dubet’s
(2000) and Charlot (1996), have shown how the behavior of these students also results
in them being excluded from opportunities to learn.
The innovative practices developed with a view to teaching these failing teenagers
how to read and write called for several learning activities to be conducted off the
school premises: instruction was given in a variety of cultural facilities in the city.
Workshops on painting, graffiti, origami, theater, music and percussion were the main
activities in the program. Arts and games proved to be the approache of paramount
importance in establishing meaningful interactions with these teenagers. The willing-
ness to listen to students helped to promote learning activities outside the school envi-
ronment, which turned out to be meaningful social practices for the students. Such
progress in the construction of individual and group identities has created conditions
for improving writing and reading skills. This innovative approach to learning has also
led students to systematically reflect on language, while new possibilities of work were
opened to teachers (Belo Horizonte, 2004).
Although this experience was limited to a single context, it not only opens up new
possibilities for teaching failing and marginalized students, but it also suggests a range
of practices that can be extended to other state and municipal school systems. Clearly,
the acquisition of basic reading and writing skills by students in general remains a
problem to be solved in Brazilian schools. We should note that even when learning
cycle policies are based on a consistent educational project, as in the case of the Plural
School, where they are implemented in schools where the majority of the teachers have
a university degree and work in favorable working conditions, the problem remains.
Literacy in the Plural School, however, is much less problematic than in schools that
have not adopted learning cycles, together with an innovative instructional strategy.
This draws our attention to the poorly conceptualized and insufficient measures
which are commonly proposed with the learning cycles to address the difficulties
posed by the low literacy levels in many schools: these strategies typically include
inadequate individual help; catch-up programs taught by less experienced teachers;
boring repetition of the same pedagogical approaches during extra help sessions; lack
of connection with the activities originally performed in the classroom; and a lack of
adjustment to the student’s culture.
 Learning Cycles: Transition Policies 611

Another issue concerns the involvement of the teaching staff with literacy. Histori-
cally, primary schools have assigned secondary education teachers or teachers holding
a college degree in education to the first four grades or the initial cycles. To teach from
the fifth through the eighth grade or in the cycles that correspond to them, teachers
have to hold a degree in the specific subjects. However, it is well-known that teachers
holding a degree in specific subjects have great difficulty in dealing with students who
do not know how to read and write. As a result of the training they undergo, even
Portuguese language teachers do not feel prepared to deal with the initial teaching of
the written language. Thus, by default, teachers who teach the initial grades or cycles
bear the overall responsibility for literacy instruction.
We suggest that with the progression of students having different competences and
skills, stemming from learning cycles, all teachers must learn how to teach reading and
writing. This means that their training must be reconceptualized to take this new chal-
lenge into account: this new focus on literacy must emphasize free reading and writing
in order to replace the current practices which leave language void of meaning. If this is
done, literacy can effectively become a reading of the world, full of relevant knowledge
on both the physical and social environment.

The Importance of Assessment in Learning Cycles

Among curriculum practices, assessment is the one that has received the most atten-
tion in publications. The importance of assessment is related to the elimination of the
possibility of retention, at least in some school grades. This has been considered the
most destabilizing aspect in educational work exactly because it confronts the educa-
tion based on examination: this is a logic that makes curriculum, school routines and
practices, and the expectations of teachers, students, and parents move around the
“contents of the exams.” What is important in education, then, is what is “required” in
the assessment. For the student, what becomes all important is the “pass or fail,” or
obtaining a certificate or not.
In schools that have adopted learning cycles, teachers report that they lose power
and control of the teaching situation. In particular, they note that controlling the class
becomes more difficult, particularly in classes of older students. According to many, in
a non-retention system teachers would not be motivated to teach and students would
not be motivated to learn. Parents tend to have divergent opinions concerning reten-
tion. Some admit that suppressing retention enables students to proceed with their
studies without the tensions triggered by the graded system. Others, however, are con-
cerned about students who are promoted one year after the other, but do not seem to
have learned enough. They believe that some form of retention would be important to
help with the catch-up activities for students.
Since government standards still function according to a graded educational logic,
rather than according to the requirements of a new educational model that includes
cycles, it would not be appropriate to consider teachers’ views about the lack of con-
trol over the teaching situation in the learning cycle system as merely conservative.
Rather, we should consider that such views still reflect the ethos and the routines that
prevail in the schools (Sousa & Alavarse, 2003).
612 Barretto and Souza

However, if it is true that appropriate working conditions in schools are required for
success in learning cycles, we must acknowledge that such working conditions alone
are not enough. Despite the existence of favorable conditions and the innovations in
educational practices found in some learning cycle systems, many teachers still resist
non-retention policies. Sadly they are not the only ones to resist. It would appear that the
population in general also resists a conception of education where there is no external
pressure to make students study.
Scholars, insist that learning cycles create the pressing need for student assessment
to be an activity designed both to promote the development of students and to track
their achievement over time. They warn, however, that although not visible yet in pass-
fail statistics, educational and social exclusion may well be intensified by the learning
cycle system whenever there are no conditions that effectively promote the learning of
all students (Sousa, 2000).

Evaluation of Learning Cycles and Their Impact on

Students’ Performance
Analyses about specific learning cycle policies typically appreciate their historical
conditions, motivations, the assumptions that support them, and the detail of the pro-
posals. In most cases, they also the assess implementation processes, but they rarely
point to the outcomes of the learning cycle system. Most of the research in this area is
generally conducted in academic theses and dissertations. The vast majority of these
studies use qualitative methodologies and case studies, which do not allow generaliza-
tion to the whole system, unless from a naturalistic point of view. The qualitative
approach, of course, enables better understanding of the subjectivation processes that
lead to the construction and reconstruction of meanings that educators, students, and
their families attribute to the changes proposed: this qualitative research allows people
to understand the daily school operations wherein school practices are built, reveals
the degree of satisfaction of involved individuals, and illuminates the complexity of
the implementation of learning cycles. However, they neither provide inputs that give
us a clear idea of the extent of the detected processes, nor enable us to understand
certain more encompassing implications of cycle policies. In short, case study data is
context specific.
In these theses and dissertations, we find some initiatives to assess students’ learn-
ing results, such as submitting some classes or schools to exams, or comparing the stu-
dent flow before and after the introduction of cycles. Due to its restricted nature, the
treatment given to these data cannot be extended to all schools. As shown in these stud-
ies, the validity of learning cycle fundamentals is recognized by educators in general,
but the recurring difficulties in cycle implementation are also pointed out. In this
sense, texts warn us about the need to improve work organization conditions in schools
in order to ensure the possibility of producing good quality education for all, and they
also warn us about the importance of a deeper analysis of the values and attitudes that
may lead to inclusive schools. This work includes numerous references to improve-
ments to the age/grade mismatch, reinsertion of students lagging behind, reduction in
the dropout and absenteeism rates and differential service to students.
 Learning Cycles: Transition Policies 613

Studies relating to learning cycle outcomes involving large scale assessments and/or
their impact on students are still extremely scarce. The evidence that has been presented
does not support conclusive affirmations about wider social and educational conse-
quences. Only three of the papers examined, proposed to review education policies by
means of evaluation research involving representative data from schools systems.
The first paper addresses the basic cycle in the States of São Paulo and Minas
Gerais, and targets the effectiveness of its proposal with respect to improvement of stu-
dent flow in basic education (Silva & Davis, 1993). It adopts a quasi-experimental
model using the flow model developed by Fletcher and Ribeiro, and is based on the
demographic census (Pnad) and on the educational census concerning basic education
enrollments in its respective state school systems. Enrollments in the first and second
grades in Rio Grande do Sul State schools are used as a control group. By following
up the school progression of student cohorts between 1981 and 1989, the authors
found that the introduction of the basic cycle has not basically altered student flow in
the two States. They then started to analyze the cultural conditions and school condi-
tions that seemed to contribute to the failure of these measures.This study suggests that
school failure was not eliminated but, rather, postponed to the end of the literacy cycles.
This was also demonstrated by surveys involving a smaller number of students, such as
those by Andrade (1992), Mainardes (1995), and Silva (1991). This could have been
one of the reasons that administrations who later extended learning cycles to the whole
basic education system, restricted the possibility of having students fail at the end of the
cycles: in some cases, these schools totally eliminated school repetition.
Another evaluation study conducted by the same team investigated three government
programs implemented in the São Paulo State school system. Their focus was to assess
the impact of these three programs on learning for students in the São Paulo metropol-
itan area. The three programs were (1) the basic cycle created in 1984, (2) the standard
work schedule for the basic cycle introduced in 1989 (6 daily hours for students and
40 weekly hours for teachers), and (3) the model school established in 1992 which,
besides the basic cycle and the standard work schedule, ensured privileged general
structure and operation conditions to some schools (Neubauer et al., 1996).
Their conclusion was that students’ performance rates in model schools were sig-
nificantly higher than in the other two schools, and that students in schools with a stan-
dard work schedule performed better than those in schools that did not have it. Beyond
the specifics of cycles, the importance of general working conditions in schools to
improve learning is thus evidenced, while differences in the results obtained among
schools of the same type also indicates the weight of intra-school variables to deter-
mine school performance, when both the income levels and cultural environment of
students were controlled.
In contrast to the previous evaluations, Plural School has undergone an external
evaluation focused on the implementation processes for the proposal, rather than on its
outcomes and impacts. This evaluation was carried out four years after the implemen-
tation of the program, through a partnership of the Municipal Secretariat of Education
at the Minas Gerais capital, the Ford Foundation, and the Federal University of Minas
Gerais. This research was designed to examine the political and pedagogical project of
the Municipality of Belo Horizonte, and had the following objectives: to evaluate how
614 Barretto and Souza

the social actors involved in it understood it, to analyze its implementation, and to sup-
port additional studies on educational reforms based on the data collected (Dalben,
2000a). Consequently, a study of the perception of the Plural School as expressed by
its different actors was carried out, an extensive database with managerial and peda-
gogical information on municipal schools was organized, and a qualitative research
study including multiple case studies, together with three ethnographic case studies,
were conducted.
This evaluation study recommended a structuring of the curricula parameters for
Escola Plural’s political and pedagogical project for all three education cycles: these
should indicate a set of cognitive skills to be developed by students. By doing this it
seems to acknowledge that the great emphasis on the socialization processes given by
the project should not affect the concern about the acquisition of systematic knowl-
edge. The research also highlights the importance of developing parameters to estab-
lish teaching and learning evaluation references that appraise educational practices in
municipal schools. The study also recommends the adoption of procedures for an
assessment system that focuses on the issue of knowledge and its social use, according
to principles in the proposal.
The last noteworthy recommendation to Plural School was to invest in media cam-
paigns to inform society about the educational projects involving the community to
build a new mentality concerning the meaning of basic schooling. To a great extent this
suggestion was proposed as a way of confronting the criticism that emerges from the
idea that seriousness and good quality schools are only identified with the practice of
student repetition.
In the 1990s, besides the Brazilian Basic Education Assessment System, the States
of São Paulo and Minas Gerais implemented their own student performance assess-
ment systems. The evaluation of the educational system in Minas Gerais, conducted by
means of external assessment of student performance, started with the basic literacy
cycle and aimed at gradually involving teachers and the school community. Here, stu-
dent performance assessment revealed that children are able to follow up the various
learning process phases. The critical aspects mentioned were mastering writing skills
and math basics (Vianna, 1992). While both comprehensive and representative of state
schools, the outcomes were presented in a descriptive form: this oversight prevented
analyses that could enhance our understanding of the relationships among the various
variables that were included in the assessment.
Although in the second half of the 1990s the states of São Paulo and Minas Gerais
extended the learning cycle system to cover all eight years of primary education, estab-
lishing two continuous progression cycles of four years each, no research reported
information from their respective students’ performance. The only study that sought to
establish relationships between non-retention policies and the quality of education was
that conducted by Ferrão, Beltrão, and Santos (2002). Using information from SAEB
(1999) and multi-level regression models, this research was designed to assess differ-
ences in the performance of fourth graders studying under non-retention regimes in
the Southeast. Data from the States of São Paulo and Minas Gerais were thoroughly
analyzed to establish correlations between lagging student performance and type of
school organization. Schools having mixed regimes (grades and cycles) which had not
identified their students as belonging to one or the other regimes were excluded from
 Learning Cycles: Transition Policies 615

the survey. The regression model controlled for the impact of various levels of student
performance: to do this student proficiency was used as a response variable. The age/
grade mismatch and the form of school organization (cycles or grading), were consid-
ered as main explanatory variables. Different kinds of school administration, as well as
students and school socioeconomic levels were also controlled.
The analysis undertaken by Ferrão et al. (2002) confirms the findings of previous
and smaller studies. They found that the majority students lagging behind were black
males from the low-income group. Students’ proficiency level is analyzed with respect
to the type of school organization (grades or cycles), students’ socioeconomic level,
and age/grade mismatch. As might be expected, there are signs that performance is
best for students at graded school students with both higher socioeconomic status and
no age/grade mismatch. These students, however, are certainly not the most common
profile of public education users in the two states studied.
Interestingly, the analysis also suggests that there is no prejudicial effect to the qual-
ity of education as a result of non-retention policies in either state or municipal
schools. That is, the performance of students with age/grade mismatch was not inferior
to that of students with a proper age/grade relationship as a result of the school’s choice
for cycles or grades. Similarly, there is no evidence that low-income students attending
schools that adopt automatic promotion policies have worse performance rates.
Although the media, many parents and educators themselves typically claim that the
introduction of learning cycles has lowered the quality of education, there is no evidence
based on available research to support these statements. It must be stated that large-scale
assessments of the Brazilian educational system have revealed that students’ perform-
ance data are unsatisfactory in most schools. As Franco (2003) argues so well, one can-
not blame the cycle system for students’ bad performance, since graded schools are the
majority in Brazil. Moreover, the national data collected by SAEB in the period
1995–2003 indicate systematically lower progress by primary school students who were
enrolled in poorer schools, compared to higher progress in more developed regions: it is
in these latter areas where the majority of schools organized in cycles are concentrated.
This suggests that in addition to learning cycles, the general operational conditions in
schools allied to regional socioeconomic development probably have considerable influ-
ence on the level of student performance. Research also suggests that as learning cycle
policies destabilize the traditional logic of school organization, they tend to drive teach-
ers, students and parents to build new references for teaching and learning that are based
on new relationships and interactions within the school environment.

Final Remarks
In short, both the history and current trajectory of learning cycles in Brazil show the
validity and modernity of cycle fundamentals when the purpose is democratizing edu-
cation. The adoption of learning cycles has triggered the need to build new bases for
school organization. This shift also reveals the difficulties with implementation, result-
ing both from poor conditions in schools to make the work based on other principles
possible and from the destabilization they cause when they question prevailing values
in school culture. However, the majority of surveys report improvements to student
616 Barretto and Souza

flow, a reduction in dropout rates, as well as an increased sensitivity of school actors to

issues related to differences between students, curricula and assessment which, in turn,
lead to questioning of social exclusion mechanisms.
This shift is certainly impotant in a country that until recently was one of the cham-
pions of retention and was ranked very low in school performance in the international
league tables. However, considering that the certifying role of schools tends to lose
importance as access to schools becomes universal, we should be concerned about
ensuring a good quality education for all mandatory school students to help them meet
the requirements of the contemporary world.
What the current research has brought to light is that the adoption of learning cycles
has raised expectations for the development of supportive conditions in which all stu-
dents can learn and not to be dismissed from school. Teachers often feel too pressured
when they are held responsible for a problem for which the entire educational system,
through all their decision-making authority has offered no satisfactory answer. Within
the intense debate about assessment in learning cycles, we should not lose sight of the
fact that, to date, the pedagogical resources and school practices have not been proper
or sufficient when one talks about reinventing school for all: improving the education
available to all students remains the explicit project of learning cycles.
We should not forget that, side by side with democratic forces, powerful social
exclusion mechanisms continue to operate in the society. These mechanisms which
submit large segments of the population to poor living conditions also continue to
operate in education system. They permeate the school system, in teacher, student and
parent actions and attitudes, as well as the very theories of pedagogical action them-
selves. As in many other countries, the schools of Brazil are still impregnated with
values identified with schools intended to promote the social privileges of some, at the
expense of the majority. We argue that only if this larger political tension that ends up
affecting school operation and particularly the operation of non-graded schools is
taken into account, will it be possible to have a more clear expectation about the limits
and possibilities of democratization of knowledge.

Notes
1. These 9.1 million students represent 86.6% of the population aged 15–17, estimated by the Brazilian
National Sample Household Survey (PNAD) at 10.5 million.
2. Measures of the same nature and with the same name – learning cycles – have been adopted, as of this
decade, in several Latin-language countries, such as: France, Portugal, Spain, Geneva, Quebec, and
Argentina. Perrenoud (2004) calls this form of pedagogical organization a pluriannual learning cycle.
3. Therefore, they increase the length of primary education to nine years. This is to be compulsory for all
Brazilian schools as of 2006.
4. Brazil is a federative country in which states and municipalities are responsible for creating and main-
taining their school systems. The federal government is responsible for providing technical and finan-
cial assistance to states and municipalities, aiming to reduce the difference among the services.
5. The following graduate students participated in the research: Andrea Steinvascher, Ocimar Munhoz
Alavarse, Paulo Henrique Arcas, Alexandre Cândido de Oliveira Campos, and Patrícia Moulin Mendonça.
6. The projects developed with assistance from multilateral agencies can be formulated and implemented
not only nationwide but also by the states and municipalities.
 Learning Cycles: Transition Policies 617

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33

SCHOOL FAILURE AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS:

THEORETICAL AND PEDAGOGICAL
CHALLENGES IN BRAZIL

Denise Trento Rebello de Souza and Marilene Proença

Rebello de Souza
University of São Paulo, Brazil

To understand the issue of urban education in Brazil one must also understand the for-
mation of the Brazilian urban centers, which were offspring of the economic policies
implemented in this country, especially since the 1950s, which gave priority to indus-
trialization. The growth of industrialization took place mainly in states of the Southern
and Southeastern regions, attracting thousands of Brazilians, mostly from the poorer
agricultural areas of the country. Peasants and small landowners saw in the urban cen-
ters the promise of better living conditions: employment and higher salaries, and the
possible access to education and health. Thus, in cities like São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro,
Belo Horizonte, and Porto Alegre – capitals of their states – big urban centers devel-
oped, which today contain a large population, and constitute a major fraction of the
Brazilian industrial base. Indeed these cities have the largest economies of the country.
This large migratory flux was not addresses by public policies about housing, giving
rise to large pockets of poverty called “favelas.”1 These are areas taken over by migrants
in search of a space to live in the emerging cities. The migrants, having very little finan-
cial resources at their disposal, occupied areas, mostly public-owned, and there they built
makeshift houses. These were originally built out of leftover planks and cardboard, and
were usually located far from the more central boroughs, in areas without proper sanita-
tion, electricity and transportation services. As the years went by, these residents, which
represent the poorest segment of the population in the big cities, began to organize
around popular movements, electing representatives to defend their social rights, and
improving their living conditions. Along the way, demands for health and education
services closer to their living place were important causes in their struggles, which were
only partially addressed by the public authorities. However, if on one hand, there was an
important victory in the expansion of the school system, on the other hand such growth
was accomplished by the construction of school buildings with little concern for the cor-
responding human resources needed to work adequately with children and adolescents
of these populations. These schools became known as peripheral schools, or schools

619
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 619–640.
© 2007 Springer.
620 Souza and Souza

of the outskirts of the large urban centers, their modus operandi were dominated by
improvisation and vulnerability: transient and insufficient teaching staff, inadequate
numbers of support personnel, and precarious infrastructure and maintenance, among
other problems.
Thus there are similarities between urban education in North America and the prob-
lems faced by the schools in the outskirts of large Brazilian urban centers. The pupils
who attend these schools are mostly the children of migrants or themselves migrants
from the poorer segments of the population, who live in favelas, slums or popular
housing.2 Such children are those that appear in the statistics as the ones that fail at
school, that display difficulties in learning to read and write, and are less likely to
remain in formal education. They suffer directly the consequences of the precarious-
ness of state policies, particularly with respect to the advancing formal schooling.

Improving the Quality as the Current Challenge of

Brazilian Public Primary Education3
Public Education and the Process of Urbanization in Brazil4
In Brazil the dissatisfaction with the basic education system is both historical and con-
sensual. The many unsatisfactory aspects of the Brazilian education system are well
documented in the education literature. Until the 1960s the State basic education sys-
tem was simply not large enough to meet the growing demand, making access to it a
privilege available to only a few5 (Table 1).6 More than half of school age children were
out of school. At that time, one of the most pressing problems was to expand the edu-
cational system in order to provide schooling for all. However, the awareness of access
to schooling as “a right of everyone and duty of the State” was not clearly established
among the people as a whole (Beisiegel, 1990). The demand for education for all
became an issue only with the acceleration of the pace of the economic development
and the increase in the rates of urbanization and industrialization that began in the
Southeast region in the 1950s.
As a consequence of an unequal economic development across the country, the
prosperous states of the Southeast (particularly the State of São Paulo) experienced
population increases fueled by a strong internal migration from the Northeastern
states. Attracted by the possibility of finding jobs and better living conditions, thou-
sands of migrants gathered their few belongings, sometimes leaving behind their close
relatives to try to build a better life for their families. These first migrants created a
path followed by many (Durhan, 1973).
The 1970 demographic census showed that over 13 million Brazilians were not living
in their state of origin. This figure represents more than 14% of the total population that
year. By far the largest inter-regional movement was the net transfer of nearly 3.5 million
people from the Northeastern states to São Paulo State, the Greater São Paulo City being
the main destination. The same census showed that the majority of the Greater São Paulo
City population (53%) had been born outside the region (Vaughan-William, 1992).
This strong migration altered rapidly and radically the proportion the relative proportions
 School Failure and Public School 621

Table 1. Education provision among the population aged 7–14 years (in thousands)

Year Population Enrollment Rates of schooling

1950 10,402.7 3,767.9 36.2

1960 14,406.4 6,540.5 45.4
1970 19,693.0 13,209.9 67.1
1980 21,934.2 18,476.6 84.2
1989 27,509.4 22,616.5 82.2
1996 28,525.815 25,909.860 90.8
2003 26,266.814 25,527.401 96.9

Urban and rural population - brazil - 1940/2000

138
140

120 111
Inhabitants (in millions)

100
80.4
80

60 52.1
38.8 41.1 38.6
35.8
40 33.2 31.3 31.8
28.3
18.8
20 12.9

0
1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1991 2000

Urban Rural

Figure 1. Urban and rural population – Brazil – 1940/2000

Source: IBGE (2001). Tendências Demográficas 2000.

of urban and rural populations in the country, as shown in the Figure 1. In 40 years the
Brazilian population had changed from mainly rural to mainly urban. In 1940 the urban
population represented 31.2%, and the rural 68.8% whereas in 1980 the figures were
nearly reversed: 66.7% urban, and 33.3 % rural. According to the 2000 demographic
census the urban population is 4.3 times bigger than the rural population, confirming to
the country as a whole a trend initiated in the São Paulo State in the 1960s when the
urban population overtook over the rural population.
All spheres of social life and social services were affected by the fast, unequal and
disorganized urbanization process across the country: housing, sanitation, electricity,
water supply, health care, and educational services.
As far as formal education was concerned, the organization of the educational sys-
tem was affected by the increase of the demand for education at all levels. Demands
622 Souza and Souza

from the working classes and from the emerging urban middle classes played no minor
role in bringing about such expansion: the former group wishing to have access to
basic education, and the latter hoping to ascend socially by means of an academic
degree.
In Primary Education, Brazil had then to expand its educational coverage consider-
ably from the 1960s onwards, as shown in Table 1. In 1971, Primary Education, com-
prising of the first 8 years, was made compulsory for all children between the ages of
7 and 14. However, according to the official data, until the mid – 1990s there were not
enough places in state schools to meet the demand.
As it will be presented next, even those who did get a place at school had – and still
have – before them the challenge of staying and benefiting from the process of school-
ing as the rates of grade repetition and dropout are historically very high.

School Failure: A Serious and Chronic Problem of Brazilian Public Education

The high rates of grade repetition and dropout in the Brazilian education system are
jointly known as the issue of the school failure. Historically these rates have been as
high as 45% in the first grade and 40% in the fifth grade. The data presented next leave
no doubt about how old and serious the problem is.
Moisés Kessel (1954) in a classic study about repetition and dropout in Primary
Education showed that, in 1938, 58 out of every 100 pupils that were enrolled on the
first grade that year did not reach the second grade in 1939. And that only 4% of the
pupils managed to complete the 4 years of Primary Education without repetition.
During the 1980s, the scenario showed some signs of improvement concerning
access to school, particularly for the younger generations. Data from the PNAD –
National Sampling Survey of Households – (1987) 7 show that:
● 25% of all Brazilians with ten or more years of age completed only the first grade.
● 14% of youngsters completed Primary Education in 8 years (the ideal period),
without any repetition, and only 36% will eventually complete Primary Education
after having repeated one or more grades.
● The younger generations stay 8 years in the school system but manage to com-
plete only five grades.
It can be seen in Table 2 that the rates of repetition for the first grade of Primary Education
lowered slowly until the mid 1990s, reaching 44% in 1995. In 2002 there is a significant
reduction of this figure in all grades, but the largest drop is observed for the first grade.
This is largely due to the establishment of the system of cycles, mainly from 1996 with the
promulgation of the National Education Bases and Guidelines Act (LDB 9596/96).8
The figures referred to above indicate that the difficulties of the Brazilian education sys-
tem are not a recent phenomenon. On the contrary, it pervades the history of the Brazilian
education in the last century. And that is so despite all the education reforms, education
policies, and educational studies carried out during the last 70 years (Patto, 1990).
Although the nationwide data present a general view of the education in the country,
it is important to consider how the repetition rates are distributed across the schools.
Studies have demonstrated since the late 1970s in Brazil (and since the end of the 1960s
 School Failure and Public School 623

Table 2.9 Primary education – repetition rates between grades (in %) BRAZIL- 1981–2002

Year Grades Overall

1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th

1981 57 28 22 18 34 30 27 21 36
1985 51 34 25 23 40 33 29 21 36
1989 48 34 26 23 41 34 29 22 35
1991 46 34 25 22 40 32 28 22 33
1995 44 31 24 20 35 28 23 18 30
2002 15.1 14.2 10.1 9.1 13.6 11.2 9.2 8 11.7

in the USA) the existence of a positive correlation between school failure and socioe-
conomic status (Barreto, Mello, Arelaro, & Campos, 1979). More specifically, children
more severely troubled by school failure are those coming from low-income families.
As a rule, these families are migrants from the poorer regions of the country.

Controversial Figures
In the beginning of the 1990s, a work published by Ribeiro (1992) brought to light
some controversies involving the issues of rates of dropout and repetition, and access
to the education system. The controversies are about the nature of the main obstacle to
the democratization of the education system. Is it the dropping out of students? Is it the
high rates of repetition? Is it the shortage of student placements in schools and of
schools themselves? The correct assessment of the main obstacle is important because
from it will derive the particular educational policies to tackle the main problem(s).
Ribeiro’s work had a great impact on the discussion of the problem of repetition in
the Brazilian education system as pointed out by Gatti (2004) in a comprehensive
analysis of the quantitative studies in education carried out in Brazil during the last
three decades. For that reason, we shall present his main arguments and conclusions.
The controversies involving the rates of dropout and repetition that emerged with
the work of Ribeiro (1992) were part of the process (initiated during the mid 1980s)
of focusing on the teacher and her (his) teaching practice, as will be shown shortly
(Souza, 2001, 2002).
Ribeiro argues, using an alternative mathematical model called PROFLUXO,10 that
the methodology used by the Ministry of Education Statistics Office leads to errors
that distort the analyses of the Brazilian educational reality. Those errors would have
led researchers and educational authorities to analyses and policies that do not take
into account that the main problem in the education system – the extremely high rates
of repetition, and not of dropout as the official data suggest.11
Using the PROFLUXO model, he claims that the repetition rates are higher than the
official agency says (52.4% against 29.6% for the first grade in 1982) and the dropout
rates are lower (2.3% against 25.5% for the first grade in 1982). So, he argues that, dif-
ferently from the widespread belief, dropout is not the main problem in the first
grades. He also found that in 1988 the Brazilian population attended the primary
school for 8.5 years in average. This represents enough time for the conclusion of
624 Souza and Souza

Primary Education by the young population. But they complete only six grades.
Considering that the average age to start schooling is 7.5 years of age and the average
period of attendance is 8.5 years, the probable age of dropout is around 16 years, inde-
pendently of the grade reached. Recent data show that the scenario remains basically
the same: in 2001 the Brazilian population attended the primary school 8.5 years, in
average, but completed only 6.6 grades.
Another conclusion of his work, controversial at that time but largely accepted now,
refers to the issue of access itself. He claims that this problem seems to be practically
overcome. If there was no repetition, the capacity of the education system would permit
in 1988 the incorporation of 95% of school age children. Thus, Ribeiro (1991, p. 20)
concludes that:

This finding leads to the understanding that the notion of child’s early dropout
from school caused by social or cultural determinants is misleading and that
Brazilian families, on the contrary, make an enormous effort to keep their chil-
dren in school. On the other hand it shows that it is the low teaching performance
that prevents, through high repetition rates, the universalization of elementary
education in Brazil. (our emphasis)12

His work clearly emphasizes the immense responsibility of schools (particularly the
low teaching performance), and not of children or their families, in assuring primary
education for all the students. That idea was significant and gained many adherents
from the late 1980s on, as the school system and the school itself came under study.
Some later studies, such as that of Franco (1995), have argued that the figures such as
the possible incorporation by the education system of 95% of school age children must
be viewed with caution. According to Franco, many researchers have denounced the
“perverse strategies” that promoted a “superficial and inconsistent democratization” of
school access. They refer specifically to the bad conditions of work and functioning of
many schools: overcrowded classes, schools working with up to five daily shifts, lower-
ing of teachers wages, among other factors. Franco’s main argument seems to be that a
better quality of schooling cannot be achieved with the current rate of investment in state
education.
It is interesting to observe at this point that, although the emphasis may be placed on
pedagogical aspects (Ribeiro, 1991) or school infrastructure (Franco, 1995), there is a
consensus about the idea that the low quality of the schooling is the main problem to
be solved.
Therrien (1996) carried out an interesting study where she analysed the production
(in various spheres) of the negative social representation of the teacher’s work in the
educational literature. Part of her work was devoted to identify points of overall agree-
ment within the pedagogic discourse related to the issue of the (low) quality of education.
The first two points of agreement can be summarized in the following statements: (1) the
educational coverage has been, since the 1980s, sufficient to meet the demand. (However
it is also pointed out the existence of problems due to the way the increase of places was
made). (2) once there are enough places, the challenge now is to improve the quality.
Her work confirms that there is a consensus in the mainstream educational literature
 School Failure and Public School 625

concerning the issues of the educational coverage (access to the educational system),
and of the need to improving its quality.

Hegemony of Psychology in the Explanation of School Failure

The Primacy of the Psychosocial Approaches
Historically, Psychology constituted itself as one of the sciences in which, more than
in any other, Education has searched for theoretical support in order to plan and inter-
vene in school issues. The history of Psychology in Brazil reveals that school and the
teaching practices has been a psychologist’s object of interest since the first decade of
the last century. The hegemony of psychological science in the understanding and con-
ducting the school problems brought, in several moments, problems that ended up
generating reductionistic formulations, simplifying and limiting visions of the phe-
nomena occurring in everyday school life. Besides, these visions are ideological and
therefore, mystifying, as some scholars of the History of Psychology and of school
failure argue (Patto, 1990; Mello, 1975, among others).
In order to face the difficulties experienced by the students, reflected in the high rate
of repetition and in the school dropout, educators have traditionally searched for
answers in the knowledge constructed in the field of Psychology based on the follow-
ing questions: Why are there so many children with low school performance? What
would be the problems that they present? Would they be of cognitive, affective, cultural
or social nature? How can these difficulties be addressed in the field of education?
We can say that during a large period of the twentieth century, in the Brazilian case,
the answers to these questions came from the most diverse theoretical perspectives. We
can point to contributions from the following sources: Behaviorism (B. F. Skinner and
his followers), Psychoanalysis (Sigmund Freud and Anna Freud); Psychogenesis (Jean
Piaget and Barbel Inhelder), Social Behaviorism (Bandura), Cognitivism (Jerome
Bruner), and Humanism (Carl Rogers).
The relation between Education and Psychology inaugurated internationally an impor-
tant research field – Educational Psychology – and a field of professional activity –
School Psychology. Although presenting different perspectives for the comprehension of
the students’ difficulties at school, the appropriation of the above-mentioned theories
made by Educational and School Psychology and by Education started from a point of
view that searches in the child or from her or him the possible sources of difficulties
experienced in the schooling process (see Angelucci, Kalmus, Paparelli, & Patto, 2004;
Brandão, Baeta, & Rocha, 1983).
In general, Psychology has traditionally identified the following to explain learning
problems:
(1) Innate and acquired characteristics. From this perspective, one believes that a
child presents a determinate cognitive potential, which could be evaluated through the
quotient of intelligence of the student. In order to measure these skills, Psychology con-
structed a series of instruments of evaluation. The aim of these evaluations was to identify
the areas in which the children would have less capacity, in order to pedagogically inter-
vene through educational compensatory programs, stimulating them through training and
626 Souza and Souza

specific programs, or just by indicating the children’s incapacity to perform specific tasks
which should be replaced by others on which they could perform better. For this reason,
a series of psycho-metric scales were created, beginning in the 1910s, notably the
Bitnet-Simon Test, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale, the Raven Progressive Matrices,
the Goodenough-Harris Drawing Test, the Bender Test, among others. Such evalua-
tions were also used to refer students to special education, when one could verify that
the intelligence deficit indicated a mental deficiency. It is important to note that the
majority of the scales mentioned were not adapted to the Brazilian population, which
introduced an additional problematic element to the process of the psycho-diagnostic
evaluation of the school difficulties and yielded results that did not depict the real abil-
ities of children. In addition, many topics raised by the psychometric scales are
strongly linked to cultural aspects of the population for which the test was originally
standardized.13
(2) Emotional and affective problems. In this case, the main problem of the child
would be in her or his personality structure and functioning. Certain circumstances of
life, usually with origins in a troubled family history, would interfere negatively with
the learning process, including school-based learning. Based on this argument, school
psychologists used modes of psychological evaluation that centered mainly on a psy-
choanalytical reading of the shaping of personality and of human development.
Freudian psychoanalysis was introduced in Brazil in 1914, and later on it was intro-
duced in initial courses of Teacher Education. Around the 1930s it received additional
impetus from the hygienist movement which considered, among other things, the need
for identifying “problem-students” who should be referred to the mental hygiene clin-
ics and subjected to psychotherapy. From this perspective the teacher had a restricted
role. The improvement of the student’s performance depended only on the good evolu-
tion of the case during the psychological treatment.
(3) Organic aspects. This includes explanations whose hypotheses center on
aspects of neurological characteristics. The child would not learn due to the presence
of some modality of organic dysfunction, which would be noted in the beginning of lit-
eracy development, that is, in the first school years. Identified as dyslexia, dysorthog-
raphy, dyslalia or hyperactivity, such disturbances of unknown origin should be treated
through psycho-motor re-education or through medicine. The central point of the med-
ical analysis for the verification of the difficulties is the symptoms depicted by parents
and teacher: how are the problematic childrens’ attitudes different from those consid-
ered commonly present at a certain age for the acquisition of reading, writing and
mathematic knowledge. From this perspective, one did not need to consider the qual-
ity of the teaching offered to the students – neither did one recognize the existence of
difficulties underlying the literacy process.
(4) Belonging to the lower social class. In this group, we find the explanations that con-
sider cultural influences as the main cause of school failure. From the 1970s, in Brazil, psy-
chologists and educators, under the influence of the “Deprivation Theories”14 originally of
American researchers, claimed that children from poor classes have more problems at
school. Such students have problematic affective, cognitive, nutritional and perceptive-
motor development, which would be revealed in a series of consequences, namely: poor
language skills, nutritional deprivation, difficulties in interpersonal relations, in short, types
of deficits which would indicate learning problems. For this reason the implementation of
 School Failure and Public School 627

compensatory education programs in schools was proposed, in the belief that they could
minimize the effects of cultural deprivation.
In the Brazilian case, we can state that the ideas present in the Deprivation Theories
span and sum up the conceptions that traditionally explain the learning problems
described in items (1), (2), (3), and (4). Therefore, the Deprivation Theories are taken
here as emblematic of the line of argument that most contributed to what we call “the
psychological reductionism approaches” that came to characterize Brazilian education.
There are some common criticisms of the Deprivation Theories. First, it is pointed out
that the issues involving the pupils’ (low) achievement should not be analyzed per se,
apart from the school context where they appear and isolated from their social and
economic conditions. Second, the conception of “culture” used by the Deprivation
Theories, backed by the functionalist North-American psychology, is highly question-
able, as it necessarily implies the misuse of comparisons between cultures. For exam-
ple: electing the culture of so-called “middle classes” as a standard against which the
culture of other social segments will be measured; arguing that some “cultures” do not
provide their members with the necessary tools to succeed at basic school; and pro-
posing compensatory education programs to supply the “deprived children” with the
missing cultural elements.
With respect to the theoretical-methodological approaches underlying the researches
that produced the Deprivation Theories, they were directly or indirectly questioned and
criticized by many authors in Brazil and in different countries. There are critical per-
spectives from Houston (1982); Soares (1986); Cruz (1987); Sawaya (2001); Collares
and Moysés (1998); Patto (1990); Cagliari (1997), in what concerns the limitations of the
studies on the evaluation of language when the subjects are observed in a single and arti-
ficial setting. Freitag (1978) provided the conceptual tools to disclose the functionalist
conception of the school-society relation that are backing the Deprivation Theories, as
they were proposed in the USA. Stubbs and Delamont (1976), Delamont and Hamilton
(1982) and Rockwell (1987) present alternative proposals from observations in class-
rooms based on techniques from Anthropology that made evident the limits of studies
that are exclusively based on psychometric assessments, surveys or any other type of
standardized observation. Hammersly and Atkinson (1983) in the UK, Erickson (1986)
in the United States, and Ezpeleta and Rockwell (1986) in Mexico and Latin America
represent, among others, the qualitative tradition that has been developed in England
since the 1960s and in the USA from the 1970s (ethnography, case studies, symbolic
interactionism, participant observation, phenomenology and interpretatism). Despite the
differences between these approaches, all of them attempted and indeed broke with
the positivist models of research dominant at that time. Some authors claimed that there
needed to be important changes in the ways we had been analyzing schools and their
processes because the theoretical-methodological approaches available had proved to be
insufficient to understand the complex and multifaceted nature of the school reality.

Psychology and the Critical Approach to the School Failure

From the mid-1980s onwards it was noted, not only in Brazil, but also in other coun-
tries in Latin America, that the most critical educational researchers were concerned
about how the school was being studied and described in the educational literature.
628 Souza and Souza

Some argued the importance of rethinking the theoretical-methodological approaches

adopted by educational researchers.15 Following a similar movement observed in the
United Kingdom and United States at least a decade earlier,16 a common proposal was
to substantially change the way we “talk about schools.” Some advocated that we had
to stop using “false truths” and generic explanations about schools, and about pupils
and their families (Patto, 1990). Others proposed that we had to rescue the school’s
“non documented history,” for that is the history that constitutes everyday life at school
(Ezpeleta & Rockwell, 1986). They had in common an importance attached to “look-
ing inside schools,” getting to know the school participants in order to reach and know
a level of reality that had hitherto been neglected.
It was necessary to conjointly articulate the levels of analysis traditionally approached
separately, as for example the individual sphere (subjectivity) and social sphere (social
reality). This included the complexity of the schooling process in a society in which chil-
dren are unequally treated, depending on the social group to which they belong.
Significant contributions of Psychology to the educational field appeared when
psychologists made an effort to examine Psychology itself, revising its theoretical-
methodological conceptions and its model of action. In this effort of self-criticism, some
authors searched in other areas of knowledge (Sociology of Education and Philosophy of
Education) for theoretical references, particularly in the historical-dialectical materia-
lism, which could help to transform an all too instrumental Psychology into a Critical
Psychology.17
Influenced by the concepts of Althusser (1974), Bourdieu (1974); Bourdieu and
Passeron (1975); Baudelot and Establet (1971) scholars engaged in the theoretical dis-
cussion of the school-society relation and explained the role of the school as an ideo-
logical state apparatus and as a locus where the symbolic violence of the elites was
practiced for the maintenance of the status quo.
This articulation of the historical-materialist framework permitted the opportunity
to rethink education and its shortcomings in a less naive form, by incorporating in the
analyses of school phenomena their economic, social and political determinants. At
the same time, it led on occasion to some rather non-dialectical passages and interpre-
tations, as it swayed work toward another form of reductionism – the sociologism – by
privileging the macro-structural causes, in a mechanical vision of the determinants of
the problems of the schooling processes.
The need to overcome the reductionism promoted both by psychologism and by soci-
ologism has characterized the course of Psychology and its relations with Education.
According to Tanamachi (2002, p. 79), in the Brazilian case:

The necessity to search for more far-reaching conceptions of Psychology and

Education as well as the need to consider the set of attributions that are proper to
them are the main moves pointed by the scholars who have taken part of the crit-
ical movement of the School Psychology.

As far as school failure is concerned, the theoretical conception that allows us to ana-
lyze the schooling process and not the learning problems moves the center of the
analysis from the individual to the interior of the school and to the set of institutional,
 School Failure and Public School 629

historical, pedagogical and psychological relations that are present and which consti-
tute the school’s everyday life, as well as the individuals who actively participate in the
context. Some authors have looked for theoretical support for the understanding of the
phenomena of school failure in the concept of everyday life. In this context the work
of Hungarian philosopher Agnes Heller (1972, 1987) is taken as a reference. Thinking
about everyday school life is to think about the set of characteristically heterogeneous
activities undertaken and articulated by individual subjects. The observed activities in
the school or in any context may be understood as everyday activities only when in ref-
erence to this individual subject. For this subject, his immediate everyday world con-
tains his life, and within it, his work, his multiple activities, the several meanings that
every particular situation has. In this way, the reconstruction of an everyday school life
has as necessary references the teachers, the students, and mainly the parents, as social
subjects (Ezpeleta & Rockwell, 1986).
Under specific social, cultural and material conditions the protagonists of the school
constitute the everyday existence of the singular school, and in doing so, mirror all the
formal and non-formal elements of the system merged with those of their own social
context. In the everyday experience of the subjects, to transit the school door means at
the same time continuity. Ironically, it only shifts the contiguous social spheres while
allowing individuals to keep their own identities. This then ruptures several institutional
and social demands as well as the adaptations to the roles proposed by the school.
The use of methodological perspectives of a qualitative nature, especially ethnogra-
phy, contributes to this theoretical framework in how it comprehends school phenom-
ena. New questions are formulated revealing the complexities of the issues involved,
such as: What pedagogical processes and practices are involved in the production of
school failure? What elements contribute to constitute the teachers’ conceptions and
practices in the schooling process? How do educators envisage their actions, and those
of their students? The construction of this knowledge demanded prolonged fieldwork
with children, teachers and the school, in addition to a detailed process of participant
observation, systematic recording of the facts, open-ended interviews, home visits,
and participation in playtime. This was aimed not only at generating knowledge but
also to develop trust between the researcher and the participants.
In the field of Psychology, and in its interface with Education, the study that inau-
gurates in Brazil the theoretical-methodological critique comes with the incorporation
of the Hellerian framework, as well as with the ethnographic perspective. The work is
carried out by Patto (1990), in her thesis The Production of School Failure: Stories of
Submission and Rebellion, brings to the forefront of educational research the roots
of school failure in Brazilian public schools. By analyzing the historical development of
the Brazilian educational thought, Patto makes us face facts that change the course of
the analysis of the so called “learning problems,” and breaks with the traditional expla-
nations hitherto present in the psychological and pedagogical literature of our country.
Her work presents a detailed account of processes and practices developed in the
everyday life of a state school located on the outskirts of São Paulo City. In its first part,
she traces the origins of the scientific conceptions that form and shape the ethnic and
class prejudices and stereotypes that permeate the beliefs (in the social life and even in
the scientific discourse) about the social, cultural, and even moral inferiority of the
630 Souza and Souza

members of the popular classes. The history of the explanations for school failure is
then recovered by the analysis of the studies and researches published since the early
decades of the century. In the second part, the analyses of the fieldwork are presented.
From her work, we learned that there are some school practices and processes
(observed at the school and on the education system) that can be, on their own, respon-
sible for a great part of the existent school problems (such as repetition, dropout, and
behavioral, to mention the most visible ones). There is a complex universe of institu-
tional, political, individual and structural questions present in the school everyday life
that lead to the school failure, keeping thus a high level of exclusion, mainly of the poor
adolescents and children of our society. In order words, Patto’s study revealed the exis-
tence of school practices and processes inside the school and of the school system,
which are responsible for most of the difficulties observed.
Among these difficulties we can point out: (1) the practice of streaming, encourag-
ing the identification and denigration of students considered “weak” and influencing
the establishment of self-fulfilling prophecy; (2) the practice of student relocation,
performed often without previous notice to the pupil or the family forcing students to
have many teachers in the same year; (3) disrespect for children, underlying the public
reprimands and humiliations that undermine children’s self image, vulnerable and still
in development; (4) the practice of forcing the pupils to do meaningless and tedious
activities in learning support groups.
The author also refers to other practices and school processes related to the learning
problems observed in school, such as the existence of negative expectations of school per-
formance of poor children, presence of stereotypes and social prejudices against poor,
black and “northeasterners,”18 perverse mechanisms of class attribution,19 apart from the
bureaucratization and segmentation of pedagogical work, leaving to the teachers only the
task of executing pedagogical proposals imposed on them. In this sense, teachers also suf-
fer the same process of disregard and disrespect even though they have a personal and pro-
fessional history through which their practice acquires meaning and sense. In a nutshell,
both the educational system and policies have been organized in such a way that they
encourage school practices that help to produce difficulties in the schooling process.
The argument that school failure is a product of the school and of the educational
system recovers at least two great issues to the understanding of the phenomena. The
first issue refers to the political attitude of commitment to the excluded, mainly when
we consider children and adolescents; and the second issue, not less important, refers to
the role played by Psychology in the production of exclusion through its reductionist
conceptions regarding school complaints and the discriminating practices.
The theoretical framework that starts with the political awareness of the exclusion20
of significant segments of the population and has been appropriating certain method-
ologies of qualitative research, has been trying to cope with the elements that compose
the schooling process. The conception of school education is broadened, not only in its
role of socialization but also in its political role, as the school plays a fundamental part
in the democratization of the State, thus being a “center of citizenship education,” as
put by Weffort (1995).
Ethnography, as an approach to research in Psychology in its interface with Edu-
cation, has contributed to deepening the knowledge of the institutional and cultural
 School Failure and Public School 631

dimensions of everyday school life, of teacher education and of the education of pro-
fessionals in the area of psychology, especially who deal with children with learning
and behavioral problems (Souza, 2004).
Such contributions will be discussed further in the section “Recent research and
works of intervention in public schools from psychology with a critical perspective.”

Centrality of the Teacher’s Work

As the traditional explanations for school failure, and specially those based on the
Deprivation Theories, were criticized, the school, the teacher and pedagogical practice
gained more visibility, and the theme of continued education acquired prominence in
the political and educational agenda, becoming a central element in the discussion
about the improvement of the school quality.
The analysis of official documents produced by the São Paulo State Secretariat for
Education from 1982 to 1993, and of the educational literature, carried out by Souza
(2001) reveals that the favorite strategy used in the continued education programs cen-
tered basically around offering courses, usually short ones, and activities such as confer-
ences, seminars and lectures. This strategy had as its central objective the improvement
of the professional competence of the teachers assuming that they had an inadequate and
insufficient early education. This practice became systematic, and was developed by the
State Secretariats for Education as a basic strategy to improve the quality of teaching and
to deal with the failure of public education.21
Although the educational policies have focused attention on the issues of the cen-
trality of the teacher’s work and of their professional competence to carry out their
pedagogical activities, we notice that by the end of 1990s a process of questioning this
discourse was started.
As far as the increasing centrality attributed to the continued education of teachers as
a means to obtain a better quality of teaching is concerned, some authors help us to
question this assumption by reminding us of its limits vis-à-vis the features and chronic
problems of the teaching system (Andaló, 1989; Arroyo, 1996; Azanha, 1996; Bueno,
Catani, Sousa, Souza, & Souza, 1993; Bueno, Catani, & Sousa, 1998; Franco, 1995;
Patto, 1997; Souza, 2001, among others). Based on the analyses of these scholars, we
can say that the main criticism to the proposal of continued education of teachers is
grounded on the fact that such programs take teachers individually, isolated from their
working context; they disregard or downplay the school and its institutional context as
well as the concrete conditions offered by each school. These authors claim that a proj-
ect aiming at improving the quality of teaching must consider, first and foremost, the
complex interpersonal and institutional relations which give concrete life to the school
in terms of reproduction, contradiction, conflict or social transformation.
Besides, these scholars alert us to the importance of knowing the school culture and
teaching culture better, addressing the bureaucracy and administrative shackles, as
well as of rethinking the initial education of the teacher, the teaching career and the
remuneration policies.
The preoccupation with the competence of the professionals, as well as the central-
ity attributed to their role in solving the problem of school failure, is reaffirmed in
632 Souza and Souza

every new program of teacher in-service education. This is neither recent nor original,
in spite of reappearing under new guises in recent works about so called “skills and
competences” (Paquay, Altet, Charlier, & Perrenoud, 2001). The use of the concept of
competence, particularly “technical competence,” has received a major push in Brazil
since 1982 when Teaching in primary school: from technical competence to the polit-
ical commitment by Guiomar Namo de Mello was published.22 The analysis developed
at that time triggered an intense debate in the academic world involving two concepts –
technical competence and political commitment – related to the teachers’ work and to
the manner through which this group was (and still is) seen by the academia, by the
media and by themselves. Mello’s work inspired other studies which, taken as a whole,
and perhaps unintentionally, contributed to the construction of an essentially negative
perception of teachers. More than negative, it was a homogeneous portrait of the teach-
ers and their practice: they were seen as people with no technical competence and no
political commitment. That was the pinnacle of the discourse about the technical
incompetence of the teacher and of the simplistic idea, propagated in the following
years by the mainstream academic discourse and by the educational policies, that “if
we have a school of low quality is because the teachers are incompetent.” From this
perspective, the solution to overcome school failure and thus improve the quality of
teaching and the public school was to offer continuing education courses aimed at
redressing the deficiencies of their initial preparation.
Usually, such actions were offered in Education Centers located away from the
school in which teachers worked. The belief was that after these courses the teachers
were ready to return to their working place and “apply” what they had learned. This pro-
cedure, however, turned out have little efficacy, according to what studies have been
revealing for some time (Andaló, 1989; Candau, 1996; Kramer, 1989; Perosa, 1997,
among others). If the values and ideas proposed in the courses cause conflict with those
present in the school where teachers work, there is little possibility of a change. Azanha
(1996) argued in the same direction: to improve the education of the individual teacher
does not guarantee that the quality of the teaching activity will be improved as well.
A teacher may be “good” in a school and “bad” in another. It will depend on the mate-
rial conditions which each school has.
Therefore, the work with teachers must be part of a broader project – the school’s
political and pedagogical project – developed with the articulation of every part involved
in the process.
One can argue that this position, inspired initially in the work of Azanha (1996), rep-
resents a significant change in the approach to continued education of teachers. This
constitutes a line of reflection and action which takes the school, not the teacher indi-
vidually, as its object. The professional development of the individual teacher assumes a
different meaning when planned and developed in a wider school project. Azanha joins
other dissonant voices on the theme of teacher education, redirecting our eyes (including
the theoretical one) to the school (Arroyo, 1996; Nóvoa, 1999, 1992; Patto, 1990; Perosa,
1997; Sawaya, 2002; Souza, 2001, among others).
According to Candau (1996), the analysis of the academic research data about teacher
education identifies at least three major trends that, in some ways, should be considered
in a teachers education policy. The first considers that the process of continued education
 School Failure and Public School 633

has to have as its fundamental reference the teacher’s knowledge, recognizing it and
appreciating it; the second trend states that the proposals for continued education of
teachers have to take into consideration the life cycle and the phases of professional
development of the teachers; and the third one, that the school has to be taken as the priv-
ileged locus for the continuing education of teachers. The educational programs should be
structured in a way that they consider the problems needing addressed and the projects in
already in place – not only the academic content to be taught.
Such studies, in general, point to the importance of creating school spaces and
time structures that favor a collective process of reflection and intervention in the
concrete teacher’s practice, recognizing the necessity to rethink the work of school
supervision and co-ordination. It seems that, in general, the work on teacher contin-
ued education is based in the relevance of a professional practice grounded on the
school reality, as well as on its problematization in the service of overcoming the
difficulties found.
The re-direction of the focus to the school and its processes has stimulated the devel-
opment of studies and proposals changes in the field of Psychology and Education
toward the construction of a school of good quality. The next section presents some
initiatives considered significant to the field of Psychology and School Education.

Recent Research and Works of Intervention in Public Schools

from Psychology with a Critical Perspective
The adoption of a critical perspective in Psychology allowed the scholars to re-visit
classic themes of Educational Psychology, such as: psychological evaluation, teacher-
student relationship, special education, learning problems and literacy, and the educa-
tion of psychologists, among others.
As far as the psychological evaluation of school learning problems is concerned, the
recent studies have vehemently questioned the psychometric ideas present in the tradi-
tional models of evaluation (see especially the work of Machado, 2003). From a criti-
cal perspective of Psychology, it is necessary to re-invent psychological evaluation.
The reconsideration should include the pedagogical, psychological, and social rela-
tions that produce a school history permeated by a series of events which reach their
culmination in the destruction of the meaning of learning for the student as early as the
first years of school. Based on authors such as Foucault, Deleuze and Gattari,
Machado tries to unveil the process that produces non-learning at school. She takes
reified conceptions about the incapacity of the students who have failed a year or those
who are illiterate, and problematizes them in discussions with the students involved,
their parents and teachers. This in turn aids in recovering a successful school trajectory
for these students. Emphasis is given to activities in the educational field based that
actually intervene in the lived reality. This task is done at the school, in teachers meet-
ings and in individual spaces; aiming at understanding the different aspects that con-
stitute what is called the “queixa escolar” (school complaint). The results show that, in
most of the cases, the collective understanding of the schooling process and of its
vicissitudes has helped to overcome the school difficulties of these students.
634 Souza and Souza

Another research group proposes alternative activities for the school psychologist,
creating collective spaces for reflection about the dilemmas, constraints and difficul-
ties that are present in the relations that form the schooling process. Included are stud-
ies carried out by Rocha (2002), Aguiar (2002), Machado (2002), Tanamachi and
Meira (2003), Sayão and Guarido (2004), Souza (2004), Kupfer (2004), and Freller
(2001), among others. Such studies underscore the necessity to problematize the school’s
issues in order to broaden the understanding of the set of affective, pedagogical and
political relations present in everyday school life.
Another research group approaches the policy of inclusion of the person with special
education needs, following the actions proposed by the Salamanca Declaration of 1994.
The researches conducted by Martínez (2005), Anache (2005), Neves and Machado
(2005), Amaral (2004), Tada (2005), among others, have focused on the following
themes: (1) the educators’ conceptions about inclusion and the repercussions of inclusion
in educational practice; (2) principles of an inclusive practice in schools; (3) proposals of
psycho-pedagogical actions which aid the inclusion process.
Literacy appears as an important theme for research in a critical approach to
Psychology. How to understand what goes on in the classrooms in the process of
achieving the writing skills? As Maluf (2005, p. 69) points out, little is known about
the psychological processes involved in the acquisition of writing skills. Besides, what
practices and what knowledges are put into action by the teacher in order to effect such
a complex task? Recent research has looked into such issues, discussing the impor-
tance of the school context and the formation of the teacher’s knowledge in the literacy
process, (Zibetti, 2005). Themes which refer to affectivity in the process of written lan-
guage acquisition (Tassoni, 2001), to the issue of error in learning and in the pedagog-
ical practices of literacy (Molina, 2001), to toys as a mediation in the process of
writing (Montibeller, 2001), and to the roles and meanings of the school notebook
(Santos & Souza, 2005), among others, show the diversity of things which compose
the process of literacy, and clarify issues in this area.
Finally, it is important to note that there is a group of recent research that aims at dis-
cussing the professional education offered in undergraduate courses in Psychology,
including the work of Tanamachi (2002), Meira (2002), M. P. R. Souza (2002), and
Bock (2003). These studies stress the importance of including the epistemological
basis of knowledge in Psychology and the educational dimensions of the psycholo-
gist’s work in the curricula, highlighting the ideological elements present in the
building of the scientific knowledge in Psychology.

Final Remarks
In order to understand the schooling process one must consider the following funda-
mental aspects: (1) the structuring role of the public policies; (2) the double political
role of the school as an institution which reproduces the status quo, and at the same
time is potentially transformative of the social inequalities; (3) the complexity of the
teaching/learning process caused by social and class relations; (4) the construction
of a theoretical and methodological framework in the field of Psychology and
 School Failure and Public School 635

Education from a critical perspective of the understanding of the school and educa-
tional phenomenon.
The conception of school failure from a critical perspective, that is, as a product of
a schooling process, modifies radically the initial issues that oriented the research
about the phenomenon. New ways of understanding psychological and pedagogical
interventions are being produced in the field of Education aiming at the improvement
of the school quality.
We have had significant progress with the production of knowledge about the process
of formal schooling, particularly regarding the education offered to the popular classes
at the schools in the outskirts of the urban centers. However, the incorporation and
transformation of this knowledge at the level of public education policies is still incipi-
ent and largely superficial, failing to result in improvements to the educational services
offered to the majority of the Brazilian population.
As far as the teacher education policies are concerned, the advances and improve-
ments observed in the educational field are still localized, and fall short of the social
needs for transformation of the school.

Notes
1. Favela is the Portuguese word for a shanty town or cardboard city.
2. Public housing is characteristically buildings with very small apartments or houses constructed by the
public authorities in areas with poor transportation, basic services and entertainment options.
3. The basic organization of the Brazilian education system, its levels and main features, are, in short, the
following:
(1) Basic Education (Educação Básica): composed by: Pre-school (Educação Infantil), Primary
Education (Ensino Fundamental) and Secondary Education (Ensino Médio). (2) Higher Education
(Educação Superior). The Pre-school education is structured in groups based on the children’s age,
catering for ages from 4 months to 6 years. The Brazilian primary education, comprising 8 years of
compulsory and free education, caters for children between the ages of 7 to 14. The 1988 Constitution
removed the upper age limit, making Primary Education mandatory and free for all, even for those
that, for any reason, could not attend school at the proper age. The Secondary Education takes at least
3 years, including vocational courses. And at the Higher Education level, the number of years varies
according to the course of studies.
4. It is important to emphasize that the discussion carried out in this chapter refers to the public education sys-
tem, that is attended almost entirely by children who come from the most disadvantaged social stratum.
5. Cunha (1974); Freitag (1978), amongst others.
6. Table Sources: IBGE, Diretoria de Pesquisas, coordenação de Trabalho e Rendimento, PNAD
(National Sampling Survey on Households) 2002–2003.
7. The PNAD is carried out periodically by the IBGE (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística)-
Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics.
8. Although the national legislation dates from 1996, some Brazilian states, including São Paulo and
Minas Gerais, had adhered to the system of cycles already in the 1980s.
9. Tables sources: The data were collected from official agencies as published by the MEC/INEP.
M. H. G. Castro, & A.M.Q Davanzo, (orgs). Situação da Educação Básica no Brasil, 1999, p. 80. For
2002 data is available from www.edudatabrasil.inep.gov.br (see MEC/INEP, 2005).
10. The PROFLUXO model uses data from the PNAD, a national sampling survey of households, while
the official agencies use data from the Educational Census.
11. The rates of repetition are such that in 1982, 25% of all enrollment in Brazil at Primary Education is
concentrated in the first grade, and in poorer regions of the country the rate reaches almost 50%.
636 Souza and Souza

The expected percentage would be around 12.5% in each of the eight grades of primary school
(Ribeiro, 1991).
12. All quotations of texts in Portuguese were translated to English.
13. Strong criticisms about the limitations of the use of psychological tests in the identification and meas-
urement of children’s abilities can be found in several works, such as Richards (1997), Lewontin et al.
(1984), and Patto (1997).
14. One of the main documents produced in the 1960s about the Deprivation Theories in the USA is
Perspectives on Human Deprivation: biological, psychological and sociological. Washington, US Depart-
ment of Health Education and Welfare, 1968. Like in the USA, in Brazil the Deprivation theories assumed
two main versions proposed initially by Cole and Bruner (1972): The deficit version and the difference
version cited by Lemos, 1985.
15. Patto (1990); Azanha (1990) in Brazil; Ezpeleta, J. and Rockwell, E. (1986); Rockwell, E. (1987) in
Mexico; Assaél Jenny and Neuman, E. (1987); and Edwards, V. (1990), in Chile.
16. We refer to the approaches denominated as “ethnographic”, “qualitative” or “participant research”, repre-
sented by the works of Stubbs and Delamond (1976); Sharp and Green (1975)”; Hammersly and Atkinson
(1983); Erickson (1973, 1986); Woods ( 1979); Pollard (1982), amongst others.
17. In Brazil, the critical movement had its beginning with Maria Helena Souza Patto’s doctoral thesis in
1981, entitled Psychology and Ideology: a critical introduction to school psychology.
18. A pejorative word used to denominate people from the less developed regions of the country, the North
and the Northeast.
19. The criteria allow tenured and more experienced teachers to choose first. Therefore, the tendency is to
choose the “easiest” or the “less time-consuming” groups (which means to avoid the literacy classes),
so the most inexperienced teachers end up with the most difficult groups of students. The logic is not
to “waste” good teachers with “bad” pupils.
20. In the Brazilian education scenario, the works of Paulo Freire are considered as pioneering in recog-
nizing the political dimension of the educative process.
21. The analysis started by Souza has been confirmed by more recent investigations, particularly those of
Santos & Souza (2005) and Tamboril (2005).
22. This book is available only in Portuguese (Mello, 1982). In 2004 the book was in its 12th reprinting,
which gives an indication of how widely its ideas have been disseminated.

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34

CHILEAN EDUCATIONAL REFORM:

THE INTRICATE BALANCE BETWEEN
A MACRO AND MICRO POLICY

Dagmar Raczynski* and Gonzalo Muñoz-Stuardo†

*
Asesorias para el Desarrollo and Catholic University of Chile;
†
Ministry of Education and Diego Portales University, Chile

The Reform in Progress, Analysis, and Results

The first part of this chapter provides a synthesis of Chilean educational reform over
the last 25 years, ending with an overall assessment regarding the country’s present
educational system. It is clear that the reform has been an on-going process that is still
unable to produce a real effect where most required: in prevalent teaching and learning
practices found within schools and classrooms. This is due to the fact that up until now,
reform has been applied at a “macro policy” level, or rather, in the improvement of
general conditions in the educational system and schools, while policies focused
specifically on the steps that need to be taken to improve the quality of learning (the
“micro policy”), have been weak.
For international readers, it is important to provide a brief picture of Chile’s popula-
tion, rural–urban distribution, politico-administrative structure and educational sys-
tem. Chile has 17 million inhabitants, around 85% live in urban areas, and its capital
Santiago, a city of more than 6 million inhabitants, contains almost 40% of the popu-
lation. Chile has a presidential regime and is a unitary state. The state is broken up into
13 regions, 55 provinces and 345 “comunas” or districts. The “comunas” are highly
heterogeneous in demographic, economic and social characteristics, when considering
human development indicators as well as availability of social services. Some of them
are also internally heterogeneous, while others concentrate high proportions of either
poor or rich inhabitants.
The Ministry of Education is in charge of educational policy, regulation, financing
and evaluation. It articulates itself to the schools through 13 regional secretaries and
41 provincial departments of education. These latter are responsible for the implemen-
tation of educational policies in the schools, providing administrative and technical assis-
tance, as well as controlling the schools. The country has more than 11,000 schools, that
together provide education to around 3.8 million students, beginning at four years of age
with two years of preschool (non-obligatory), followed by eight years of compulsory
641
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 641–664.
© 2007 Springer.
642 Raczynski and Muñoz-Stuardo

primary education and four years of high school (compulsory since 2002). Educational
coverage in Chile is almost 100% in primary school and reaches 75% in high school.
At the pre-primary level, coverage is lower, reaching 52% of the population of 4–5
years of age.
Ninety two percent of the student body studies in publicly subsidized schools and
8% in private, tuition-charging (or paid), schools. Publicly subsidized schools are
administered either by municipalities (local authority of each of the 345 “comunas”)
or by private entities: 54 and 46%, respectively. Municipal schools are more frequent
in small, poor and geographically isolated “comunas.” Yet they are also predominant in
poor areas of Santiago and other cities. The system is characterized by marked socioe-
conomic segmentation, where municipal schools concentrate the poorest segments of
the population; private subsidized schools serve some of the poor and middle level
population and private paid schools the highest echelon.
Before the educational reform presented and analyzed below, publicly financed
schools contained 90% of the student body and were directly administered by the
Ministry of Education. Socioeconomic segmentation did exist, but was less stratified
than today.

Chilean Educational Reform: A Long Course of Action1

Chile’s educational reform has been characterized by two clearly diverse processes,
with divergent principles. The first of these took place during the military dictatorship.
The second began with the return of democracy to the country and the policies imple-
mented by the coalition governments.

Neoliberal reforms during the 1980s

Reforms implemented during the 1980s redefined the State’s social responsibilities,
including in the area of education, leading to a weakened public school system. This
was emphasized by two significant measures that have remained in effect until the
present: (1) decentralization of the education sector via the transfer of schools from
ministerial to municipal and private control; and (2) a new school funding system
which introduced the school subsidy unit consisting of a voucher for any student
who had registered and attended school the previous month.2 The objective of these
two measures was that they would produce competition among schools for students,
which in turn would promote greater efficiency in the use of resources and higher
learning standards.
The new school administrators, the municipal authorities, did not welcome these
changes, as they were being given the power and responsibility to administer primary
schools and high schools whether they wanted such responsibility or not, or whether
they actually had or had not the real capacity to administer education effectively in
their district. At the same time, a System of Measurement of Educational Quality
(SIMCE, Sistema de Medición de Calidad de la Educación) was designed and devel-
oped, with the understanding that the competition model established between schools
for student registration required information on educational results, so that parents
 Chilean Educational Reform 643

would make school registration decisions for their children on the basis of these
results, while at the same time each school would be aware of its standing as regards
academic achievement.
These modifications and policies were developed within a context of public expen-
diture restrictions. This was a consequence both of the external economic crisis affect-
ing the country, leading to a drop in GDP of almost 15%, as well as the neoliberal
ideology adverse to public spending prevalent in the government of that time. Total
State spending on education was reduced by 27% between 1982 and 1990, from 4.9 to
2.5% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product).
As a result of measures introduced during the 1980s, the State relinquished leader-
ship and presence in the education system. The responsibility to provide services was
handed to hundreds of educational service “administrators”: 345 of these were munic-
ipal authorities that lacked any real experience or training in running schools. With the
voucher scheme, there now were more than 4,000 private sector “administrators” as
well. At the same time, the State made no attempt to renew ministerial responsibilities
as regards the administration and regulation of a more diversified and dispersed sys-
tem, apart from overseeing student attendance and the voucher regime. The State
effectively delegated its responsibility to safeguard school standards to the market and
was unconcerned about the conditions necessary within the system to strengthen the
working quality of establishments.3

The reform process during the 1990s. The state reassumes control of education
During the 1990s the State reassumed control over education, assigning more
resources and working on wide-ranging educational reforms focused on improving the
quality of teaching standards and equity in academic results, maintaining the provision
of education via public and private administrators, and the funding system based on
vouchers. The new wave of reforms implied a rupture with the previous measures and
model, but also a certain degree of continuity, as indicated in Table 1.
With the return to democracy in Chile, substantial changes have taken place as
regards the general policy framework and the State’s role in education. From being a
“subsidizing State” that spends as little as possible on education, limiting its role almost
exclusively to assigning resources to educational administrators, it has gone to a “pro-
moting State,” with responsibilities for the quality and equity of education, directly
designing and implementing educational improvement programs.
Educational reform during the 1990s included three areas of action, detailed as follows:

Political and economic conditions that favor public sector interventions in education:
The initial priority was to establish favorable political, labor and financial conditions
that would facilitate the move towards a “promoting State.” Interventions within this
area were arranged in three key areas: to build a consensus with actors within and out-
side the education sector regarding fundamental priorities, respond to the State’s and
society’s debt to teachers (Teachers’ Statute), and ensure the financial resources
needed by the proposed changes. Public expenditure on education rose threefold
between 1990 and 2005, going from 2.4 to 4.4% of GDP. The Teachers’ Statute is a
response to the debt with the Teachers’ Union, which recovered part of its labor rights
644 Raczynski and Muñoz-Stuardo

Table 1. Educational policy during the 1980s and 1990s: factors of continuity and divergence

Factors of continuity with the 1980s Factors of divergence with the 1980s

At policy framework – ⇒ From a subsidizing State to a

level
At policy, programs ⇒ Funding system (subsidy
and lines of action on demand)
level ⇒ Administration of system:
decentralized (municipality)
system
⇒ Promotion of private administration
of subsidized establishments
⇒ National system to measure
learning achievements (SIMCE)
promoting State responsible for
national education (government
spending on education rose from
2.6 to 4.3% of GDP between 1990
and 2000, underlining the
importance of education within
national development).
⇒ From access to quality and equity.
⇒ From the priority placed on
administrative and funding issues to
issues covering teaching and
learning (pedagogical).
⇒ Period of compulsory education
extended from 8 to 12 years.
⇒ Changes in the status of the
teaching profession and response to
the social debt with teachers
(Teachers’ Statute).
⇒ General and focused educational
improvement programs.
⇒ New curriculum for pre-school,
primary and high school level
⇒ Professional development of
teachers.
⇒ Development of prizes and
incentives to improve school and
teacher performance (SNED,
Evaluation of academic standards
and teacher performance).
⇒ Extension of the School Day.
⇒ Investments in school infrastructure.
⇒ Investments in equipment and
didactic resources (textbooks,
libraries and Learning Resources
Centers, classroom libraries from
first to fourth grade in primary
school).

Source: By the authors based on Cox (2003).

(among them, tenure rights), and improved its income thanks to centralized mecha-
nisms to set wage levels.

Interventions directly focused on improving the quality and equity of education: These
were carried out via the implementation of a diverse range of improvement programs
designed and funded by the Ministry of Education and implemented through its frame-
work. Part of these programs are universal for all State-subsidized schools, while others
 Chilean Educational Reform 645

are specifically focused on schools that have high levels of social vulnerability and low
learning results. In general terms, both initiatives transfer input resources and material
and technical support to educational establishments. Outstanding among these pro-
grams were the P-900 (Program for the Improvement of education in poverty areas),
the MECE primary and high school improvement programs (Improvement of quality
and equity of education, implemented with the support of the World Bank), Rural
Primary programs, educational improvement projects, the bilingual intercultural pro-
gram, “Liceo para Todos” (“Schools for All” High School Program, oriented to reduce
school dropout), and “Montegrande” (program that for five years supported selected
high schools across the country), to name the most important. Along with these are the
ENLACES (Links) program for information technology resources in the classroom,
which presently covers 100% of all high schools and 85% of all primary schools. From
a quantitative perspective focused on percentage of total educational resources spent,
these latter programs are minor efforts.4

Compulsory measures of a structural nature for the whole education sector: Full day
classes and curricula reform. These are measures that affect the whole system and
modify structural aspects, which it is hoped will contribute to raising the standards of
teaching and learning. Curricula changes were wide-ranging, affecting both primary
and high school education, and implied a prolonged process that was not without its
conflicts. This is a response to changes in society at national and international level,
and expects students to acquire essential skills for integrating into an increasingly
globalized world, without losing their own cultural identity. The underlying theme of
the new curricula is to set out a quality educational core and at the same time leave a
degree of flexibility, so that within this framework each particular school can draft its
own plans and study programs. Full Day Classes (FDC – Jornada Escolar Completa or
JEC) extends the school hours of students, teachers and the management team.
Previously, the school working period was organized on a half-day basis. In real terms,
the average daily schooling time for primary education has increased by 24% and for
high school by 18%. FDC does not only involve the actual length of the school day, but
also proposes changes to the way class time is organized: the relationship between rest
and study periods; the balance between classroom and non-classroom activities; the
availability of greater time periods for the individual and group work of teachers; the
relationship between school, parents and guardians; and the time period allocated to
different subjects, among other aspects. It also implies a significant investment in infra-
structure (approximately 1,200 million in U.S. dollars), and a considerable increase in
subsidy costs in order to pay for additional teaching hours.

The Results: What has Changed (and Not Changed) in Chilean Education
Nobody doubts that in Chile today, opportunities within the educational system have
improved. In fact, these opportunities are reflected in the way Chilean society perceives
education. The last UNDP report on Chile is clear in this respect. The report mentions
a “new platform” of opportunities where education plays a key role. According to this
report, 73% of the population believes that today there are more opportunities for
646 Raczynski and Muñoz-Stuardo

people to study (UNDP, 2004). Some results of Chilean educational reform that every-
one agrees on are as follows:
● Study opportunities for children and young people belonging to poor sectors have
substantially increased, as can be witnessed from figures regarding primary and
high school education coverage, the reductions in the drop-out and school leaving
rates, and the expansion of higher education. Whatever the socioeconomic situa-
tion facing a family, the great majority of children and adolescents attend and
complete their primary education and attend high school.5
● Schools are better equipped to cater to the learning needs of students, thanks to
substantial improvements in infrastructure; increases to teacher salaries; greater
availability of learning resources within schools (textbooks, didactic resources,
computers and Internet access, libraries, etc.); the development of educational
improvement programs and projects; more demanding curricula; the extended
school day for students and teachers; more welfare support for students from
poorer families (food, grants, school supplies, oral health, etc.).
In spite of the above-mentioned achievements, there is also a broad consensus regarding
two considerable shortcomings of our system: deficiencies in educational quality and its
persistent segmentation. The learning level generated in students by the Chilean education
system is lower than that set by the international standard to which it aspires. Measure-
ments such as PISA (International Program of Student Assessment, of the Organization
for Economic Co-operation and Development) and TIMSS (Third International Mathe-
matic and Science Study) clearly show that Chile falls below initial expectations in
Language as well as Mathematics and Sciences. Additionally, the scores obtained by
schools in the test that accompanies the System of Measurement of Educational Quality
(SIMCE, Sistema de Medición de Calidad de la Educación) have not risen on average,
and the score gap between the lower and middle socioeconomic and cultural background
of students’ homes or according to administrative body (which in Chile has a direct rela-
tionship with the socioeconomic level of homes), has remained constant (Figure 1).6
The intended goal of Chilean educational reforms over the last 25 years, of making sig-
nificant progress as regards the learning achievements of students and the social distribu-
tion of such achievements, has not been reached. Consequently, the country has a
universal obligation in terms of the quality of education and the type of teaching being
given to different segments and social groups (because the standstill in the quality of edu-
cation affects everyone). There is also a pending debt to the poorest sectors of society.
Students from underprivileged families receive a lower standard of education and learn
less, so becoming, as Bourdieu and Champagne (1999) pointed out, the “segregated from
within.” Making a significant gain in terms of quality and prevailing over this new form
of social exclusion are the great challenges that face the Chilean educational system today.
The reasons behind these challenges are numerous. However, from our own partic-
ular view, there are two central hypotheses that may explain this situation. Even though
educational reforms in Chile have substantially improved coverage and working condi-
tions in the country’s schools, the expected leap in quality and equity has not taken place,
as reforms have “fallen short” in two fundamental and interrelated aspects: the inability
to visualize schools as a system and to help them to improve by focusing their actions
 Chilean Educational Reform 647

Last SIMCE evaluations 4th grade primary (mathematics)

310 301.0
300 297.0
290
280 274.0
271.0
270
260 250.0
250 245.0
240
229.0 228.0
230 220.0 220.0
220
210
200
LOW MEDIUM - LOW MEDIUM MEDIUM - HIGH HIGH

2002 2005

Figure 1. SIMCE scores according to social strata of the students

Source: By the authors using data from SIMCE MINEDUC (2006) www.simce.cl Date of retrieval July 31, 2006.

on the students’ learning process. These, in turn, have led to schools that have neither
the necessary ability or capacity to “enhance the worth” of their students, which is to
say, to improve their learning skills over and above what is expected given their socioe-
conomic and family backgrounds.
In short, Chilean education policy has not shown the capacity to “empower” educa-
tional establishments and so create a greater number of truly effective schools. Actions
taken so far have been inefficient, as they have not been able to reach the “heart” of the
problem. The question that needs to be answered in Chile today is: how to raise the so-
called “school effect,” beyond the context of external influences (family or social), via
effective actions implemented within the school establishment and efficient teaching
practices used by every classroom teacher?
To concentrate efforts, or establish as the objective the creation of a greater number of
effective schools, implies shifting the focus away from inputs used within the educational
process and other context variables (classroom hours, curricula programs, etc.), towards
schools as organizations and the teaching and learning processes that take place within
them, in order to consider the support that schools really need and the best way of pro-
viding that support. The second part of this chapter deals with this question with the help
of empirical evidence now available in our country. The third part of the chapter offers
some policy outlines in order to move towards a greater number of effective schools.

New Impetus for Reform: The Aims that should be

Guiding Chilean Education Policy
As mentioned before, the main question that should be made by our country today is
essentially what type of school do we really need if what is wanted is a qualitative leap
in learning results? Focus is thus placed on the school – the “micro cosmos” where the
648 Raczynski and Muñoz-Stuardo

majority of changes urgently required by the educational system are truly needed. Up
until now, government policies have circled around this micro cosmos without really
coming to grips with it. Public policies have provided a constant flow of initiatives to
schools and there have been numerous actions undertaken, but consideration has not
sufficiently been given to the “capacities” that schools have to assimilate and incorpo-
rate all these actions within an educational project centered on teaching and learning
and the integrated formation of students.
To identify and discuss the type of school to which the country should aspire is of
primary importance, as this conveys the deeper meaning of educational policy to the
school. This section describes, firstly, the characteristics inherent in effective schools
and teaching methods in poor sectors of Chile; followed by the elements and processes
that have led to quality improvements within educational establishments. The reference
points for this analysis are at all times specific schools located in Chile.7

Effective Schools in Poor Sectors of Chile

When raising the issue of effective schools, we are not at all proposing that they are all
the same. Each school is a world in itself; it has a history; is and has been overcoming its
own particular problems; students and families are all distinct; working methods used are
distinctive in each case. Indeed, each and every school is unique. However, effective
schools in poor sectors of Chile do share a certain emphasis in terms of organizational
and teaching practices that makes them effective.8
At the heart of truly effective schools there is a management team focused on
pedagogical needs, delineating the work undertaken by the establishment, guaran-
teeing an unceasing concern by management and teaching staff for the students’
learning process. This process is complemented by and receives feedback from the
proficient work undertaken by teachers in the classroom, a task supported by col-
leagues, and receiving solid managerial support in technical and pedagogic issues.
Management teams support and relieve the administrative tasks that are the respon-
sibility of teachers, and are focused on supervising and supporting the classroom
work of each teacher. These two areas forcefully engage and interact with the
expectations held by managers and teachers as regards the learning possibilities of
students. They believe in the potential of students and communicate this belief (in
public) to them, and are demanding with them. These three areas, in turn, interact
with aspects linked to the school environment, its identity, and the commitment and
thoroughness with which such tasks are implemented. These elements reinforce
effective management teams and the effective work undertaken in the classroom.
Finally, each school has a specific stance as regards the role that the family should
play in the school, acting in correspondence with this role.9 Tables 2 and 3 provide
a synthesis of these elements.
The key elements of the aforementioned effective management teams provide sup-
port to teachers in the classroom, and without efficient teaching, there is no school that
can really be effective. The working aspects of teachers in the classroom that stand out
in the effective schools studied are numerous. The main aspects are outlined in Table 3.
Practically all schools involved in this study share these characteristics, although to
 Chilean Educational Reform 649

Table 2. Characteristics of effective schools in poor sectors of Chile

Institutional and pedagogic leadership: Effective schools possess leaders legitimized by the educational
community, derived from the effective support “in the workplace” provided by management teams to teach-
ers so that they may fulfill their teaching tasks. Such teams have high expectations as regards the ability of
their teachers and the future of their students, They promote participation, provide appropriate feedback and
constantly motivate teachers, both in word and example. This leads to a healthy working climate, identifica-
tion with the school, and shared motivation to provide a good standard of work.
Management teams focused on learning: The school community understands that the “essential task” of
schools is the generation of learning skills in students. Management concerns itself about initiatives for the
protection and social assistance of students, but is careful not to withhold energy and effort from the central
task: the learning process of students.
Schools where nothing is left to chance: Schools have an educational project that is explicit, understood
and shared by the school community. The objectives of this translate into concrete and realistic goals, based
on skills that all children should develop, and practices marked by the stamp of these objectives. Clear pri-
orities are established in order to avoid a dispersion of efforts on activities that distract and wear down stu-
dents and teachers. Effective classroom teaching, well prepared and rigorously implemented, with attention
to diversity, sustained rhythm, and learning motivation, is the central focus of work.
Responsible evaluation: A “culture of evaluation” is present that is geared towards improving the indi-
vidual and collective performance of teachers: through evaluation, they learn from their errors and identify
and exchange good teaching practices, which is knowledge that provides feedback for planning. Systematic
evaluation also stimulates teachers to make their best effort. The evaluation of students is neither a routine
nor the individual task of each teacher; rather results are processed, achievements and setbacks are analyzed,
along with reinforcements and didactic innovations, etc. Consequently, evaluations made of students provide
feedback for a teaching process relevant to students’ needs.
Handling and specific responses to student diversity: The differences between students (in terms of
previous knowledge and different learning speeds) are recognized and accepted as a reality, and are incor-
porated at the planning and development stage of activities in the school and classroom. Concordantly, these
schools, except in some extreme cases, do not exclude students who are academically behind or show behav-
ioral problems; rather they make an all-out effort to maintain them in the school.
Clear and shared rules as regards the use of discipline: Rules are clear in regards to the coexistence of
school participants and coherent in the application of discipline; rules are applied to both teachers and stu-
dents. Emphasis is placed on positive reinforcement, mediation and reparation. The example represented by
teachers and those in charge of management teams as regards commitment and discipline is recognized
by students.
High expectations and demands as regards knowledge acquired by students: In effective schools,
teachers and administrators do not blame the family if a student has learning problems. Rather, they believe
in, and make a constant effort to enhance, the learning skills of such children, who come from homes sub-
ject to material restrictions, low cultural awareness, with a limited availability of books and other learning
stimuli. However, teachers do not only believe in the learning ability of their students, but also communicate
this high expectation regarding their students’ future. Students repeatedly indicate that their teachers encour-
age them “to do more,” that they “should overcome the hurdles,” that they “have talent,” and the “importance
of personal effort and a sense of responsibility to get ahead in life.” In accordance with this conviction
expressed in the classroom, the main concern of teachers is to motivate students to learn and stimulate them
to make their best effort.
School–family alliance: Effective schools develop an intentional and collective stance as regards how to
relate to students’ families, which is understood and accepted by all involved, and is frequently expressed via
letters of commitment outlining responsibilities and rights, rewards and punishments. Nevertheless, here all
similarity ends. Some effective schools only demand a minimum level of responsibility from parents with
their child or children, and base this alliance on a basic commitment that the family will not attempt to
counter the education provided by the school to its offspring. In the other extreme, some schools make an

(Continued)
650 Raczynski and Muñoz-Stuardo

Table 2. (Continued )

effort to incorporate parents into the classroom via tutorial systems. Others allocate time to the development
of parents, providing them with remedial courses along with general education and personal development.
The central point here is that, although strategies may be dissimilar, all the schools concerned understand
that the issue of the family and its participation in the education of children cannot be ignored.
Efficient use of human resources: There are explicit criteria for teacher selection (whenever possible), in
order to assign tasks and responsibilities, and to provide teachers with development opportunities in accor-
dance to their needs. This is made possible by closely undertaken follow-up work by management teams,
allowing them to identify the strengths and weaknesses of teaching staff.*
Use of external support: Schools make the best use possible of externally provided resources and oppor-
tunities, whether in the form of material or technical support. They also try to insert themselves in networks
that will allow them to identify solutions to their problems and satisfy different needs. They do not passively
receive all that is presented to them; rather, they select what is needed, adapting it to their needs and then
disseminating it.
*
In municipal schools, this form of administration is limited to assigning, in the most efficient way possible,
available teaches to the courses and tasks implemented by the school.
Source: Taken from Raczynski & Muñoz: “Efectividad Escolar y Cambio Educativo en Condiciones de
Pobreza en Chile” (School effectiveness and educational change under conditions of poverty in Chile),
Ministry of Education, 2005.

a varying degree, and not necessarily present in each class or teacher. If we were to
summarize these characteristics in one sentence, it would be as follows. The teacher
effectively understands the content to be taught, knows how to motivate the children in
order to teach said content; creates an atmosphere in the classroom appropriate for an
effective teaching and learning environment; makes use of all the time available to
teach; is demanding and provides feedback to the students with positive reinforcement.
We must not forget that these “effective classrooms” are only possible if institutional
mechanisms exist within the school that constantly stimulate and reinforce them. An
essential part of such mechanisms is the collective work of teachers and coordinated
lesson planning. Actions are planned which are then implemented in the classroom;
problems faced by individual teachers are jointly discussed with colleagues. Actions
are coordinated regarding the same course or subject material, and even, if necessary,
regarding the problems of a particular student. Additionally, didactic materials, such as
guides and tests, are created and shared.
There is another important feature regarding effective schools and education that is
important to underline: constant updating and adaptation to changes. This feature
stands out when schools are studied that were previously effective but no longer are.
These schools face enormous difficulties to adapt to changes, particularly the chang-
ing characteristics of their students. Effective schools are attentive and open to inno-
vate and adjust their work to the needs and characteristics of an ever-changing alumni
and dynamic local environment. Consequently, schools are only effective if they are
organizations with the ability to learn, permanently search for ways to improve and
adapt to the external factors that affect them, and make the most of opportunities
responding to new challenges and risks.
 Chilean Educational Reform 651

Table 3. Outstanding characteristics of effective teaching in effective schools in poor districts

Student learning is the priority: Teachers painstakingly focus their classroom work with students on the
acquisition of knowledge, are confident in students’ learning abilities and that it is their (i.e., the teachers’)
responsibility to put into practice teaching methodologies that overcome or counteract any problems. To identify
mechanisms that motivate students to learn is a basic concern of teachers. They know that the motivation to study
is not a set factor that a student automatically brings to the classroom; rather it is the responsibility of the teacher.
Acquisition of significant knowledge: Teachers involved in the study make a concerted effort to link up
their teaching content with the current situation (affecting the children), previously acquired knowledge and
the personal motivation of their students. They know that to go far, they need to start closer to home. This
pedagogic rule incorporates a collection of practices directed towards student acquisition of significant
knowledge. Consequently, students forge an active relationship with language and knowledge, numbers and
logical reasoning. The teaching methodology and didactic instruments used in the same class are diverse and
are constantly being varied, as this multiplies the chances that each student will find their personal point of
connection and/or motivation with subject contents.
High level of structuring and anticipation of learning conditions: The schoolteachers studied carried out
intense and systematic work in lesson planning and preparation, backed up by those responsible for academic
management within the school, and by their own colleagues. In the same way, classroom work is responsibly
assessed, both collectively and individually. Classes are linked up with those given previously, their objectives
are clearly outlined, activities are well anticipated and time allocations are controlled. Good use is made of the
time available and the pace of work is intense. Teachers supervise, control and provide ongoing feedback to stu-
dents. Teachers reach conclusions with the support of students; important aspects are reinforced and new ele-
ments being learned are clearly explained. This high degree of structuring the teaching process does not mean
that it is rigid. Teachers are open to the unforeseen as well as teaching opportunities that spontaneously arise.
Constant supervision and feedback to students: Teachers endeavor to maintain constant communication,
and develop a relationship, with their students, who in turn perceive that they are being accompanied by their
teacher on their learning journey. The “invisible hand” of the teacher (expressed in the countless questions,
comments, instructions, corrections and decisions) motivates and involves the students, constantly providing
assessment and feedback. If students have been organized for group work, each one receives supervision and
care is taken to involve all students in the task.
Intensive use of time, sustained pace: One of the most constant characteristics of the schools studied is
the significant consideration given to the time they use, illustrated by the way teachers make the most of
instructional hours. In effective schools there is very little teacher absenteeism; few classes are suspended,
and when a teacher is absent, he or she leaves guides and planned activities to be used by the replacement
teacher. In many of these schools, an effort is made to free up teachers from administrative tasks that either
act as a distraction or make them lose too much classroom time. In line with this appreciation of time, most
teachers make an intensive use of their instructional hours.
Good teacher-student relationship: Pedagogic authority is intrinsic to the teacher-student relationship.
The pedagogic authority of teachers in the effective schools studied is supported by the quality of their work
and the fact that they are mediators between students and knowledge. It is this vested authority, backed up
by practice, which students seem to recognize: these teachers are highly respected by their students, with
whom they maintain a warm and trusting relationship.
Didactic materials with teaching qualities: The use of didactic materials generally occupies an impor-
tant place in the teaching practices of these teachers. In most of the classes analyzed, the teachers used a
wide range of didactic resources: textbooks, books, learning guides, computers, games, videos, etc. Many
teachers make use of everyday objects that are recycled and used in educational activities. The quantity of
available materials in a school helps. However, the key variable here is the teacher’s creativity in the use of
existing materials, and the ability to devise materials when nothing else is at hand.

Source: Taken from Raczynski and Muñoz: “Efectividad Escolar y Cambio Educativo en Condiciones
de Pobreza en Chile” (School effectiveness and educational change under conditions of poverty in Chile),
Ministry of Education, 2005.
652 Raczynski and Muñoz-Stuardo

This description of effective schools and teaching methods in poor sectors of Chile
reaffirms that proposed by numerous studies regarding this issue in other countries
(Brunner & Elacqua, 2003; Creemers, 1994; Edmonds, 1979; Mortimore, 1997; Murillo,
2003a; Reynolds & Creemers, 1989; Reynolds & Cuttance, 1989; Sammons, Hillman &
Mortimore, 1995; Scheerens, 2000; Scheerens & Bosker, 1997; Slavin, 1996) Thus, the
results are not particularly surprising. However, they are important because:

● they indicate that with a high standard of work at institutional management level
and within the classroom, it is possible to improve the educational quality of
schools that attend the needs of students from poor families.
● they show that the effective schools and teachers studied do not carry out
particularly complex or inaccessible actions; they simply do well, with responsi-
bility and thoroughness, that which is expected of a school, counteracting
problems and creating learning environments that are favorable and stimulating
for students; and
● they verify that to undertake a task such as the one they do, requires a balanced
combination of subjective (commitment, expectations, willingness, thorough-
ness) and objective (organization, planning, assessment, studies and knowledge
up-dating) elements.
● they reveal that key elements identified have to be simultaneously present to be
effective.

There are not many effective schools in poor sectors of Chile. Data gathered regarding
the reality of municipal and subsidized private schools indicates that these show vari-
ous and distinct problems, distinguishing them from the characteristics common to
effective schools. Many have leadership, a good environment, and commitment, but
student’s learning does not form the core of their daily activities. As a consequence of
the difficult context in which they are inserted (poverty, urban decay, insecurity, drugs,
crime) they tend to favor a protective “social role” as regards children and adolescents,
rather than focusing on learning objectives. Expectations of school managers and
teachers are low; they do not believe in the possibility of carrying out good (academic)
work with students under prevailing circumstances. Low academic results are prima-
rily associated with the family backgrounds of students and negative factors present in
the surrounding environment, and only afterwards with internal difficulties and defi-
ciencies present in the schools themselves. In other schools, there is no collective
effort or teamwork carried out by teachers, whether due to the lack of institutional
motivation and support that would make such work possible, or the presence of inter-
personal conflicts at varying levels of seriousness within the school community. In
other establishments, it is the insufficient training and preparation of teachers that is
the problem, or their inability to establish a relationship of respect and collaboration
with the families of students. Other schools suffer from a lack of discipline. Moreover,
there are schools that face problems regarding adherence to “basic regulations,” where
neither teachers nor students respect school and lesson starting and finishing times,
there is no minimum level of order and discipline, authority is ill defined, and lessons are
cancelled due to lack of attendance or problems associated with order and discipline.10
There is a lot of descriptive evidence on these and other situations. Yet no assessment
 Chilean Educational Reform 653

has been made as to the extent of these problems and their distribution throughout the
whole school system.

How is School Effectiveness Achieved and Maintained?

For the purpose of public policy, it is not enough to understand about effective schools.
It is equally important to find the answer to the question of how schools actually
become effective. In this section, evidence is presented and key questions are answered
as to how this process of improvement takes place. As in the previous section, evidence
has been gathered from schools located in poor sectors of Chile.
The first assertion that should be made is that an improvement in school quality and
learning results is a challenge that can be met in poor sectors. Of the 14 effective
schools studied, 8 had improved their learning results between the early and mid-
1990s. This initial change was followed by a rigorous and disciplined period of work
lasting from three to four years, directed at strengthening the pedagogic dimension
(the learning process) of school management. Improvement is no easy task, nor is
there any unique and universal recipes at hand. Each school followed its own course
and found its own answers in order to achieve improvement.
The main pillars of change, as could be expected in accordance with the results pre-
sented in the previous section, are located in what is referred to as institutional man-
agement and classroom practices. Change to achieve better results has always been due
to an external push: the arrival of resources and projects linked to Educational Reform
(highlighted by the P-900 Schools Program and Educational Improvement Projects);
changes in the management or head of the UTP (Technical Pedagogic School Unit);
arrival of a group of new teachers; support from an educational foundation and/or
more active involvement of educational administrators in a school’s future; the dis-
grace and/or internal “warning” caused by the news of an extremely low SIMCE score.
However, the journey towards improvement can only be started when such “external
impulses” are intertwined with internal forces in the schools themselves, which take
up the challenge, directing the task of transformation.
Improvement is never an answer to just one factor or situation. In all of the cases
studied, it has to do with a process in which different elements are linked together, and
where recognition of progress and achievements offers an important incentive to con-
tinue the journey started. Improvement processes are slow and difficult, requiring
leadership, effort and the perseverance of the team that has proposed to make such
changes. The starting point is always a conviction regarding the need for change and
the direction it should take. Nevertheless, the process followed was almost never
clearly defined right from the beginning. In the cases studied, there was a level of prag-
matism as regards the actions to take; searching for opportunities, testing new ways,
assessing, correcting and redesigning actions. Within this process, it is possible to
identify certain common milestones. These are summarized in Table 4.
Analysis of improvement processes in schools shows that change is never the result
of the faithful application of a program or external intervention, but rather the result of
adaptations, interpretations and decisions taken by agents within the school, as it is
they who adopt, provide meaning to and lead the changes. The improvement process
can only be successful if it is built from within the school.11
654 Raczynski and Muñoz-Stuardo

Table 4. Milestones present in schools that have improved

Implementation of a detailed diagnosis regarding the situation of the school, its teachers and staff:
The majority of schools undertook an early diagnosis that allowed them to identify their main problems. A
detailed picture was drawn up, which was rigorous, avoided complacency, and included input from teachers.
Two generic questions were present during this analysis: (1) Why is it that students learn or do not learn?
(2) What can the school and teacher do to rectify this situation? The diagnosis included a detailed analysis
of students’ knowledge or lack of, supported at times by tests and exams, and information regarding their
emotional and family background. With this diagnosis in hand, “we began to establish priorities and real-
ized that the school did not go in the right direction. The task was not easy for us. We had to stop blaming the
usual factors: limited education of parents, family breakups, and community problems. From then on,
we considered these factors as characteristics of part of our students and a challenge we had to deal with.
We began by enhancing our team work on how to improve student performance under such circumstances”
(direct quote from a group interview of teachers in one of the schools).
Establishing priorities, needs in order of importance and actions to be taken: A diagnosis in itself does
not improve a school. It only does so if it concludes in a plan of action with priorities and a timetable for imple-
mentation, with a plan that is regularly monitored and assessed. Priority actions should be specific and well
defined. These actions are, as interviewees in one school pointed out, “small, positive steps” that have to be
taken by the school in order to reach its goals. All the schools that improved had set short and medium-term
goals, which were ambitious but obtainable. Levels of course repeating or drop out, average marks, reading lev-
els in second primary grade, were transformed into key variables that helped schools define the best direction
in which to head. These goals formed into a shared educational project, which was constantly adjusted and
adapted, leading to a plan of action with objectives, activities, timetable and clear definition of responsibilities.
Institutional management becomes (as it should be) pedagogic management: Management of the
school increasingly begins to focus on technical and academic challenges. This means, for example, that
administration work takes second place, and that all actions of the management team begin to focus on
objectives to improve teaching, and working with teachers on their classroom practices. Work is started on
didactic and pedagogic issues: the sharing of knowledge among peers, joint planning of classes, class obser-
vation, search for development and training courses, followed by an interpretation and transmission of
elements learnt between colleagues, with suggestions for changes needed in the school.
A new approach to managing discipline: All the schools that “advanced” recognized a change in the
approach used to manage student discipline, moving from an approach marked by a strong use of authority,
strict regulations and sanctions, to one in which strict regulations were present, but were internalized by
teachers, students, parents and guardians, by means of conversations and reasoning, using positive rein-
forcements, socialization of values regarding responsibilities, respect, solidarity and self-control. Thus,
schools established a “basic platform for discipline,” where the firm self-discipline of management teams
and teachers acts as a behavioral model for students.
Actions to strengthen school identity: The management team implements intentional and explicit
actions to build an image of the school that underlines its strengths, motivating the pride of all concerned
and reinforcing their commitment: this may involve sporting competitions with other schools, recreational
activities involving parents, support for and acts of solidarity with surrounding communities, without
neglecting the school’s main purpose: teaching and learning.
Management that exploits opportunities: The school no longer passively receives resources, materials
and projects from the Ministry or other bodies, but sets out to find them, negotiates, links them to the needs
of the school and adapts them to its requirements. Creating opportunities also means making the most of
those that are presented: “With the P-900, we realized the importance of establishing objectives in order to
improve teaching quality. Before that, we would not really question the quality of what we were teaching or
about issues regarding school management ” (direct quote from teachers in one of the schools).
Relationship with the family: During the change process, some schools assess their relationships with
students’ families, searching for ways to draw them in and involve them in school activities and the learning
process of their children.

Source: Taken from Raczynski and Muñoz: “Efectividad Escolar y Cambio Educativo en Condiciones de
Pobreza en Chile” (School effectiveness and educational change under conditions of poverty in Chile),
Ministry of Education, 2005.
 Chilean Educational Reform 655

This conclusion has important implications for the way in which Chilean educa-
tional reform has been implemented. Those ministerial actions that have reached out to
schools have generally been vertical, centralized, standardized, in the sense that they
submit uniform instructions and solutions, without taking into account the indispensa-
ble connection between the particular situation of each school. Neither do they “make
a concerted effort” to involve and commit management teams and teaching staff within
the intended process of change.
Analysis of schools that improved during the 1990s revealed the presence of certain
elements of Educational Reform: participation in the P-900 Schools Program
(improvement in the quality standards of primary schools in poor sectors); Educational
Improvement Projects (EIP); national and international internships; and active use of
didactic materials, including the ENLACES project. However, these components have
also been present in schools that have not been able to produce or sustain good learn-
ing results. Why, with the impetus given by Reform, do some schools improve and
others do not? Although there are various factors to explain this, evidence indicates
that one main reason is that Reform results are mediated by organizational character-
istics and teaching practices that prevail in the schools. Effective Schools have been
able to link up the drive of external Reform with their own internal efforts, under-
standing and incorporating these elements in their daily procedures, in accordance
with their own priorities and needs.
The future challenge of Educational Reform is to recognize that educational change
and improvement in the quality of education is based on the proficient functioning of
schools. As long as this is not achieved, elements such as curricula reform, full day
classes, educational improvement programs, professional development of teachers,
textbooks and didactic resources, investments in infrastructure, and etc., although
necessary and helpful, do not ensure a permanent improvement in the quality of learn-
ing and the reduction of the socioeconomic and socio-cultural gap in learning.

Challenges for Educational Reform

Considering the key characteristics of school effectiveness and educational improve-
ment of schools in Chile, this third section considers some of the policy alternatives
that need to be taken into account in order to reach said objectives. The arguments
needed to answer these questions are placed in four affirmations, which in our view
represent the course that should be taken.

“Reconcile” Education Policy with Schools: From a Macro Policy

to a “Schools Based” Policy
To reconcile policy with schools implies, firstly, taking into account educational units
as a starting point for any intervention or program. This has not happened in Chile,
bar some exceptions. In general, a standardized and rigid design has been preferred,
that imposes changes on schools and does not take into account their specific prob-
lems and potential. In other words, a design that reaches out to schools with resources
and actions, but does not view such institutions as organizations using a systemic and
656 Raczynski and Muñoz-Stuardo

integrated approach, rather a fragmented and partial one. Standardization of proce-

dures and rigid program designs leave no space for specific situations and hinders
schools from forging their own meaning of change. In other words, it makes it more
difficult for management teams and teachers to disagree, negotiate and express them-
selves, and within this process adapt the proposed changes to their daily work within
the schools.
Recently the Ministry of Education has begun to modify its stance in this area, with
policies that examine schools as a system. On the one hand, it has established a frame-
work for good school governance and promoted public competitions for school princi-
pals. On the other, it has designed a Quality Guarantee System for School Management
(SAGCE, Sistema de Aseguramiento de la Calidad de la Gestión Escolar) that has been
running since 2003. This assesses, with the significant involvement of the management
team and teachers and an external panel, the situation of the school in terms of leader-
ship, curricula management, school coexistence, support to students and resource
management; and stimulates schools to draw up an improvement plan, by providing a
limited amount of resources to set such a plan in motion. This system marks an impor-
tant change in direction, but has limited coverage and is restricted to proposing certain
questions to the schools, without providing effective support to overcome the challenges
faced in the five areas of diagnosis proposed by the system.
Reconciling policies with schools has another essential component: effective teach-
ing. In this context, it is time that education policy deals more thoroughly with the
issue of the professional development of teachers, as there are recognized failures that
affect both the initial training of teachers, along with subsequent developmental train-
ing or training while teachers are actually in employment.12 As regards training while
in employment, the Ministry has worked on a teacher development model that is
implemented in the classroom itself (the Language and Mathematics (LEM)
Strategy.13) The LEM Strategy seeks to transform the teaching practices of kinder-
garten and early primary school teachers, via technical assistance carried out by a con-
sultant teacher (qualified as a “master of masters”). This is a new and innovative
initiative for the Ministry; innovative because it is provided by highly skilled coaches,
and because it provides advisory assistance to teachers in the classroom and not just
training outside of the classroom environment. However, its focus is placed on curric-
ula implementation without concern for the limits a school may have in the area of
institutional management, which, as was seen in section “Effective schools in poor
sectors of Chile” is an essential support in effective teaching.

The Design of a “School-Based” Policy Implies Strengthening

School Autonomy and Institutional Management and Learning Capacities
School autonomy in Chile is restricted, and factors that limit autonomy are both varied
and complex. Schools are the responsibility of municipal and private administrators,
many of which do not have the experience or particular expertise to administrate
schools. Consequently, they undertake the administration of the schools assigned to
them without proper consideration of the technical and pedagogical implications that
such work entails.
 Chilean Educational Reform 657

There are more than 4,000 private administrators and they are rather diverse: private
citizens or companies; some with many years of experience, others only recently
arrived; belonging to religious orders or lay institutions; some with a clear profit motive
and others with more social and educational concerns. The majority (67%) administers
just one establishment; 13% administer 2; 9% between 3 and 10; and 8% more than 10
establishments (Elacqua et al., 2006a). Only a segment of these administrators support
or compel the schools under their charge to improve the quality of their work.
There are 345 municipal administrators, one for each municipal authority in the
country. The pro-market policies of the 1980s created a split between two parallel lines
of dependence and authority over municipal schools. Administrative aspects (human
resources, finance or budgets and equipment) became the responsibility of the munici-
palities, while curricula, pedagogy, assessment issues and assessment guidelines, and
control of the monthly attendance of students are handled by the Ministry of Education.
This situation led to a certain paradox: administrators do not have a clearly defined role
as regards technical and pedagogic affairs, but by controlling resources, they do yield a
decisive influence on the educational management of schools. This paradox became
more accentuated with the approval of the Teachers’ Statute law in 1991, which made
the administration of human resources by municipal administrators more inflexible.14
To this is added the circumstance that the Ministry concerned has never considered
municipal and private administrators as fundamental actors in the design and imple-
mentation of educational reform, demonstrated by the fact that educational programs
and initiatives reach the schools directly, bypassing municipal administrators.
The challenge today is to create and strengthen the pedagogic or educational
approach of administrators in both private and municipal sectors. There is a need to
strengthen horizontal networks that will allow municipalities and private administra-
tors to learn from each other. Additionally, it is important to create within the Ministry
a support strategy for the design, implementation and evaluation of local educational
plans that incorporate provision of education by private administrators.

Strengthening Responsibility for Results and Accountability

within the Educational System
Today there exists a low level of responsibility among actors within the system at all
levels. There is a lack of clarity as regards the roles and function of each particular
actor within the system, and no proper mechanism to make each one responsible for
the tasks assigned and results achieved.
In a decentralized system such as the Chilean model, operating under a rationale of
education vouchers, the consequence of low learning results should be assumed by
administrators and schools. However, as regards the present situation, neither adminis-
trators nor schools take responsibility for the costs or benefits of the quality of educa-
tion they provide. In addition, in the municipal sector the quality of teaching provided
does not correlate with working conditions and wage levels. Added to this is the fact
that families are not properly using information regarding quality when they choose a
school for their children (Elacqua et al., 2006a, 2006b). These are all factors that
weaken the chances of increasing the number of effective schools.
658 Raczynski and Muñoz-Stuardo

On the other hand, a decentralized system should clearly establish and communicate
the principles and priorities of short, medium and long-term educational policy, defining
coherent guidelines, standards and regulations, and implementing a monitoring-assess-
ment system for results that is transparent and widely disseminated to administrators,
schools and families, coupled to mechanisms for providing schools with the support they
may need, whether directly or through third parties.
At present, there is no ministerial policy for monitoring and assessment, except the
SIMCE system. The decisions taken by the Ministry are rarely based on the empirical
evidence provided by studies and assessments. Those evaluations available are derived
from one-off programs and initiatives. On the other hand, the SIMCE system measures
learning results every two years in fourth and eighth grade of primary school and second
grade of high school. Results are made public, but are to date incomprehensible for
parents, as well as the management teams and teachers of many schools.
Ministerial supervision has been the main support mechanism for schools. However,
supervision has not been able to support or put “pressure” on schools to improve. The
work undertaken is more of an administrative nature, rather than providing pedagogic
and curricula back-up. The OECD report (2004) recommends that the role of supervi-
sion should be redefined as soon as possible, focused on educational assessment, with
a clear sense of purpose, and the necessary experience and training required to bolster
credibility among management teams and teachers.
Effective accountability requires that the Ministry has at its disposal a minimum of
instruments needed to make the necessary demands on all agents involved in the sys-
tem. However, in general the Ministry does not have the legal powers to regulate the
system and make demands on schools and administrators. Although there is an overall
consensus that administrators should be responsible for the results obtained in their
schools, in practice, the State demands no more than pupil class attendance in order to
properly transfer resources.15

To Favor Greater Equity: Vouchers Differentiated in Accordance

with the Socioeconomic Level of Students and Promotion of Socially
More Diverse Schools
There is a close relationship between the voucher system implemented in the 1980s and
the present segmentation of the educational system. The end logic behind a demand sub-
sidy is to make schools compete for student attendance and encourage that this competi-
tion is based on academic results. This logic might drive educational establishments to
exclude from their classrooms those students who show a low academic performance or
are more difficult to educate. At the same time, the Chilean school system is prolific with
selection procedures: entrance exams are permitted and the requirement to present a
child’s previous school reports; parents can be interviewed and students already enrolled
can be expelled (González, 2005). Consequently, in practice, those who choose within
this educational market are those providing and not those demanding service, which
obviously reduces any pressure placed on the quality standard of the schools concerned.
We need schools that are socially diverse. “Social segregation in schools is not only
bad for the cohesion of society in general, from the point of view of children’s learning,
 Chilean Educational Reform 659

it is also bad for the democratic development of the country” (Aguila, 2004, p. 33).
Moreover, it has been categorically proved that young people learn more within a cul-
turally and socially diverse educational context; which is to say, there are solid academic
and social reasons for promoting greater integration within schools.
Additionally, greater equity of opportunities requires major adjustments to the fund-
ing system. Presently, the value of a subsidy per student is, in practice, similar for all
primary and all high school students. As is widely known, the cost of educating stu-
dents is higher in the case of students with lower socioeconomic and cultural back-
grounds. There is an urgent need to establish a differentiated subsidy according to the
social conditions of each student. Finally, in May 2005, the President of the Republic
announced the creation of a preferential school subsidy for 400,000 students between
pre-school and fourth primary grade,16 and who belong to the poorest segment of soci-
ety. This decision needs to be passed into a law, which at present is making its way
through Parliament. This law should be extended to all levels of education.
These four points reveal that increasing the number of effective schools in poor
sectors of Chile is a huge task that should simultaneously deal with policy aspects
related to programs and the way they insert and combine with the “micro cosmos” of
each school, as well as challenges of a structural nature related to issues of regulation
and accountability, funding, and the municipal and private administration of educa-
tion. We believe that, today, conditions are ripe to advance such a move. The main
requirement is to generate conditions and establish capacities within administrators
and schools that will lead to school effectiveness. These conditions are related to
changes in organizational and operational procedures (in the “way of doing things”)
and not only the availability of better inputs and infrastructure, as has taken place over
the last 15 years.

Notes
1. There is wide range of written material analyzing Chilean educational reform, including a significant
collection of articles found in Cox (2003) and García-Huidobro (1999).
2. This amendment to educational funding provided a key incentive for private sector expansion and the
intense establishment during the 1980s and 1990s of private subsidized schools. These increased from
a few hundred prior to the 1980’s to more than 4,000 in 2004.
3. Where this lack of concern is most clearly witnessed is in the deterioration of the working conditions
of teachers. Their wages were substantially reduced, along with labor rights as they were no longer
considered public employees; professional development was not promoted, and the teachers union was
eliminated as a bargaining unit.
4. In the year of highest relative cost (1996) improvement programs represented less than 5% of public
spending on education.
5. The increasing expansion of primary and high school education over the last few decades is under-
lined, among other aspects, by an important advance in school years attended by the population.
Recent statistics show that 42% of the Chilean adult population between 45 and 54 years of age
received a high school level of education. This percentage is lower than the average for countries
within the OECD (61%), but is higher than the Latin American average. Furthermore, important
progress has been witnessed in younger generations, with 60% of 25–34 year olds having received a
high school education. At present in Chile, more than 50% of the population between 25 and 64 years
has undergone more than ten years of school education (Chile, Ministry of Education, 2004).
660 Raczynski and Muñoz-Stuardo

6. There are numerous studies focused on analysis of SIMCE scores and their dependence on socioeco-
nomic and cultural factors and municipal, subsidized private or fully paid private administration.
(Bellei, 2003; Bravo, Contreras, & Sanhueza, 1999; Contreras, 2001; Elacqua, Pacheco, & Salazar,
2006a; Elacqua, Schneider, & Buckley, 2006b; Hsieh & Urquiola, 2003; McEwan & Carnoy, 1998,
1999, 2000; Mizala & Romaguera, 2000a, 2000b). There are no studies assessing the “school effect”
employing aggregated value methodology (Martinic & Pardo, 2003).
7. Various studies have been used as the basis for the following description and analysis. Between 2002
and 2003, we carried out a wide-anging qualitative study in conjunction with UNICEF, involving
classroom observations and interviews with administration staff, teachers, students and parents, in 14
primary schools located in poor neighborhoods (socioeconomic groups 1 and 2 according to ministe-
rial classification), which during the second half of the 1990s had systematically obtained SIMCE
scores well above the average scores obtained by peers with a similar socioeconomic background
(Chile, Ministry of Education, 2001). It turned out that eight of these schools had progressed from very
low SIMCE results at the beginning of the 1990s, to quite outstanding scores by the end of the decade,
allowing for a more in-depth study in factors for school improvement. Between 2003 and 2004, we car-
ried out a complimentary study focused on eight schools that had experienced the opposite effect,
going from good results during the mid-1990s to bad results in the 2000–2003 period (Bellei, Muñoz,
Pérez, & Raczynski, 2004; Raczynski & Muñoz, 2005, respectively). Along with these studies, others
were also used that had been carried out by the authors and other researchers, including: Asesorías para
el Desarrollo-Santiago Consultores, 2000; Chile, Ministry of Education, 2000, 2006; Raczynski et al.,
2002; UNDP, 2003; Eyzaguirre, 2004; Román, 2004).
8. They are also varied in some of their basic characteristics. The effective schools identified in Chile are
diverse in terms of urban or rural and regional setting; with different conditions as regards infrastruc-
ture and equipment; with between 60 and 1300 students enrolled; with grades of between 8 and 45 stu-
dents per class; and teachers whose distribution as regards age, studies, qualifications and contracted
hours are similar to the rest of the country’s primary school teachers. This suggests that neither the size
of the school or classroom, or teachers’ age, or other factors often presented as “obstacles” to the edu-
cational process, make the challenge of obtaining good results within a context of poverty insur-
mountable. Possibly the only recurring aspect is that schools located in an urban setting, face a more
complex social environment to achieve real effectiveness.
9. In Chile where the administration of one or more schools is in the hands of private and municipal admin-
istrators, another element of effectiveness is added: effective schools maintain a fluid relationship with
their owner or administrator in the sense that the latter do not interfere with but rather support the aca-
demic management of the school. In this respect municipal administrators are at a clear disadvantage,
as the application of the Teachers’ Statute creates restrictions regarding the management of teachers.
10. The scenes being described are supported by evidence contained in the studies cited in footnote 7.
11. As can be gathered from the available studies on educational changes and improvements to schools
(Fullan, 1982, 1991; Fullan & Stiegelbauer, 1997; Harris, 2000; Mujis, 2003; Murillo, 2003b).
12. A recent document (Beca, Montt, & Sotomayor, 2006) provides an analysis and proposes recommen-
dations in this regard.
13. The aim is to transform teaching methods used by teachers at pre-school level and during the first
years of primary school, via advisory assistance regarding disciplinary and didactic materials in the
sub-sectors of Language and Mathematics, carried out by consultant teachers. This advisory assis-
tance will be given via training and support in the classroom through the study and application of
didactic units that provide a structure for the teaching-learning process in the classroom.
14. The Teachers’ Statute, endorsed in 1991, set a political foundation: “governance of the system,
decisively achieved through meeting the expectations of professionals with the return to democracy”
(Cox, 2003).
15. On June 4, 2006, and in response to concerted high school student demonstrations linked to various
issues, the Chilean President announced the setting up of an Educational Superintendence Body, with
the responsibility to control and ensure improvements to the standard (quality) of education.
16. Priority is placed on these students, for international findings clearly show that knowledge, abilities
and basic skills, which are the foundation for subsequent learning, are acquired at an early age.
 Chilean Educational Reform 661

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International Review of the State of the Art] (pp. 209–236). Spain: Andrés Bello Agreement – Ministry
of Education, Culture and Sport.
Mizala, A., & Romaguera, P. (2000a). School preformance and choice: The Chilean experience. Journal of
Human Resources, 35(2), 392–417.
Mizala, A., & Romaguera, P. (2000b). “Determinación de Factores Explicativos de los Resultados Escolares en
Educación Media en Chile” [Explanatory Factors in Educational Results in High School in Chile] Serie
Economía No. 85, Universidad de Chile: Departamento de Ingeniería Industrial, Centro de Economía
Aplicada, Agosto 2000.
Mortimore, P. (1997). Can effective schools compensate for society?, In H. A. Halsey, H. Lauder, P. Brwon, &
A. S. Wells (Eds.), Education: Culture, economy and society (pp. 477–487). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mujis, D. (2003). “La mejora y la eficacia de las escuelas en zonas desfavorecidas. Resumen de resultados”
[Improvements and efficiency in schools in underprivileged sectors. Results summary]. Revista
Electrónica Iberoamericana sobre Calidad, Eficacia y Cambio en Educación (REICE) [Latin American
Electronic Journal on Quality, Efficiency and Change in Education], 1(2). Retrieved on March 15, 2005,
from www.ice.deusto.es/RINACE/reice
Murillo, F. J. (Ed.). (2003a). La Investigación sobre Eficacia Escolar en Ibero América Revisión Internacional
sobre Estado del Arte [Investigation on School Efficiency in Latin America. International Review of the
State of the Art]. Spain: Andrés Bello Agreement – Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport.
Murillo, F. J. (2003b). “El movimiento teórico – practico de mejora de la escuela. Algunas lecciones apren-
didas para transformar los centros docentes” [The theoretical-practical movement to improve schools].
Revista Electrónica Iberoamericana sobre Calidad. Eficacia y Cambio en Educación (REICE) [Latin
American Electronic Journal on Quality, Efficiency and Change in Education], 1(2). Retrieved on March 15,
2005, from www.ice.deusto.es/RINACE/reice
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policies, Chile]. Paris, France: OECD.
Raczynski, D., & Muñoz, G. (2005). Efectividad Escolar y Cambio Educativo en Condiciones de Pobreza en
Chile [School Effectiveness and Education Changes under Conditions of Poverty in Chile]. Chile: Ministerio
de Educación, División de Educación General.
Raczynski, D., Pavez, M. A., Ruiz, C., Vergara, M., Abarca, G., & Galdames, V. (2002). “Análisis de la Oferta
de Programas e Iniciativas del Sector Público y Privado desde los Establecimientos Educacionales”
[Analysis of the Provisión of programs to educational establishments by the public and private sector]
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Institute of Educational Research.
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Reynolds, P., & Cuttance, P. (Eds.). (1989). New directions in school effectiveness and school improvement.
London: Cassel.
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Programme, Chile.
35

PUBLIC POLICIES AND EDUCATIONAL EQUITY

IN THE CITY OF BOGOTA

Gloria Calvo
Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, Colombia

Education in big cities in Latin America not only relates to problems concerning the
quality of learning, but to students’ social and cultural contexts. When talking about
the Colombian case, and more specifically about education in the City of Bogotá,1 it is
important to point out the existence of two separate circuits.2 One circuit generates an
excellent education for the most privileged students, while the other is problematic and
deficient with respect to the basic learning of students in the low-income sectors.3 This
poor performance prevails in spite of new educational policies and by the effort of
teachers who are committed to their pedagogical work.
Considering this it is worthwhile, once again, to raise questions about equity and in
particular further investigate pedagogical equity: pedagogical equity is understood as
the ways in which teaching and learning processes are carried out in urban marginalized
contexts. This chapter explores this issue in three ways. First, it deals with the current
discussions on equity and its relationship with educational policies. Second, it discusses
the guiding principles of the recent administrations of the Capital District, which were
designed to offer a better education to the less privileged population. Finally, it high-
lights elements that an education committed to equity needs to address in order for stu-
dents from big cities to be incorporated into the modern age through quality education.

Equity, Context, and Educational Policy

The international community is also concerned about equity. Specifically, Latin
American countries and those of the Caribbean are looking for all-embracing develop-
ment models that can counter the policies from previous decades and address equity as
outlined in the framework of contemporary globalizing movement (CEPAL – Comisión
Económica Para América Latina/Economic Comission for Latin American, 2000).
Inequality is the first thing a country with high indexes of poverty has to face. Such
inequality, much like poverty, reproduces itself from generation to generation. Analyses
665
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 665–684.
© 2007 Springer.
666 Calvo

done by CEPAL (2000) show that inequality is based on a conjunction of educational,

demographic, occupational, and patrimonial factors. Therefore, if a greater economic
stability is to be achieved and if a higher social equity is to be obtained with respect to
these aspects, it is necessary to restructure policies in these different areas. Education is
considered a vital tool to overcome both social and economic inequality. It has been
argued that removing inequities creates a different educational environment in future
homes, which in turn enhances the educational performance of future generations. It
also offers more opportunities to enter the labor market and it makes it easy to have
access to the technology, which supports modern culture. However, the recent progress
achieved in Latin America is not very significant:
● Unlike those in the higher social strata, some sectors are being negatively affected
by a new type of illiteracy, which is characterized by a lack of access to informa-
tion and mass media that use technology as a tool.
● While Latin American countries have increased their coverage concerning pri-
mary education, this coverage has been relatively low concerning secondary and
higher education. Students from the low-income sectors fail with greater fre-
quency in school than those from the higher strata, which makes the former with-
draw from the system.
● The quality of education in many countries continues to be much segmented with
respect to social strata and at the interregional level. While urban environments
feature better quality education than rural environments, the quality also differs in
urban environments in terms of income.
The challenge for educational policies is to offer more continuous education and higher
quality education. To achieve this, it is necessary to draw up programs and strategies
directed towards family and community environments where children are prepared and
educated before entering school, to improve contents and to provide opportunities to
find employment (CEPAL, 2000). It is important to highlight that the contribution of
education to equity is both partial and long-term.
Recent Colombian governments have known about the problems regarding equity
generated by the differences caused by contexts. Analyses and arguments about the
significance of these differences in educational results, associated with different con-
texts, have been well documented. For this reason, a variety of different programs and
strategies have been proposed in order to overcome them. Following are some exam-
ples of these programs and strategies at the district level: they include a subsidy
indexed to demand designed to both extend the coverage and equalize the financing of
educational public service; evaluation and subsequent development of basic compe-
tences and values with a view to create pedagogical and didactical models based on
students’ previous knowledge; and leveling to achieve excellence through a program to
improve the quality of learning and the promotion of labor competences designed to
increase the range of students knowledge and make schools more productive institu-
tions. These approaches are supported by authors such as Reimers (2000, p. 290), who
believes that it is possible to reduce considerably these differences in performance, and
that all children can learn at an equal level if they engage in learning under appropriate
educational conditions.
 Public Policies and Educational Equity 667

This concern for quality also includes a concern for democracy. The argument is
that a highly educated population can better exercise their rights and duties, as well as
forming pressure groups which can fight for better living conditions for all, both at an
economic and social level. Reimers states that:

… I believe that the paths in which it is still possible to progress are related to the
strengthening of the institutional capacity to design and analyze policies inside
and outside the government in order to support the creation of experimentation
and evaluation networks committed to the establishment of support systems for
schools that give education to low-income populations.
… to what extend there are conditions in the region in order to promote a demo-
cratic dialogue on educational policies, which must be based on studies and the rig-
orous analysis of policy options so that the decisions made are well supported as a
result of the democratic comparison and discussion of ideas. (Reimers, 2004, p. 284)

The policies analyzed in this chapter fall into what is defined in the literature as com-
pensating policies (Rawls, 1971) These polices are designed to provide coverage for
students and to compensate for the prior limitations in their initial schooling. To date,
the low levels of achievement of students in the lower social stratas, when compared
with their more affluent peers, has not been eliminated by recent changes in school pol-
icy or administration: the problem, in great part, is a function of the lack of continuity
in both programs and administrations.4

A Reading of the Category Related to Equity

In spite of the fact that the major studies on educational inequality are from the 1960s
and the beginning of the 1970s (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977; Bernstein, 1985; among
others), the analyses were made in very different contexts from those in which Latin
American countries are presently living. When analyzing these studies Reimers (2000)
refers to several factors: consolidated educational systems vs. systems in a process of
reform; access of broad social sectors to education vs. first generations who enter basic
education (primary school and junior high school); and educational opportunities for
the majority of the population vs. quality education for elites.
These same dynamics are currently in play in Colombia. During the last decade the
country has been implementing educational reform, while in one of the worst eco-
nomic crises it has ever faced.5 As educational coverage has been extended in order to
incorporate new social groups into the educational system, but it has also experienced
high indexes of repetition and of leaving school before the legal age. However, there is
now a new element in the mix. This is the attempt to establish links between policy and
results, and more specifically, to study the results of the application of policies in order
to expand the learning possibilities of the boys and girls from the most underprivileged
sectors. In the text mentioned, Reimers notes that there are few studies in Latin America
which have analyzed the relationship between educational policy and learning. When
synthesizing the results presented by Muñoz Izquierdo,6 he argues that those researchers
668 Calvo

assume that education reproduces the most extended social inequalities and that is the
reason why the poorest boys and girls learn less.
With respect to the role of compensating policies,7 Reimers concludes that researchers
assign them only a modest impact at best. Moreover, it is noted that there are no studies
which analyze the mediating role of inequalities in the changing process: “As a result,
we know little about the specifics of change in schools, when the aim is to redress
inequalities” (Reimers, 2000, p. 34).
There is some consensus in the specialized literature concerning school equity and the
promotion of social equity, economic development, and the consolidation of democracy.
This topic has been approached by sociologists as well as by economists and educators.
The central focus of this work has been on the problems of educational equity among
marginal populations.8

Pierre Bourdieu and Equity

Although Bourdieu did not use this concept, he does talk about inequality, difference
and distinction, which, along with the theoretical model he proposes, allows us to
include a discussion about equity.
Capital is the main concept for Bourdieu. For him, it is capital which allows access to
the social world, occupying some specific positions in the social context. Capital is a
mechanism which allows positioning oneself and to be positioned. In this way, people
and groups distribute themselves in the social context according to their position, apply-
ing two differentiating principles that are considered the most efficient in the more
developed societies: economic capital and cultural capital. That which individuals and
groups share or that which differentiates them, depends on the proximity or distance
with respect to the capital they own. “Spatial distances on paper are equivalent to social
distances” (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 30).
Through capital as a differentiating principle, Bourdieu conceives the distinction, dif-
ference, separation, distinctive characteristic not as a natural thing, but rather because of
the properties of the relationship established among the constructs mentioned. Actors
distribute themselves in the social context according to the global volume of the capital
they own and to the structure of their capital; that is, according to the relative weight of
the different types (economic and cultural) in the total volume of their capital.
Thus, the existing differences in the social context are associated with different
positions, that is, goods and practices, which operate in society as constitutive differ-
ences or distinctive signs of the social system.9 It is necessary, of course, to recognize
these specific distinctive signs, the characteristics that constitute significant differ-
ences in symbolic spaces or contexts.10 As Bourdieu suggests, these mechanisms:

… guarantee the reproduction of the social context and the symbolic context,
without forgetting the contradictions and conflicts which can be in the principle
of their transformation. (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 40)

Social institutions, among which family and school enjoy a privileged position, have a
fundamental role in the training and education of the individual as a social actor.
 Public Policies and Educational Equity 669

Specifically, school as an institution both formulates and contributes to the distribu-

tion of the existing cultural capital in the society and, therefore, to the reproduction of
the structure of the social context. This reproduction “operates in the relationship
between the family strategies and the specific logic of school institutions,” due to the
fact that the latter tends to provide school capital11 to the cultural capital held by the
family and transmitted in early education (titles, documents).
The school system, even with its appearance of equality, actually functions to sepa-
rate those who hold inherited cultural capital from those who do not have it: it does
this, in great part, by maintaining preexisting social differences through the institu-
tionalization of social frontiers. Bourdieu, however, thinks that “as we know the laws
of reproduction, we have some opportunities to minimize the reproductive action of
school institutions” (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 160).
It is unclear, however, what role he proposes for the school system, with respect to
the balance of opportunities. According to his line of argument, it is clear that the
school system is not responsible for the balance of opportunities and the democratiza-
tion of culture. He argues the following points (Bourdieu, 1998):

● Schools should not reinforce inequality: the key is to reexamine their symbolic
power with respect to the existing differences among the children they are
entrusted with.
● To be alert against the effect of destiny, by which the school institution transforms
previous inequalities into natural inequalities.
● Never to make value judgments about students; to exclude all types of value
judgments which affect the individual (p. 161).
● To recognize the power of subjects in the constitution of the identity and image of
school individuals (p. 162).
● To fight against the organization into a hierarchy of the activities (both theoretical
and empirical) of the disciplines, etc., or when the unification of knowledge is
advocated. He offers excellent recommendations for science, for reason, and for
democracy (p. 165).
● To take into account and divulge the already existing and unequal competition in
order to set in motion mechanisms to avoid disastrous consequences (p. 166).
● To set both compensatory and protection mechanisms in motion: this involves
taking into account existing inequalities and to work to offset their effects
(p. 166).
● To ensure that teaching does not leave inadmissible gaps because these gaps have
adverse effects on the success of the educational enterprise as a whole: this
involves the idea that there are absolutely fundamental things which are already
known12 (pp. 169–170).

These reflections concerning the role of the school and centrality of equity become
highly relevant in the context of educational policies for the big cities in Latin
America. It is clear that a more equitable education is necessary in order to incorporate
more sectors of the population into the codes of the modern age, which in turn will
help the various societies develop.
670 Calvo

Amartya Sen and the Development of Human Abilities

The concept of human capital as coined by Gary Becker (the 1992 Nobel winner for
economics), sees the investment in education and training as key variables that affect
development. Human capital is defined as the intellectual and professional abilities of
an individual, which will guarantee his/her future income. Amartya Sen, another Nobel
winner for economics, points out the similarities and differences between the concept of
human capital: while related, they have been developed in two different research fields.
The first one concentrates on the character of agents (agency) of human beings, who
thanks to their abilities, knowledge, and efforts, increase the possibilities of production.
The second concentrates on the ability of the human being to have the kind of life
he/she considers valuable and to increase his/her real possibilities to make a choice.
According to Sen, these two perspectives are related because they have to deal with
the role of human beings and with the effective abilities they achieve and acquire
(Sen, 1998, pp. 67–72).
Human ability is related to choosing and doing that which is considered valuable
through both direct or indirect means: the direct connection might be health and nutri-
tion which are needed to study and work effectively, while the indirect connection
might be education or training for better employment.
The importance of the concept of human ability lies in the recognition that ability
is not only an instrument of economic production of human capital, but that human
ability is also vital for social development and improvement. Thus, the extension of a
basic primary school and junior high school high quality education, impacts the qual-
ity of public debates and broadens the amount of participation in the society. The con-
cept of human ability also points out the key role of education as an instrument for the
development of a person: it is also an acknowledgement that all individuals can
strengthen his/her abilities and skills. Thus, education is not only positioned as a vari-
able which affects future economic development, but it is also seen as instrumental
to the welfare of people, their possibilities of action, and their influence on social
change.
Sen also reintroduces the ideas of Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations in order to
emphasize the fact that the primary difference between a long-shoreman and a
philosopher is education. He concludes stating that:

… it is useful to think about the close relationship between productive abilities

and the ability to have different types of life because this connection is essential
to consider human capital in the broadest context of the perspective of abilities.
(Sen, 1998, p. 3)

When analyzing educational equity, Sen’s proposal is interesting because it advocates for
the empowerment of the less privileged sectors through education, while arguing that it
is possible for low-income boys and girls, just like those who attend institutions regulated
by the policies implemented in Bogotá during the last seven years, to develop their
human abilities and to consider education as a path to full citizenship. This proposal also
 Public Policies and Educational Equity 671

notes the importance of the school analyzing its own sensitivity to the social context in
which their students live and connecting this to students’ abilities and interests.13

Educational Equity Against the Globalization Hegemony

Juan Carlos Tedesco (2003) and Emilio Tenti (2003), two Argentine researchers who
work at the Instituto Internacional de Planeamiento de la Educación [International
Institute for Educational Planning] (IIPE), in Buenos Aires, have been involved in a
controversy which was contested in No. 45 of the Revista Colombiana de Educación
(Colombian Magazine of Education). The focus of the debate has been whether or not
hegemony exists in the present society; most specifically, they are debating the exis-
tence of a hegemony influenced by phenomena associated with globalization.
Tedesco states that the new capitalism is not inclusive and that the way in which
citizens are classified with respect to culture is determined by the characteristics of
supply and demand. This, he argues, has also produced a change in the traditional ways
of socialization of new generations as well as the cultural industry, the education of
things. Acknowledging that there is a crisis in the traditional ways of socialization,
Tenti insists that:

… life itself, that is, experience, “the things” and all the system of conditions and
interdependencies that structure the life of an individual from his/her birth edu-
cate as much or more than the family and the school (Tenti, 2003, p. 35).

Tenti’s proposal for educational equity also focuses on learning and the need to over-
come the singular demand for increased educational coverage for students in the lower
stratas of society. Improving education, rather than focusing on compensatory polices,
Tenti argues, will allow the less privileged to receive an education which can both
strengthen their abilities and improve their status in the society.

Programs on Educational Policy Towards Equity

The policies for the promotion of equity are best detailed in the development plans
of the two previous administrations (1998–2000 and 2001–2004). Here, it is made explicit
that equity is one of the problems to be solved by the central administration of Bogotá.
The SED14 presents in its Sectorial Development Plan 1998–2000 (SED, 1998) a
diagnostic of equity and the educational system concerning a range of issues: unequal
distribution of State resources, school failure, the problems caused by low coverage, the
unsatisfactory results of education with respect to basic competences attributed to
the weakness of educational institutions, the small amount of time devoted to learning,
the crisis of values, the traditionalism of teachers, the deficiencies of space and school
equipment and supplies, and the lack of educational opportunities outside school institu-
tions. It also reports a phase lag between the changes produced by economic develop-
ment and conventional secondary education. This diagnosis highlights the significantly
672 Calvo

negative outcomes for students in strata 1 and 215: these students are in the poorest strata
of the population and are clearly disadvantaged with respect to students from the higher
strata. To address these problems a series of strategies and programs is proposed. The
three most important are outlined below:

(1) Policies oriented towards equity are discussed to provide opportunities for chil-
dren and young people from strata 1 and 2 to enter and remain in the educational
system. Two such strategies are:
(a) A focus on the extension of coverage, which on one hand includes the cre-
ation of new educational establishments in marginal zones and, on the other,
voucher schools. The first strategy targets the construction of 51 schools in
neighborhoods which are designated as a priority by City Hall: the primary
concern here is to end the marginalization that is a function of the lack of
availability and access to schooling for students from these lowest strata.
These schools are administered through agreements with private institu-
tions, which will be paid according to the number of children cared for.
Where is strategy fails to meet the demand, the Plan suggests that, “voucher
schools are oriented towards allowing those children from strata 1 and 2 who
cannot be taken care of to become a part of the educational system, using the
installations of current public schools and those of new schools” (SED,
1998, pp. 30 and 31).
(b) To focus State resources on the low-income population: perhaps the most
important being those programs and strategies that include a differentiated
attention to educational institutions according to achievements (later on
called Leveling to achieve Excellence). The Plan states that, “The actions
focused on improving the quality are directed towards the institutions that
the evaluation of achievements allow identifying as low performance insti-
tutions and to which low socioeconomic students attend.” The Education of
the Capital District, from 1999 on, established that “differentiated attention
will be given to 100 institutions that will be renewed annually, for a total of
300 improved educational centers in 2001.” This renewed attention to low
achieving schools signals several actions: “the improvement of infrastruc-
ture and school environments, supply of materials and training and techni-
cal assistance for teachers and directors who are working in the institutional
plans for improvement. They also include direct support to students” (SED,
1998, pp. 31–32).
(2) It is clear that those policies that are designed to solve the problems concerning
the quality of education are also oriented towards improving the results of edu-
cational actions, “in terms of the competences and values which are expected to
be developed by all students who study at these educational institutions.” The
SED Plan points out that, “the last ones along with the family are responsible for
training and educating children and young people.” It also points out that the
SED “is responsible for offering favorable conditions in order for public and pri-
vate educational centers to be able to achieve these results, by monitoring the
 Public Policies and Educational Equity 673

progress and introducing corrective measures, such as incentives and direct sup-
port programs, at an opportune moment” (SED, 1998, p. 34). These policies that
enable the systematic evaluation of achievement and values, while designed to
improve the results of education for all students, are especially sensitive to the
needs of students from the lower stratas of the society.
(3) Policies aimed at improving secondary education, also lay out a framework to
develop labor competences. These policies also noted the importance of studies
about the possibilities of work for young people and on the way in which insti-
tutions were currently training them to achieve their goal: this work was to
involve a dialogue with all the actors involved, such as the productive sector and
the universities.

The Sectorial plan of education 2001–2004 (SED, 2001), for example, proposed the
objective of “improving knowledge and the ability to learn of people, activating the edu-
cational and cultural potential of the city” (SED, 2001, p. 9). Three policies were pro-
posed, (1) to emphasize that education contributes in ways that make all citizens more
productive and happy; (2) to transform all places, contexts, and actors of the city into
opportunities to learn and; (3) to strengthen self-learning (SED, 2001, pp. 9 and 10).
City Hall developed five programs designed to end marginalization: schools on con-
cession, voucher schools, evaluation of basic and citizens’ competences, leveling for
excellence and work competences. Each program is outlined below:

Schools on Concession16
This strategy is an alternative to the already existing programs17 and is focused the
extension of coverage for students not well served by the schools. It is conceptualized
as a new way of school organization, which is financed with public funds. It is designed
to overcome the typical inflexibilities of public educational institutions and the inade-
quate programs of subsidies. It also tries to make good use of the advantages of the
administration of private institutions in order to improve the quality education. This
alternative scheme of educational administration recognizes that:

… the socioeconomic stratum of students determines their first cognitive and

affective acquisitions which affect their individual and social development.
Although the compensating capacity of the school is recognized in terms of stu-
dents’ family and social deficiencies, the influence of this variable on students’
performance is also recognized. (González, J. I., cited in CORPOEDUCACION,
2004, p. 8)

From the pedagogical point of view, the challenge is to reproduce the teaching
and learning model which is used in the Proyecto Educativo Institucional18 (PEI),
Institutional Educational Project, of the concessionaire institution in order to recreate
these principles in the institutions on concession. For this reason, educational institu-
tions19 with innovating pedagogical proposals and excellent academic results were
chosen.
674 Calvo

The study carried out by CORPOEDUCACION (2004), makes possible a number

of interesting observations about these institutions on concession:
● They have a management model which emphasizes pedagogical development and
student learning.
● They have designed strategies that generate effective learning opportunities which
compensate for the range of cultural and affective limitations students bring to the
school. These strategies emphasize the management of students’ socio-affective
and emotional problems.
● They have designed an effective school atmosphere: the management of regula-
tions and school wide coexistence is vital for this atmosphere. The interaction
between students and teachers is central to this atmosphere.
● They have achieved a sustained improvement of student achievement.
● They have organized a functional academic community that is supported by
appropriate working teams.
● They have a great variety of infrastructure, such as resources, programs, and projects.
● They have established new and collaborative relationships among students,
parents, teachers and administrators.
● They have paid special attention to the environment from which students come, an
environment which they recognize influences both the academic and social results
achieved by the school.
The evaluation also noted how the scheme to hand the administration of educational
institutions to well-known selected private schools has been particularly successful in
terms of students’ academic and social development, as well as for its impact on the
neighboring community (CORPOEDUCACION, 2004, p. 81). Moreover, the evalua-
tion noted strong commitment of the program to issues of equity:

The extend in which the program defines and limits its offer to students of strata
1 and 2 is considered as a parameter that shows that it is fulfilling the purpose to
improve equity. (CORPOEDUCACION, 2004, p. 8)

Voucher Schools
This project is carried out thanks to an agreement between the Secretary of Education
Office of the Capital District-Bogotá (SED) and private educational institutions in the
Capital District. These institutions are chosen through a technical process carried out by
the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (National University of Colombia). This agree-
ment includes the execution of a follow-up program to ensure that all that was agreed to
was completed. This is done to monitor the quality of the educational service rendered
by the educational establishments included in the program.20 The Office of the Secretary
of Education of the District retains a bank of institutions currently linked to the subpro-
grams for subsidy, and of those which could join this project if necessary.
Those private educational institutions which render their service to subsidized students,
present themselves on the dates established by the Secretary of Education Office of the
District. Factors such as the solvency, liquidity, profitability, level of indebtedness, eco-
nomic sustainability and the structure of costs, are analyzed in order to choose the
 Public Policies and Educational Equity 675

institutions. In turn, the evaluation of the quality of these institutions takes into account
information about their results obtained in State examinations and in basic competences.
Importantly, each institution in the agreement must prepare and present a plan for educa-
tional improvement that is focused on increasing the learning outcomes for all children and
young people in its charge. This requirement is designed to focus the efforts of the institu-
tion on increasing the quality of education when rendering public educational services.
This policy raises the question of the quality of education offered to less privileged
sectors. Although this alternative has been well evaluated as a way to increase coverage
for such students, problems have also surfaced with respect to their effectiveness in edu-
cating students entering with the lowest levels of cultural capital: the lack of appropri-
ate educational materials for such students is cited as the major problem. The impact of
this policy initiative, with respect to educational equity, is shown in Tables 1 and 2.

Table 1. School environment and equity

Category Dimension Strategy Policy

Strategies to enter and The way in which institutions
remain in the system get to know their students and
the support offered to them
according to their needs and
in order to provide them with
cultural capital (structuring of
teaching and coexistence
related to the context)
Incorporation of the The way in which the
characteristics of institution gets to know the
the environment environment and works on
those factors of resistance to
quality school action with
equity
Offering a safe The way in which the existing
environment with conflicts of values between
identity the institution and the context
are dealt with in order for the
school to influence students
Offering a safe Availability of infrastructure
environment with and resources for learning and
identity orientations for pedagogical
practices
Individualized attention Schools on
To obtain the acceptance concession
of the school by the Voucher schools
community: ensure that
parents are aware of the
importance of regular and
continuous (year alter
year) school attendance.
Student report cards
Coverage without Voucher schools
selection Work
competences
Psychosocial and health Evaluation and
care in order to improve development of
learning and to manage competences
vulnerability
Agreements with other
entities of the community in
order to take care of health
To be aware of that which Schools on
the school can give even concession
against the values of the Voucher schools
environment: hygiene, good
presentation
Children take a bath at school
and they return home clean.
The supply of materials is
achieved through cooperation.
All contribute as they can and
all benefit. They learn about
democracy and solidarity
676 Calvo

Table 2. Learning strategies and equity

Category Dimension Strategy Policy

Pedagogical The way in which the Privilege of affective Schools on

conceptions pedagogical work is structured
concerning equity to produce a coherent and
continuous systematic action in
order to achieve equity
Equal classroom Report on the way in which they
practices work in the classroom, the
teacher-student interaction,
and on the difficulties and
conflicts between school cultural
capital and that of students
Support to those Characterization of this type of
students who students and strategies to provide
require it them the support they need to
achieve the learning proposed
pedagogies concession
Voucher schools
Sensitivity of teachers with Work competences
respect to the arguments,
initiatives, and suggestions
given by others in order to
achieve a more effective
learning
To have possibilities of Work competences
solving academic and
coexistence problems which
affect learning

Evaluation of Basic and Citizens’ Competences

Since 1998, the Secretary of Education Office of the Capital District has been applying
census tests for the evaluation of basic competences in language, mathematics, natural
sciences, citizens’ sensitivity, together with the understanding of third, fifth, seventh,
and ninth grade students of basic (primary school and junior high school) education.
The evaluation of basic and citizens’ competences is supported by the idea that evalua-
tion is essential not only to identify, assess, and overcome difficulties, but to recognize
and consolidate achievements.
Competences are understood as to know how to act in a given environment or to
know what to do with knowledge. The tests to assess competence in these two areas
have been designed and applied by experts from the National University of Colombia
(basic competences) and by experts in moral development (citizens’ competences): the
focus of these evaluations is students’ performance or achievement, viewed as indica-
tors of their competences. They recognize that the context of both the task and the indi-
vidual are mediated through language in reflexive knowledge.
To date, the interest in the evaluation concerning citizens’ values has been focused
on three areas: (1) the development of moral arguments; (2) the comprehension con-
cerning coexistence in the city; and (3) the sensitivity towards the most relevant topics
related to this way of living. Institutions have rigorously followed-up students’ results
through actions, such as the evaluation of portfolios. Based on these analyses, institu-
tions have designed pedagogical strategies in order to better address educational equity
(Tables 1 and 2 show the progress to date).

Leveling for Excellence

This strategy was first called Differential attention according to the results of basic com-
petences. It began in the second semester of 1998 to help those educational institutions
 Public Policies and Educational Equity 677

with the lowest results on the achievements tests. Initially, these institutions were invited
to a meeting where they were encouraged to voluntarily participate in the project. Also at
this meeting were government institutions, universities, corporations and foundations.
Those volunteering for the program were then assigned a technical team who were
charged with evaluating the program.
This approach to improvement was later called characterization: the focus here was
on the results of the evaluation and the identification of the possible causes for the low
achievement of students in the basic competences. This characterization was built based
on the following factors: school practices in mathematics and language, learning envi-
ronments, culture and institutional atmosphere, organizational structure and approaches,
and implementation and results of school management. Based on the developed charac-
terization an improvement plan was designed by the school, with the advice and assis-
tance of the evaluation team. After the plan was formulated it was put into action and
subsequently evaluated.
The development of the program allowed for a redefinition and drawing together of its
components around pedagogical, directive, administrative and financial management
domains. The model for the program detailed four broad strategies: conceptual, method-
ological, operational, and administrative. The conceptual strategy explicitly defined three
key concepts of the program namely, school improvement, accompaniment, and strength-
ening of the school as an institution. The methodological strategy detailed the cycle of
school improvement. This started with the tests of basic competences and then estab-
lished the process as, the commitment of the institution to improvement, characteriza-
tion, preparation and implementation of plans, the second application of tests, the
following up, the evaluation, and so on. The operational strategy included five stages: the
selection of institutions, development of awareness, the selection of evaluation teams,
and the collaborative implementation of the improvement cycle. Finally, the administra-
tive strategy defined the roles of the different actors of the programs (SED, or central
level; Center of local educational administration – CADEL,21 or local level; and, institu-
tional level) and their organization and coordination.
The research which is presently being carried out with the support of the Colombian
Institute for the Development of Science and Technology22 (COLCIENCIAS), has iden-
tified variations in the institutions that participated in the program, with respect to the
philosophy of the accompanying institution, of the proposal that was set into motion, and
of the characteristics of the institution itself. In general terms, however, it appears that all
the institutions that participated in the program on Leveling for excellence achieved the
average established for the city of Bogotá in the evaluation of competences in language
and mathematics and, in some cases, they surpassed it.23

Work Competences
The study done by Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (2004) reports that research to
identify the role of educational institutions in training students to succeed in the world
of work has been carried out for many years. Most are now aware of the importance of
education for training individuals who face difficulties gaining access to education and
learning skills important for success in work environments.
678 Calvo

This study recommended the inclusion of work related competences at all levels of
the educational system, with a special focus at the high school. However, these same
educational policies are not specific in terms of the competences to be included, which
makes their development and evaluation weak. Much work, to date, is focused on
understanding the topic and the typical difficulties in schools, and to conceptualize
alternatives to provide skills which would allow young people to be suitably prepared
for work in a variety of social environments.
The National Ministry of Education suggests two types of work competences: general
and specific. The former are required for the successful performance of the individual in
any type of social and productive environment: taking into account the economic sector,
the position, or the type of activity, it is considered that these competences are transfer-
able and generic. On the other hand, the latter are oriented towards preparing an individ-
ual to develop the appropriate productive competences needed for a given job.
It is argued that there is a large set of performances that can be strengthened in educa-
tional institutions: those most frequently mentioned are to behave politely, to work
according to instructions, to share information, experiences, and knowledge, to fulfill the
commitments of teamwork, to acknowledge the interests of other people and to have
good worksite relationships. It is also argued, however, that educational institutions
should also strengthen those competences that are typically less well developed. Skills
high on this list are, to appropriately manage work languages, to optimize economic
resources, to diplomatically and tactfully manage conflictive situations, to advise others
when making decisions, to manage complex work systems and to autonomously manage
time (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, 2004, p. 144).
Undoubtedly, the educational policy of the Capital District is concerned with offer-
ing teaching-learning alternatives that impact the cultural and social deficiencies that
student from broad sectors of the population bring to school. The group most targeted
in these policies are students located in sectors which can be classified as both urban
and marginal. It is important to note that the effectiveness of these programs is not
equal. The Schools on Concession and the program on Leveling for Excellence, for
example, have had the greatest achievements. Others, by contrast, such as the Subsidies
for the Demand more directly affect the problems concerning the access to education,
than its quality.24

Pedagogy and Equity

An analysis of the programs aimed at equity suggest that an evaluation of the school
environment, learning and the results of census evaluations are important. Such an
evaluation is presented in the following three tables.25
It is clear here that the relationship between pedagogical practices and equity must aim
at developing a more effect school environment for the less privileged boys and girls at the
educational institution. If we accept the relevant role of school as a place to socialize, for
example, then the policies analyzed in the case of the Capital District would affect social
and cultural capital, according to Bourdieu. They would also enhance human development
according to Sen, in the sense that they are sensitive to the deficient environments in
which students live and they focus on strategies to change the current practices.
 Public Policies and Educational Equity 679

Table 3. Results of the students and of the institution and equity

Category Dimension Strategy Policy

Comparisons between Results of census Not knowing about census tests Work
different moments of tests Students do not know if they are competences
students’ learning and doing well or not
between different Teachers’ statements, such as:
moments of “these children will not obtain good
institutional evaluation results in this type of test”
Establishment of Goals to improve results and Schools on
goals and methods to pilot tests to see how much Concession
report their levels of averages have been increased
achievement: methods to Evaluation committees Voucher schools
follow up and provide They analyze the cases of children
feedback, and attention with deficient achievements
to students based based on an all-embracing and
on evaluations holistic perspective of learning
Support. Flexible promotion Voucher schools
Individualized attention. Leveling for
Strategies for leveling through Excellence
group work

Pedagogical and didactical strategies related to equity can also be understood in

terms of what the literature is starting to call educability. Clearly, an awareness of and
sensitivity to students’ deficient environments will generate a more appropriate learn-
ing setting. This development is emerging as an increasingly strong tendency in the
studies that evaluate education in big cities in Latin America. These studies have made
it clear that if the students’ social environment and the learning problems that they bring
into the school are not taken into account, the policies and educational reforms in gen-
eral will not be successful.
Undoubtedly, large-scale evaluations are essential for us to understand the quality of
learning achieved by schools. According to the framework presented in this document,
it is clear that urban education needs to understand the range of deficient environments
of students from less privileged sectors and to design learning strategies that can deliver
higher levels of student achievement. Sadly, educational institutions do not always take
these factors into account. Addressing them, however, can promote significant changes
in the achievement of the boys and girls attending these institutions.

Criteria for Pedagogical Equity in Educational Policies

In sum, it can be argued that educational policies aimed towards equity in big cities in
Latin America need to take into account the following three realities:
● The inequality in the learning results obtained by boys and girls from Latin American
countries, is a function of the fragmentation of schooling.
This fragmentation has been an historical constant in Colombia and has led those who
study education in the country to state that elites are trained and educated, while all other
people are civilized (Helg, 1987). In spite of the many policies designed to address the
680 Calvo

quality of education for students from the less privileged sectors (through such activities
as improving infrastructure, increasing school libraries, training programs for teachers,
and other activities such as the ones analyzed in the previous paragraphs), vast differ-
ences in achievement continue to be a constant. Sadly, this inequality is increased by
regional diversity that prevents building a project for the whole country.
● An education that pursues equity needs to recognize that there are marginal sectors
in the big cities in Latin America.
Population groups who migrate into urban illiterate sectors, or in to sectors with pre-
carious education, are also moving into the poor areas of the city. When the first gen-
eration of these groups enter schools this challenges the school to adjust the syllabi and
the learning setting to be responsive to the range of deficits that the students bring to
the school: this includes both social and economic factors related to cultural capital
(Bourdieu, 1998). in order to have access to elaborate codes (Bernstein, 1985) that
require academic learning. This situation leads to the perpetuation of social inequality
because we go back and for the educational system without taking into account the
learning needed to perform well in globalization environments, which increasingly
require greater competences with respect to technological knowledge and to reading
and writing in at least one non-native language.
● Education is no longer the major factor for social mobility.
Greater levels of schooling are increasingly required and the educational emptiness
(Tedesco, 2003), a displacement of basic knowledge towards schooling levels, is
increasingly significant. We must recognize that young people who finish their basic
education, have few opportunities to secure high status jobs and certainly cannot eas-
ily enter the university. In the best of cases, such students must opt for competing in a
precarious labor market, such as working as a salesclerk in shops in the neighborhood.
This situation requires a review of the cycles of basic education, primary school and
junior high school, with respect to their length and to the minimal competences
required for certification. Similarly, it is necessary for education to promote the devel-
opment of a wide range of human abilities as proposed by Amartya Sen (1998).
In closing, and taking into account Reimers statements (2000) about schooling, our
current knowledge abut schools and learning can lead to improvements in the quality
of learning of the less privileged boys and girls in the big cities in Latin America. To
achieve this, of course, we need new guiding principles for practices and a change in
the direction policy development. In particular, we need policies that pay attention to
poverty and the marginality it creates, if we want less segmented societies.

Notes
1. Bogotá is a city with more than 6 million inhabitants and it is continuously growing because of people’s
displacement as a consequence of armed conflict. Displacement not only occurs in the traditional way
from the country side to the cities, but from cities to cities and from neighborhoods to neighborhoods.
2. Circuit is used in metaphoric sense in order to describe the follow situation: Education in Bogotá, as
in other Latin American capitals, is highly segmented. That is, people can access a high quality educa-
tion if they have the financial means to do so. Otherwise, cultural and work options will be limited.
 Public Policies and Educational Equity 681

3. The analyses included in the Aula Reformada [Improved Classroom] (Calvo, Mina, & Cera, 2001)
show that when referring to the learning of reading and writing, the boys and girls of the second year
of basic elementary school in public and private institutions do not have enough knowledge about their
native language. These deficiencies continue to be present in other national and international evalua-
tions, such as the recent PIZZA test, in which Colombia was ranked among the lowest.
4. A more detailed analysis on these questions is presented in Camargo, Calvo, and Lache (2004).
5. This must be understood as those processes which started from the issuance of the General Law of
Education, that is, Law 115 of 1994.
6. Muñoz Izquierdo (1995) cited by Reimers (2000, p. 34).
7. They are understood as those policies which recognize the first social, cultural, and economic inequal-
ity, and design strategies to affect them positively.
8. An extended analysis about this theme is in Calvo, Camargo, and Gutiérrez (2004).
9. According to Bourdieu existing differences in practice cannot be confused with the differences
achieved in research. Predictive distances of meeting again, affinities, sympathies and wishes are the
characteristics that define their model. “… proximity in the social context predisposes people to
become closer …” (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 36).
10. Spaces or contexts built up by language based on reality.
11. According to Pierre Bourdieu, school capital is part of the cultural capital which is conceived as having
access to specialized knowledge and boasting a prestigious university’s diploma.
12. He has already mentioned it in The Heirs: “There are things which all people believe they own, while only
a few dominate them; for example, the fact that they know how to take notes, how to fill an index card,
how to use a dictionary, how to use abbreviations, how to use communication rhetoric, how to organize a
card index box, how to create and index, how to use a descriptive card index box of a data bank and a
library, how to use information instruments, how to read statistical tables and graphs. The technology for
intellectual work is not only not taught, but it is underestimated” (Bourdieu, 1998, pp.169–170).
13. This discussion on the relationship between education, interests, and abilities was presented by the
Nobel of Literature Gabriel García Márquez in the prologue of the document known as Informe de los
Sabios (Report of Wise Men) Cf. Colombia: al filo de la oportunidad (Colombia: at the edge of oppor-
tunity) Joint Report. Documents of the Science, Education, and Development Mission. Bogotá, DC:
National Ministry of Education (MEN), 1994, 142 pages. It is worth mentioning that some of the ped-
agogical activities and strategies carried out by compensating policies are according to Sen’s
approaches. See Tables 2 and 3 in this text.
14. Secretary of Education of the Capital District.
15. The population in Colombia is classified in six socioeconomic strata, where the first one is the lowest
and the sixth one is the highest. Strata 1 and 2 generally report unsatisfied basic needs.
16. This section is based on the evaluative study carried out in 2004, by the Corporación para el
Desarrollo de la Educación Básica en Colombia [Corporation for the Development of basic (primary
school and junior high school) education in Colombia] (CORPOEDUCACION), which is a non-
profit, civil, private, and mixed sharing association that aims at finding paths and solutions in order to
strengthen the quality of basic (primary school and junior high school) education in Colombia.
17. Direct rendering of educational services in public institutions, voucher schools and contracting of
private administrators.
18. It was regulated by Decree 1860 of 1994. The PEI of each educational institution must indicate “the
way in which it was decided to achieve the goals of education established by the law, taking into
account the social, economic and cultural conditions of its environment.”
19. In 2003, there were 23 educational institutions that used this model and which were in 10 localities that
were in charge of 23,259 children and young people (CORPOEDUCACION, 2004, p. 4).
20. According to this agreement, the project of the Centro para el Desarrollo [Center for Development]
(CID) of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia has designed and applied evaluation instruments dur-
ing approximately four consecutive years and it has also audited the program of Subsidies for the
demand.
21. The technical entity in charge of educational management at a local level, through which the Secretary
of Education Office of the District decentralizes the administration of the educational service in each
of the 20 localities of the Capital District of Bogotá.
682 Calvo

22. This is the agency which finances the majority of research projects in Colombia. It has programs in
different areas of knowledge which include social sciences and education.
23. For more details on this topic, see the Levelling for Excellence Program Technical Team (2001).
24. For more details on this topic, see the study carried out by the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (2004).
25. The tables included in this document were developed based on the fieldwork carried out in the institu-
tions analyzed in the research on Equity and Educational Policy in the Capital District: experiences in
educational institutions from strata 1 and 2 during 1998–2003.

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Camargo, M., Calvo, G., & Lache, M. (2004). Tercer informe de avance (Proyecto La equidad y la política
educativa en el Distrito Capital: las experiencias en las instituciones educativas de estratos 1 y 2 durante
1998–2003 Contrato 093/03). Bogotá, DC: Instituto para la Investigación Educativa y el Desarrollo
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de la oportunidad. Bogotá, DC: Misión Ciencia, Educación y Desarrollo. [Science, Education and
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1994. El Proyecto Educativo Institucional. Bogotá, DC: Ministerio de Educación Nacional. [Decree
1860 of 1994. The Institutional Educational Project].
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36

PRIMARY EDUCATION:
CHANGING MAINSTAY OF URUGUAY

Juan A. Bogliaccini
Catholic University of Uruguay, Uruguay

Traditionally one of the countries with highest levels of social and human development
in Latin America, Uruguay is a small and eminently urban country, with an extended
welfare state and universal education. From the beginnings of the twentieth century,
education has been one of its main tools for promoting nationality and citizenship.
The region and Uruguay experimented with different economic development models,
switching development models from an Import Substitution Model (ISM) to an export-
oriented model. As a result, the second half of the twentieth century entailed a series of
changes in the social structures of the country. Poverty and inequality indicators grew
and the architecture of the welfare state gradually lost its capacity to respond to a chang-
ing structure of social risks (Filgueira et al., 2005). Education was not insulated from
these changes.
In 1995, there is a revolution in the educational public system caused by the reform
initiated by the national government. This reform has concentrated most of its strate-
gies on equity in resources (with compensatory emphasis) and has resulted in central-
ized models that combine focused and universal resources assignment. In primary
educational level, Full-Time School model has been its main and more successful
tool.1
Eleven years after the beginning of the reform, the educational system faces, in
terms of its organization, a set of tensions between the traditional structure and the
emerging model. The challenges are four: Teachers’ stability in schools, degree of
autonomy between the school and the central administration, cultural impoverish-
ment of the underprivileged social sectors, and the necessity of basing the expan-
sion of the new model on additional resources. This chapter provides an analysis of
the educational system characteristics associated with these four tensions, and a
discussion of the most important risks in terms of universalizing the emerging
transformation.

685
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 685–704.
© 2007 Springer.
686 Bogliaccini

The Public Primary Education and the Twentieth Century

The Principles of Public Education in Uruguay
The principle of equal opportunity in education has been an ideal of Uruguayans since
Varela’s Reform at the end of the twentieth century.2 This reform planned education by
taking into account three principles that sought to guarantee equality: compulsory, sec-
ular and free of charge education. This was in the context of a modernized Uruguay
that was characterized by a steady flow of immigrants mostly from Western Europe. As
the twentieth century continued, these principles have become dogmas, becoming a
constituent aspect of the national culture (Table 1).
The principle of compulsory education became a major element in the constitution of
Uruguayan nationality since it gave rise to a common language and symbolic universe
among immigrants of different nations. Varela’s thought was greatly influenced by the
thought of the Argentinean Domingo Sarmiento,3 whose civilizing ideal is summarized
on his famous dialectical distinction between “civilización y barbarie” (civilization and
barbarity). The principle of free of charge education sought, along with the compul-
soriness, to universalize registration in schools. The State assumes the cost of public
education at every level, including university education. Finally, the principle of secu-
lar education sought to guarantee the hegemonic role of the State in said construction
of the national identity. This was the result of repeated and severe confrontations
between Catholic Church, State and Masonry.

Early Achievement in Coverage and Arrival of System Crisis

Since Varela’s reform, Uruguay has attained a major achievement in terms of educa-
tion. The illiteracy rate started to decrease steeply, and in the first decades of the
twentieth century, the country appeared among the Latin American countries with
highest education development. By the middle of 1960s, the 91.6% of population
attended primary education, the 23.2% of youths between 12 and 18 years old attended
secondary education, and the 1.9% of people older than 18 attended post secondary
education. Historically, registration in primary education has been mainly public.4 In
2004, the 87.8% of primary education was public, compared with a 12.2% registration
in private schools (Table 2).5
However, since 1970s, the Uruguayan educational system became threatened by
three different factors. These factors attack both the homogenizing goal of the system,

Table 1. Population composition of Uruguay by origin

Year Uruguayans Foreigners Total population

Population % Population %

1860 147.557 66 74.849 34 222.406

1908 801.464 83 181.222 17 1.042.686

Source: Juan Rial. Estadísticas históricas del Uruguay (Historical Statistics of Uruguay).
 Changing Mainstay of Uruguay 687

Table 2. Number of schools and registered children

Year Public Private

Schools Children Schools Children

1868 121 9.201 – –

1876 196 17.451 225 6.631
1883 303 26.169 423 19.244
1887 366 30.572 441 21.810
1896 533 51.312 379 22.689
1900 571 52.474 344 18.066
1905 619 57.638 301 17.794
1911 793 74.717 300 20.443
1914 997 94.940 219 20.006

Source: Morás, L. “De la Tierra Purpúrea al laboratorio social” (From Purple Land
to Social Laboratory).

and its centralized administration. The development of preschool education (education

of children of four and five years old), mainly of private initiative, was gradual but
determined. This education started to replace the first year of public basic education as
the primary, post-familial socialization process of children from most privileged socio-
economic sectors.6 When private initiative began in preschool education, private
schools also started to retain students for the subsequent grades, undercutting the dom-
inance of the public system. This situation enabled the growth of private education,
especially for the upper classes that can afford their own education, rejecting the free
of charge but lower quality education offered by the State. Furthermore, even when
children who have attended private preschool move to public schools, they arrive to
first grade with significant advantages over children who have not attended preschool.
Another process unsettling the country and its educational system comes from the
double segmentation between schools with favorable contexts and schools with unfa-
vorable contexts.7 Given the primary public education covers 86.1% of school popula-
tion between six and eleven years old in 2000 (see Table 8), the main process that
creates inequality is the segmentation in the public system due to the registration in
urban school areas that is structured by residential segregation that has intensified in
the last decades. Actually, the State effort to universalize basic school attendance trig-
gered, as stated above, a rapid growth of school enrollment since 1960, spurring pri-
vate initiative but also permitting mass registrations of students. Sectors with higher
socio-economic power initiated the search for solutions to the new problem outside the
public system.
Both situations contribute to a third threat to public educational system, especially in
primary level: increasing territorial segmentation that affects the equity of a registration
system based on territory. Public schools start to differentiate from each other in terms of
target population and the population starts choosing schools placed in neighborhoods
with favorable contexts over those placed in neighborhoods with less favorable contexts.
All three, taken together, create a deep segmentation process regarding quality in educa-
tion, especially in human resources available in the different social contexts. This is
688 Bogliaccini

exacerbated by teachers’ employment strategies whereby they tend to choose schools

with higher socio-cultural levels of students instead of those increasingly impoverished.

Centralized Administration that Generates Incoherence

The centralized management of Uruguayan educational system is regulated by the
State, mainly through inspection system.8 An example of this powerful centralization
in public schools is the statutory procedures they must follow. Schools lack their own
resources: furniture and materials. Therefore, they have to ask the National Board of
Education (ANEP) for the necessary goods. ANEP distributes all materials, be it the
needed chalk for the academic year or the books used in different academic subjects.9
Even maintenance and necessary repairs including replacement of broken windows,
plumbing, carpentry or paintwork have to be done by an official hired by ANEP and
assigned to the case; otherwise, money would have to be contributed by the parents’
commission or other benefactor.
In Uruguay, the main sources of inequality in the assignment of school resources are:
the political capacity of better schools to obtain more central resources; the possibility
of schools to have access to contributions from parent’s and parent organizations; and
the distribution and movement of teachers and principals across schools of different
socio-educational contexts. (Bogliaccini, 2003, 2004; Filgueira & Bogliaccini, 2004;
Filgueira & Martínez, 2001; García-Huidobro, 2003; Silveira & Queirolo, 1998). There
are important differences in terms of educational equipment videos, library, TV, etc.
A basic equipment index made by the technical systems of ANEP shows that 24% of
schools in a “very unfavorable” context lack equipment, and only 2% of schools in a
“favorable” context are in the same position.
While this centralizing structure intervenes in every hidden corner of the system, it
refuses to directly manage the teachers and principals allocation system. In contrast
with the centralizing logic, this allocation is decided, according to statute, by school
choice, which establishes teacher autonomy to choose the school of his/her preference
and to change at will, within a framework of teaching staff organization that gives pri-
ority to those with seniority in the system.
The teacher and principal allocation system works as follows: every year teachers
choose among available positions. Once the total positions are defined, there is an
election of teaching hours in every department of the country. If wanted, teachers can
register in two different departments for such election. Standards in force stipulate
a complex mechanism governed by a “precedence order by grade in decreasing
order.”10 This mechanism establishes that effective teachers choose before provisional
teachers and substitutes, teachers of higher grades choose before those of lower grades
and, within each grade, the ones with higher inspection score choose before the ones
with lower score. Final distribution of teachers in schools depends on the results of this
complex mechanism. Center (district) authorities, principals or parents have no juris-
diction in the matter, except in the case of center authorities, who can suppress, trans-
fer or create positions, at best an indirect mechanism. The only limit to the choices of
a teacher are the choices of the others, or more precisely, the choices of those teachers
placed in a better position in the “precedence order (Table 3).”
 Changing Mainstay of Uruguay 689

Table 3. Teacher stability in schools of public educational system (1996–2002)

Public-Montevideo Public-Iinterior Total

Average Favorable Unfavorable Average Favorable Unfavorable

context context context context

New teachers 1996 51.5 40.9 61.4 45.8 37.7 48.3 46.9
2002 44.2 40.4 53.7 44.2 30.8 47.4 44.2
Stable teachers 1996 10.5 15.9 3.6 25.6 34.4 23.9 22.6
2002 18.4 14.9 14.7 21.0 26.2 19.5 20.4

● Data to public system originate from the information of urban schools that were included in both surveys.

Source: National Learning Census 1996 (UMRE) and Survey of Registration, Teachers and Equipment –
General Administration of Planning and Educational Management (2002).

The information that arose from the teacher survey in 1996 and 2002, suggests that
the allocation of teachers has a negative bias strongly related to socio-cultural contexts
of schools. In general terms, in both years, the percentage of young teachers in schools
in “favorable” context is significantly lower than in schools in “unfavorable” ones
(IIPE-ANEP, 2003a, 2003b/ANEP, 2002). This distortion in allocation is confirmed in
all public schools of the country, albeit there is a greater difference in the levels of
teachers’ stability depending on the educational center.
In this case, the number of teachers working in the center for less than two years
(new teachers) is significantly higher in “unfavorable” contexts rather than “favorable”
ones. The system of teacher allocation contributes to the weakening of the identity of
the school and its center project because given certain inspection score, the teacher
acquires the right to choose the school, and the lack of other incentives lead to a con-
stant rotation of human resources. This mainly affects schools not wanted by teachers,
generally those that receive students from income quintiles 1 and 2 (the poorer 40% of
Uruguayans). An allocation system that leaves the school election to the teacher, with
little restriction or corrective measure, in a context of educational segmentation
between schools of different socio-educational levels creates this inequity in teacher
quality across the public schools.

The 1990s Decade and the Educational Reform

When democracy returned in 1985, public education was in a state of crisis. Some of
the most prominent symptoms of the crisis were: low wages, inappropriate infrastruc-
ture, crowded classes and a great number of parents who have chosen to leave the sys-
tem and look for private alternatives. There were no attempts at structural reforms
during the first Sanguinetti administration (1985–1989). The Lacalle administration
(1990–1994) developed a system by which some schools of neighborhoods with unful-
filled basic needs (UBN) were defined as schools of “priority care.” Teachers’ wages
of those schools rose as a bonus.
In 1995, with the arrival of the second Sanguinetti administration (1995–1999), an ambi-
tious project of reform was launched. It sought to decentralize via class desegregating
processes by the improvement of quality in education, through the development of equity
690 Bogliaccini

and a higher administrative efficiency. The Batlle Ibáñez administration (2000–2004)

continued with the educational policy started in 1995, though with less determination
and leadership than the preceding administration. The current Vázquez administration
(2005–2009) has not followed a defined policy in terms of education during its first
year. It continued with the main lines of reform in primary school education and pro-
moted a revision – more political and sectorial than technical – in middle school.
During the first five years, reform was planned and conducted by Germán Rama, soci-
ologist and professor, who had conducted many studies regarding Uruguayan educa-
tional system when working for the CEPAL (Comisión Económica Para América Latina/
Economic Comission for Latin American and the Caribbean) in Montevideo, see in par-
ticular: Rama (1993). During the 1995 Educational Reform, the administration and the
decision making remained centralized. More recently, a discussion has been initiated
within education concerning the autonomy of educational centers that could foster insti-
tutional strengthening and have a positive impact on educational quality.11
First, the reform advanced the first three grades of middle education, in an attempt
to recover an institutional dimension that had been lost for more than 25 years. The
middle grades had languished due to multiple factors including narrowing of timetable
for instruction, overcrowding of schools, and high rotation of teachers. In these terms,
the reform aimed to enlarge timetable, reduce repetition levels12 and search for collec-
tive workspaces for the teachers. Furthermore, curriculum was drastically changed
through subject regrouping. Training courses for teachers were created to fulfill the
new demand, and finally working hours were increased.
Second, the reform projected the ambitious plan of expanding public preschool edu-
cation, free of charge and compulsory. Preschool education of middle and upper class
had grown significantly during the last two decades at private schools, as stated above.
Consequently, the State proceeded through a centralist intervention to thwart the logic of
preschool expansion headed by private schools, with the purpose of homogenizing the
system. The CEPAL’s studies from previous years showed the importance of preschool
education as one of the determining factors for children’s performance during subse-
quent years and, therefore, as one of the key ways to reduce inequality in education.
In terms of educational resources, the reform aimed and achieved the goal of guaran-
teeing that all children of public primary education owned, or had loaned to them, three
basic textbooks(math, language and natural sciences), and teachers had their correspon-
ding teachers’ books. This program of common texts replaced a culture of photocopies
of old texts and with supplemental new materials that clearly stratified educational mate-
rials in schools with different resources. The expansion of higher wages for those who
chose schools with a priority need or in a critical context – as previously defined13 – was
one of the few initiatives giving direct economic resources to the participants of educa-
tional system with the purpose of attenuating the inequitable assignment of human
resources.
The reform fostered Full Time Schools (ETC)14 as a measure to focus additional
resources on schools within a critical context. The goal was to address more than just
education. It attempted to keep children out of the street and instruct teachers in these
new schools how to face the learning and adaptation difficulties of children in most
“unfavorable” social contexts. Reform developed a system of texts for all the students,
training courses for teachers in schools with critical context and a bonus program for
 Changing Mainstay of Uruguay 691

teachers, material resources and technical support for schools called “Todos los niños
pueden aprender” (All children can learn), with particular emphasis on underprivi-
leged social contexts. The model remains centralized and combines focused strategies
with a bias toward underprivileged and universal, public sectors of education (where
heterogeneity appears increasingly stratified).
Educational reform emphasized the search for mechanisms to reduce the high repeti-
tion percentages in the first grades of primary education. These percentages worked as a
regression in terms of equity – children of schools with poorer contexts repeat in a higher
percentage – and had not been responsive to educational improvement strategies: uni-
versalization of preschool education and preferential assignment of resources to schools
with unfavorable contexts.15 The high repetition rate, likewise, had a direct impact on the
over-aged dropout during the first grades of middle education (13–15 years) – once again
inhibiting equity.
A standardized system of learning evaluation was created with the purpose of eval-
uating the reform and as a process to search for initiatives that would better promote
equity and quality in education. The system is not a “high stakes” system. Each prin-
cipal receives the results of the school but they are not public and principals cannot
compare them with other schools. The management of the system is under the Unit for
the Measurement of Educational Results (UMRE), which tries to boost the educational
work of schools with an emphasis on those schools with unfavorable contexts. The
combination of standardized measures, teacher professional development courses and
the return of results to the school was the strategy chosen by the Uruguayan reform to
improve learning and close the educational gap between socio-economic sectors.

Public Expenditure in Education

Although between 1985 and 2004 expenditures on education have been irregular, it has
improved patently and with a strong redistributive effort in comparison with the dete-
rioration of previous years. This is particularly true since 1995, when the educational
effort of the country considerably increased and an equity bias became the structural
axis of educational interventions. Finally, between 1990 and 2000, educational expen-
diture as a percentage of the GDP grew from 2.4 to 3.4% (of a GDP that also grew
between 1990 and 1998 up to an annual accretion of almost 5%). The expenditure by
student in preschool, primary and secondary education increased in real terms between
1990 and 2004. During the Vázquez administration, the national Budget law for
2006–2010 approved by National Parliament establishes the goal of reaching an edu-
cational expenditure of 4% of the GDP by 2010.
On the other hand, teacher wages have remained practically stagnant. Between 1995
and 1998 teachers wage had a real increase of 5%, but between 1999 and 2000 lost
almost the total gain of the previous period (Table 4).

Full Time School: Flagship of the Reform16

The results of the National Learning Census of 1996 confirmed that social segmenta-
tion is reproduced in learning, showing clearly different results according to the context.
In “very favorable” contexts, 85% of children reached sufficiency levels in Language
692 Bogliaccini

Table 4. Expenditure of primary education board, by large categories. Registration, expenditure by

student and expenses by student Rate, 1990100. Period: 1990–2004

Year Expenditure Registration Expenditure Rate

by student 1990  100

Performance Investment Total

1990 113.8 1.2 115.0 345.344 333 100.0

1995 102.4 3.9 106.3 343.826 309 92.8
1996 126.9 2.5 129.4 356.030 364 109.2
1997 139.4 2.8 142.2 369.500 385 115.6
1998 136.2 5.8 142.0 376.870 377 113.2
1999 149.3 11.0 160.3 383.799 418 125.4
2000 143.2 7.7 150.9 394.400 383 114.9
2001 149.1 8.0 157.1 400.289 392 117.8
2002 141.9 6.8 148.7 403.738 368 110.6
2003 132.4 9.2 141.6 405.653 349 104.8
2004 – – 146.4 411.534 356 106.9

Source: Based on Furtado and Llambí, 2004. Planning and Budget Administration and Educational Planning
Administration of ANEP (National Board of Public Education).

Table 5. Evolution of number of Full Time Schools Period: 1997–2004

Geographic area 1997 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

Montevideo 12 18 21 22 22 24
Interior 45 55 65 71 74 78
Total 57 73 90 91 96 102

Source: ANEP – MECAEP.

and the 66% in Math. In “very unfavorable” contexts, the results of sufficiency were
37 and 17%, respectively. From this point of view, the Educational Reform of 1995
constituted the launching pad of the educational initiative that is manifested in Full
Time Schools,17 a response to this increasing segmentation of learning quality. The
Reform justifies the Full–Time School model for the unprivileged sectors as a means
to achieve a greater equity in the access to knowledge and in the development of com-
petencies and learning (Table 5).18
In 1992, the fist attempts to enlarge the school timetable started in some schools as
a pilot plan. In 1996, the first 58 schools, with 9554 attending children, were created
or transformed to Full-Time regimen. In 2004, there were 102 schools nationwide
working under this regimen, which represents about the 7% of the total school regis-
tration in the country (Table 6).
The Full-Time proposal does not end in the extension of the timetable, but it offers
a change in the educational schedule. Underprivileged children do not form a homo-
geneous group. Even though poverty, and its determining factors, have an impact on
children with similar disadvantages, its manifestation in the educational needs of stu-
dents is different. Full-Time Schools try to make up for the differences through actions
 Changing Mainstay of Uruguay 693

Table 6. Primary school registration, from 1st to 6th grade, by school category, by socio-cultural
context, urban and rural. Year 2004

2004

Number of students %

By category
Normal urban 174.128 56.2
Rural 16.955 5.5
Critical socio-cultural context 46.410 15.0
Full Time 20.326 6.6
Practice 52.101 16.8
National Total 309.920 100.0

Urban according to socio-cultural context

Very favorable 15.956 5.5
Favorable 39.676 13.6
Average 60.101 20.6
Unfavorable 76.047 26.0
Very unfavorable 101.185 34.6
Urban Total 292.265 100.0

Source: ANEP – MECAEP.

based on affirmative action criteria. Therefore, the school day in such schools includes
different institutional/educational schedules allowing differentiated educational strate-
gies. (ANEP, 1997). In general, children attend schools 7 hours a day (35 hours a
week), working on activities related to the normal program and activities that comple-
ment the central curriculum. These activities are collective, complementary and are
developed at classroom level. There are three kinds of complementary activities: activ-
ities related to the achievement of languages and physical education, workshop activi-
ties and activities oriented to connect with the social environment and the culture.
Pedagogical Classroom activities are based on two criteria: start from the experience
and culture of the student; and create in the classroom an environment of shared
knowledge. Complementary Time (3 hours a week) is optional and includes one-on-
one assistance and activities intended to engender personal hygiene and the afternoon
snack. Finally, the Teachers Meeting (2 hours a week) gives the teachers a time for
reflection, elaboration and evaluation.
These Full-Time schools have systematically obtained better results on UMRE tests
in terms of sufficiency percentages than the rest of national public schools with the
same socio cultural context. Charts 1 and 2 below show this fact, comparing suffi-
ciency percentages of language and math tests in very unfavorable and unfavorable
contexts of three school groups, for the years 1996, 1999, and 2002. Schools that
worked as Full-Time Schools before 1999, those that did it since or after 1999 and the
rest of public schools of the same context. The groups of Full-Time Schools get better
results, keeping or widening the initial gap between the groups in 1996 to the/towards
year 1999 and 2002, either in language or in math.
694 Bogliaccini

80

70 71.6
64.6 62.9
60 60.7 61
58.9 59.7
52.4 54.8
55.7 51.4
50 51.4
48.5 45.1
46.7
40 42.6
37.1
30

20
1996 1999 2002 1996 1999 2002
Unfavorable context – Language Very Unfavorable context – Language

National ETC Post 99 ETC 1999

Chart 1. Languages evolution in Uruguayan public schools. Sufficiency percentage in unfavorable and
very unfavorable Contexts
Source: Study based on ANEP data (2003). National Evaluation of Language and Math Development.
6th grade Primary Education. Second Report. General Administration of Planning and Educational
Management. Montevideo.

60
55 53.9
50 49.1
45 46.6
41.7
42.5
40 40.8
39.1
35 35.7
30 27.6 32.6
27.5 27.9 27.9
25
24.1
20 19.2
15 17.8
16.7
10
1996 1999 2002 1996 1999 2002
Unfavorable context – Math Very unfavorable context – Math

National ETC Post 99 ETC 1999

Chart 2. Math development in public schools.Sufficiency percentage in unfavorable and very unfavorable
contexts
Source: Study based on ANEP data (2003). National Evaluation of Language and Math Development.
6th grade Primary Education. Second Report. General Administration of Planning and Educational
Management. Montevideo.
 Changing Mainstay of Uruguay 695

Social Segregation and Educational Segmentation During the 1990s19

Population distribution in different schools corresponds to many factors. In primary
education, the territorial bias in the recruitment of the population is very clear. In soci-
eties with high levels of inequality, there are two big sources that generate risks of edu-
cational segregation: the territorial recruitment base and the existence of segmented
educational offerings in terms of quality and costs. Educational segmentation should
be understood as the situation in which the educational experience of the individual
tends to be developed and shared essentially with people of the same socioeconomic
origin. This segregation is detrimental not only to the constitution of the civic charac-
ter of the population but also to the learning and educational achievement (ANEP,
2002; Kaztman, 2001; Kaztman & Filgueira, 2001).
The Uruguayan case is a good example of the processes and impacts of the educa-
tional segmentation. During the last 20 years, a traditionally equalitarian society with
heterogeneous social composition of neighborhoods in Montevideo has presented a
growing territorial segregation process. This process has deeply affected the linkage
that existed between a hegemonic public educational system and heterogeneous neigh-
borhoods. The result was a socially heterogeneous public school which affected not
only early civic experience, but also learning and achievement allowed by the diversity
of role models. Nowadays, schools progressively educate homogeneous status groups
and the social and human capital is distributed in an increasingly regressive way
(Kaztman, 2001) (Table 7).
It is important to emphasize, though, that the above segmentation effects are caused
in a context of universal coverage for basic education, with rates of over 95% at the
beginning of the decade. Since the improvements in the universal availability of edu-
cation were achieved in 1990, there has been a change in who attends the public school
system. The 1990s were renowned for the return of quintiles 2 and 3 to public schools.
In turn, quintile 4 remained without great changes during the decade, however, quin-
tile 5, the highest, returned to private schools. The poorest quintile returned almost
100% to public offerings. Definitively, public system is attractive to middle and low
social and economic sectors while the high sectors have moved to private schools
(Table 8).
There are two significant causal factors for this shift. First, the return of middle and
low sectors to public education could possibly have been caused by the beginning of

Table 7. Population under poverty line (methodology 2002) by age and according to geographical areas
of residence. Years 2004 and 2005. Percentages

0–5 years 6–12 years 13–17 years 18–64 years 65 or more Total

2004 2005 2004 2005 2004 2005 2004 2005 2004 2005 2004 2005

Montevideo 56.6 53.1 57.9 53.5 47.8 47.3 29.4 27.1 11.6 10.6 32.4 30.2
Urban Interior 58.4 55.7 53.2 50.4 44.1 39.5 28.8 25.3 10.0 8.0 32.8 29.5
Whole country 57.6 54.5 55.3 51.7 45.9 43.1 29.1 26.2 10.8 9.4 32.6 29.8

Source: Statistics National Institute (2006): “Press Communication, Homes Constant Poll, Poverty Effect in
2005,” Montevideo, April 5th, http://www.ine.gub.uy/
696 Bogliaccini

Table 8. Uruguay 1991–2000: Attendance percentage of children from 6 to 11

years old to public educational system, according to income

Income quintiles 1991 2000 1991–2000

Public Public Balance

Quintile 1 93.7 98.0 4.3

Quintile 2 84.1 91.1 7.0
Quintile 3 71.6 79.8 8.2
Quintile 4 60.5 61.0 0.5
Quintile 5 46.0 39.2 6.8
Total 81.3 86.1 4.8

Source: Own study based on Household Constant Survey (ECH).

problems that the job market experienced since 1994 and the later recession and eco-
nomical crisis that started in 1998. Free public education may have been simply more
affordable, compared to costs of private education. Another possible cause may be that
the educational reform made the public schools more attractive to middle sectors given
the additional quality of primary education, especially in critical contexts. Therefore,
new Full-Time Schools could have attracted the attention of the population residing in
those neighborhoods instead of the private offer. (Filgueira & Bogliaccini, 2004).
Quintile 5, the most privileged sector, had moved to private education, probably due
to lack of attention to reform the best public schools and possibly the deterioration of
these offerings, which attracts the richest sectors of the population. The very emphasis
in achieving equity levels focused on those vulnerable sectors may have created, as a
secondary effect, this change in preferences for those who can afford a private institu-
tion. However, in general terms, public offerings overcame the private ones during the
decade resulting in an increasing registration in public schools before this later seg-
mentation process. This is a similar situation to the one experienced for preschool edu-
cation, although in this case there were trying to achieve a goal of expanding the
coverage like in middle education. Thus, Uruguay throughout the 1990s created mech-
anisms that improved the equity among middle and low sectors but drove high sectors
from public education to private offerings (Filgueira & Bogliaccini, 2004).

Development Tensions that Cause Change Alternatives

Full-Time School model has fostered the development of alternatives in the ways of
organizing and working in a school. The traditionally homogenous system used the
same methods and processes for all students regular (but heterogeneous) urban school.
Now schools and centers are able to differentiate their educational offerings according
to the needs of the student population. All these changes become part of the school’s
identity and open the door to more widespread innovation (ANEP, 2003b).
All Full-Time Schools (ETCs) form a differentiated universe from the traditionally
regular urban schools. Some ETCs have created favorable settings to innovations and
 Changing Mainstay of Uruguay 697

changes. However, this policy now faces different tensions that will affect its future,
determining its integration with the rest of the educational system. It may be that Full-
Time Schools will become the dominant model or the traditional model may overcome
the full-time model in a slow stagnating process.
There are four main tensions between this new emerging model and the traditional
model of regular urban schools, in order to improve quality and equity in this educa-
tional proposal:20 (1) managing teacher stability in schools, (2) the degree of autonomy
between central administration and school, (3) dealing with cultural differentiation
tied to social segregation process, and (4) the economic costs of universalizing the
Full-Time model and of constant training of teachers.

Teacher Stability in Schools

Innovation, and its capacity to take advantage of the environment in which operates,
depends on the stability of a set of key processes of the school. This stability also
depends essentially on the school staff’s stability. This stability is a necessary condition,
(but not fully sufficient), to positively impact the quality of education. Stability and inno-
vation have a fragile link in that the change phenomenon operates as both opportunity
and risk. (Argyris & Schön, 1978). This stability is a key factor when it comes to improv-
ing the relationship between teachers, developing constructive relationships with the
neighborhood and with students’ families, elaborating an institutional project with long-
term goals, and achieving a complete knowledge of the organization that allows a change
from reactive problem-solving to having a medium-term planning capability. Stability of
staff establishes a better setting for education, and is an attractive setting to parents. It is
necessary to consider this not only as a virtue in its own right, but also as an essential
condition to achieve a qualitative change in the performance of the educational system as
a whole (Bogliaccini, 2004; Frigerio & Poggi, 1992; García-Huidobro, 2003; Silveira &
Queirolo, 1998).
However, teacher stability is the least where equity is the most needed outcome,
since most teacher rotation to other schools comes schools with students of low socio-
economic status or with an “unfavorable socio-cultural context” (see Table 2). This is
allowed by the normal mechanism of teachers’ allocation to schools. In Full-Time
Schools, teachers’ mobility is lower than in the rest of the system, due to the inclusion
of ad hoc regulations from ANEP and also due to the number of this type of schools.
Once the teacher chooses a Full-Time School, (s)he often wishes not to go back to reg-
ular schools, and probably would not have the chance to, as there are few available
vacancies. However, the allocation method is the same that works for the rest of the
public system, which makes a good reason to assume that with a fuller expansion of
the Full-Time School model, the same defects that presently affect regular urban
schools would be copied permitting considerable teacher mobility and therefore little
stability in schools, possibly working against equity once more.
Nowadays, in a setting of expansion of the new model, teacher stability in Full-Time
Schools is extremely fragile, and depends on two factors that could disappear in such
settings, all other things being equal. First, it is unlikely that a procedure of exceptional
698 Bogliaccini

job allocation would survive an expansion of the model unless there is a negotiation
with the teachers’ union and a change in the Teachers Statute. On the other hand, the
affective and personal acknowledgement caused by working in the “flagship” of the sys-
tem is softened when the same “renovates the fleet.” Second, the weak point of the cur-
rent model lies in the fact that individual or corporate interests have replaced collective
interests when allocating teachers to schools, without prioritizing affirmative action for
the good of the students.21 Moreover, this weak point has an attractive characteristic that
should be taken into account when negotiating alternatives, which is to allow teachers to
choose his/her workplace.

Degree of Autonomy Between Schools and ANEP

The strong centralization of the national educational system has started to manifest
signs of inadequacy in the management of the new model and this represents a chal-
lenge to its authorities. Hypothetically, greater autonomy to schools opens a door to
diversity and allows schools to use their creativity to respond in a better way to their
own context. Full-Time Schools model constitutes a better setting to achieve an insti-
tutional project than the regular urban school, mainly because of the new structure,
there is time available for coordination and a stronger relationship between teachers.
A consequence of this is teachers’ expectations regarding roles and attributions of the
principal and the inspector. A stronger school claims more autonomy (Bogliaccini,
2004; Lijtenstein & Bogliaccini, 2004).
The principal’s role, a key actor in the ANEP, has faced changes in Full-Time Schools
with respect to professional practice compared to the previous model (Bogliaccini,
2003). Full-Time Schools and their dynamics have caused stronger relations between
teachers and has increased teamwork, all of which implies a different evaluation process
and a redefinition of principal leadership. Among teachers, there appears to be a tension
between traditional management based on administrative facts and the new manage-
ment that evidenced a pedagogical leadership (typical of Full-Time Schools).
The difficult relation between principals and inspectors appears mainly in schools
that have created stable groups of teachers, based on a successful pedagogical center
project. (Bogliaccini, 2004). However, in a gradual expansion process of Full-Time
Schools model, less successful centers probably still need the inspector figure, but a
kind of inspector similar to a pedagogical leader instead of a supervisor. The challenge
is then to improve strategies to make the model more flexible in terms of schools’
autonomy, instead of keeping a system of non-differentiated universal rules.

Cultural Impoverishment in Settings of Residential Segregation

This tension extends throughout the whole educational system but mainly affects those
schools with unfavorable and very unfavorable contexts. Full-Time Schools are specif-
ically located in areas of the country with these kinds of socio-cultural contexts. In
general terms, parents of students attending these schools have achieved a low educa-
tional level and their relation with job market is unstable, informal and transitory.
These neighborhood communities are generally caused by interurban migration as a
 Changing Mainstay of Uruguay 699

consequence of social segregation processes (Kaztman, 2001) and that is why they
progressively become poorer communities. These families constitute the population
group with socially vulnerable conditions, affected or threatened by poverty and subject
to exclusion processes of social institutions and more high status groups (Kaztman &
Filgueira, 2001). Moreover, this group also constitutes the majority of students. In
Uruguay, 51.7% of children between 6 and 12 years old are under poverty line.
This cultural differentiation22 shows a new geography of an increasingly segmented
educational system. Although it would not be reasonable to expect to remedy social
segregation only with the educational system, the Full-Time Schools model is proving
to be a successful affirmative action instrument for providing better assistance to the
poorest social sectors. School buildings located in these neighborhoods are an excep-
tion to the impoverished context morphology: new, firm, spacious buildings located on
large pieces of land establish the affirmative intention of the State. From teachers’ per-
spective, violence in human relations is one of the main differentiated aspects in
school and neighborhood culture (Bogliaccini, 2005). Schools, in that sense, should
not give up the goal of becoming something different: a socializing environment that
unifies rules that permit a better integration of the child to society. Nevertheless, the
question remains about how to deal with behavior codes that vary from one culture to
another. Those opposed to each other clearly present the greatest challenge in terms of
integration with the social mainstream (Bogliaccini, 2005; Kaztman, 1999, 2001;
Kaztman & Filgueira, 2001; Kessler, 2004) (Figure 1).
While a difficult challenge, the educational system should be trying to lessen the
tension between the increasingly differentiated universes of schools and neighbor-
hoods in Uruguay, moving forward to formulate new strategies to relate with students’
families. The school’s capability to approach its work from an innovative perspective
depends on the proper organization of the human relations between teachers and
students’ families.

FENCE

Relation
Dialogue Hitting

Relation with rules

Respect Transgression

School Neighborhood–
Exercise of power home
Democratic Authoritative

Integrative Type of socialization Excluding

Figure 1. Teachers’ symbolic perception of children’s universe of interaction (Bogliaccini, 2005)

700 Bogliaccini

Resources and Policies to Universalize the Full-time Schools Model

Probably the major lesson of these first years of Full-Time Schools model operation is
that affirmative action works out. As Chart 3 shows, the schools that receive children
from unfavorable and very unfavorable socio-cultural contexts have attained similar or
even higher percentages of sufficiency than the average of the rest of the public edu-
cational system, which have children from all social strata. However, this model has
worked with an intensive investment not only in furniture and building resources, but
also in permanent costs as food, educational and technological resources, wages of
special teachers, reduction of number of students by grade and even the wages of reg-
ular teachers. In this sense, if the model’s intent is to extend its coverage towards a
more significant proportion of the full student registration, a proportionate rise in the
expenditure as well as an inclusion of the same in the national educational budget, will
be necessary. If the model spreads out without the appropriate economic resources,
there is a high probability that what is being implemented will be distorted and possi-
bly not be able to deliver on what the pilot schools have so far produced (Table 9).
The success of this model, as a policy of affirmative action, compels the country to
generate a progressive policy for its expansion, starting from the creation of a decen-
nial plan of incorporation of schools to the model, while necessary corrective meas-
ures are studied to promote those characteristics that make it successful. Along with
this issue, there appears another challenge for a successful model in a low proportion

75
71.6

61.3 66.3
62.9
60 57.1
58.9
55.7 53.9
51.4 49.1
48.3
45 45.1 41.7
40.8
34.6
32.6
30
27.5

19.2
15
1996 1999 2002 1996 1999 2002
Language Math

National Total ETC Unfavorable ETC Very unfavorable

Chart 3. Language and Math development in Uruguayan public schools. Compared sufficiency
percentage between national average and Full-Time Schools (ETCs) according to context
Source: Study based on ANEP data ( 2003a, 2003b ). National Evaluation of Language and Math
Development. 6th grade Primary Education 2002. Second Report. General Administration of Planning and
Educational Management. Montevideo.
 Changing Mainstay of Uruguay 701

Table 9. Funds spent by ANEP on primary education (1995–2002), according to type of expenditure
dollars – year 2002

Year Total expenditure Performance expenditure Investment expenditure

1995 101,942,307 92,243,338 3,698,918

1996 124,139,618 121,735,380 2,404,239
1997 136,418,354 133,730,827 2,687,527
1998 153,632,516 148,458,302 5,174,214
1999 165,642,748 161,609,629 4,033,119
2000 160,909,460 156,655,574 4,253,886
2001 170,007,147 165,673,381 4,333,767
2002 152,638,518 152,074,362 564,156

Source: Statistics Department of Programming and Budget General Administration of CODICEN. Based on
balances of budget execution of ANEP.

of national registration confronted with the growth tensions of a national universaliza-

tion priority: to design teacher stability and coverage strategies that mimic the patterns
of the teachers who started in 1995.
Summarizing, the proper resolution of the four identified tensions opens the door to
the stabilization of the new model, positioning it as the flagship of institutional change,
which should be the template for change in the entire primary education system for
decades to come.

Notes
1. To learn more about the Uruguayan Full Time School Model, check Administración Nacional de
Educación Pública (National Board of Public Education – ANEP) (1997) “Propuesta pedagógica para
las escuelas de Tiempo Completo” [Pedagogical Proposal to Full-Time Schools]. MECAEP – ANEP –
BIRF Project. Uruguay.
2. José Pedro Varela, who published his first pedagogical work: “La educación del pueblo” [The
Education of the People] in 1874 and “La legislación escolar” [School Legislation] in 1876, was com-
missioned by the President Gral. Lorenzo Latorre to elaborate the basis of a national educational sys-
tem in 1876. Varela has become a symbol of Uruguayan culture and education. To learn more about
Varela’s work, see: Demarchi, M., and Rodríguez, H. (2000). José Pedro Varela (1845–1879).
Perspectives: revue trimestrielle d’éducation comparée. Bureau international d’éducation, Vol. XXIV,
no. 3/4, 1994 (91/92) pp. 733–749. Paris: UNESCO.
3. Domingo Faustino Sarmiento had significant influence on Varela’s thought. Varela met him during his
travels to the United States and the two established a rich epistolary exchange. “Facundo,” written in
1851 reflects Sarmiento’s thought. Sarmiento, D. (1967). Facundo. Civilización y barbarie [Civilization
and Barbarity]. Argentina: Colección Austral.
4. In Uruguay, the State does not take part in the funding of private, primary educational schools. The
dominant structure is hegemonically public, with 87.7% of coverage entrusted to the State. See per-
centages of participation in public and private education by income quintile in Table 8 below. However,
the experience of “Care Centers for Children and Family” (CAIF) constitutes a successful national
experience of public funding and private management. CAIF offers comprehensive care for children
up to four years old, from low economic and cultural contexts (Filgueira & Bogliaccini, 2004).
5. Data from the Educational Statistics Department, ANEP.
6. Concerning the results of the expansion of public preschool education offer since educational reform
of 1995, see Filgueira and Bogliaccini, 2004.
702 Bogliaccini

7. The National Learning Census, conducted by UMRE in 1996 for the sixth grade of public and private
schools nationwide, had five categories of socio-cultural context defined by two indicators: educa-
tional level of the mother and resources in the home. Groups were denoted as “very favorable,” “favor-
able,” “middle,” “unfavorable,” and “very unfavorable.”
8. The inspectorate is the main formal communication channel between the school and the main office of
the system, as well as with other public or private schools. Inspectors are selected through public
examination from those school principals who want to run for the post. Inspectors assess teachers and
principals of a certain number of schools appointed by territorial areas, and they watch over the proper
functioning of the schools in his/her care, on behalf of the educational system. Likewise, the inspector
is the channel by which school communicates with the main office and vice versa, however, ANEP
uses, as well, the circular letter system to send direct and general messages to schools.
9. This was a part of a program promoted by the 1995 Reform in order to give every student of the pub-
lic system access to the academically necessary supplies.
10. See the Statute of Teachers, particularly articles 13 and 14. This same mechanism appears in the regu-
lations of Decentralized Boards.
11. The only initiative promoting school autonomy is the so-called Projects of Educational Improvement
(PME), designed to promote the elaboration of distinct school identities. Projects of diverse kind com-
pete for funds that ANEP assigns to the execution of winning PMEs.
12. This includes reducing low attendance through administrative methods because low attendance was a
major factor in repeating grades in junior high school (12–14 years old, 1st to 3rd grade of middle
school).
13. Nowadays these schools are called: Schools with Critical Socio-Cultural Contexts (CSCC).
14. Full-Time Schools (ETCs) were created in Resolution No. 21 of Record 90, December 24, 1998,
Central Directive Board This resolution was put in force in 1999.
15. To study the problem of grade repetition in Uruguay read ANEP (2002) La repetición en la escuela
pública en cifras [Repetition in Public School in Figures]. Statistics Series No. 3. General
Administration of Planning and Educational Management. Montevideo. This work, conducted by
C. Filgueira, constitutes an excellent analysis of this situation.
16. For more information regarding Full-Time Schools, the National Board of Public Education (ANEP)
has the main documents of this educational proposal available at: www.mecaep.com.uy
17. Resolution No 21 of Record 90, December 24, 1998. Central Directive Board (CODICEN) of ANEP.
This resolution was put in force in 1999.
18. “The concept of a new primary education universality lies in the fact that it is not enough to guarantee
the access and permanency; the actual transformation is related to the democratization of the access to
knowledge.” Program – Five-year Budget of ANEP. 1995–1999.
19. To analyze social and residential segregation, see the works of R. Kaztman within the framework of the
Program of Research on Exclusion, Poverty and Social Exclusion of the Catholic University of
Uruguay. (www.ucu.edu.uy/ipes/publicaciones)
20. The analysis of the author is directly supported by two researches accomplished within the framework
of the evaluation of Full-Time model (Bogliaccini, 2005; Lijtenstein & Bogliaccini, 2004).
21. To study the concept of affirmative action, read Reimers, F. (2000). Unequal schools, unequal
chances. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. USA.
22. To study the concept of cultural differentiation and its impact on the education, see Reimers, F. (2000).
Unequal schools, Unequal chances. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. USA.

References
ANEP – Administración Nacional de Educación Pública. (1997). [National Board of Public Education]
Propuesta pedagógica para las escuelas de Tiempo Completo [Pedagogical Proposal to Full-Time
Schools] Uruguay: MECAEP – ANEP – BIRF Project.
ANEP – Administración Nacional de Educación Pública. (2002). La repetición en la escuela pública en cifras.
[Repetition in Public School in Figures] Statistics Series No. 3. Montevideo: General Administration of
Planning and Educational Management.
 Changing Mainstay of Uruguay 703

ANEP – Administración Nacional de Educación Pública. (2003a). Evaluación Nacional de Aprendizaje en

Lenguaje y Matemática. 6° Año enseñanza Primaria 2002. [National Evaluation of Language and Math
Development. 6th grade Primary Education 2002.] First report. Montevideo: General Administration of
Planning and Educational Management.
ANEP – Administración Nacional de Educación Pública. (2003b). Evaluación Nacional de Aprendizaje en
Lenguaje y Matemática. 6° Año enseñanza Primaria 2002. [National Evaluation of Language and Math
Development. 6th grade Primary Education 2002.] Second report. Montevideo: General Administration
of Planning and Educational Management.
Argyris, C., & Schön, D. (1978). Organizational learning: A theory of action perspective. USA: Addison Wesley.
Bogliaccini, J. A. (2003). La autonomía del director de escuela [The autonomy of the school Principal]
Umbral Magazine, 11.
Bogliaccini, J. A. (2004). Escuelas innovadoras en un marco que favorece la innovación y la diversidad
[Innovative Schools Within a Framework that Favors Innovation and Diversity] Unpublished master’s
thesis. Santiago: Alberto Hurtado University.
Bogliaccini, J. A. (2005). Las claves territoriales de la fractura social urbana: Inseguridad y segregación en
Montevideo. Dilemas sociales y alternativas distributivas en el Uruguay. [Territorial Guidelines of
Urban Social Breach: Insecurity and segregation in Montevideo. Social Dilemmas and Distributive
Alternatives in Uruguay.] PRISMA Magazine. Catholic University of Uruguay. Montevideo.
da Silveira, P. da, & Queirolo, R. (1998). Análisis organizacional: Cómo funciona la educación pública en Uruguay
[Organizational Analysis: How Does Public Education Work in Uruguay] Research Report 010. CERES.
Filgueira, F., & Martínez, E. (2001). La reforma educativa en Uruguay: desafíos y tendencias [The
Educational Reform in Uruguay: Challenges and Tendencies]. Outreach Project and results of the edu-
cational reforms in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. Montevideo: Ministerio de Educación and Inter
American Development Bank (IADB).
Filgueira, F., & Bogliaccini, J. A. (2004). Las reformas educativas en Chile y Uruguay: descentralización orien-
tada al mercado versus centralismo estatista. [Educational Reforms in Chile and Uruguay: Market-Oriented
Decentralization vs. Statist Centralism]. In Goma y Jordana (Eds.), Descentralización y Políticas Sociales en
América Latina (pp. 152–189) [Decentralization and Social Policies in Latin America] Barcelona: CIDOB.
Filgueira, F., Rodríguez, F., Rataniello, C., Alegre, P., & Lijtenstein, S. (2005). Estructura de riesgo y arqui-
tectura de protección social en el Uruguay actual: crónica de un divorcio anunciado, in Dilemas sociales
y Alternativas distributivas en Uruguay. [Risk Structure and Architecture of Social Protection in Present
Uruguay: Chronicle of a Divorce Foretold, in Social Dilemmas and Distributive Alternatives in
Uruguay.] PRISMA Magazine no. 21. Catholic Uruguay: University of Uruguay.
Frigerio, G., & Poggi, M. (1992). Las instituciones educativas. Cara y Seca. [Educational Institutions.
Heads and Tails.] Argentina: FLACSO.
García-Huidobro, J. E. (2003). La buena escuela [The Good School]. In J. E. García-Huidobro, &
C. Sotomayor (Eds.), La centralidad de la escuela en la política educativa chilena de los ‘90 [Centrality
of School in 1990s’ Chilean Educational Policy]. Santiago: Editorial Universitaria.
Kaztman, R. (1999). (coord.). Activos y estructura de oportunidades: estudios sobre las raíces de la vulner-
abilidad social en Uruguay [Assets and Opportunity Structure: Studies on the roots of social vulnera-
bility in Uruguay]. Montevideo: ECLA, UNDP.
Kaztman, R. (2001). Seducidos y abandonados: el aislamiento social de los pobres urbanos [Seduced and
Abandoned: Social Isolation of Urban Poor], ECLA Magazine, 75. Santiago de Chile.
Kaztman, R., & Filgueira, F. (2001). Panorama de la infancia y la familia en Uruguay [Overview of
Childhood and Family in Uruguay]. Montevideo: IPES, Catholic University of Uruguay.
Kessler, G. (2004). Sociología del delito amateur [Sociology of Amateur Crime]. Piados. Tramas sociales.
Argentina.
Lijtenstein, S., & Bogliaccini, J. A. (2004). Lecciones aprendidas y buenas prácticas en escuelas de Tiempo
Completo [Lessons Learnt and Good Practices in Full Time Schools]. Research Report. ANEP. Uruguay.
Unpublished version.
Partnership for Educational Revitalization in the Americas. (2002). Creando autonomía en las escuelas
[Creating Autonomy in Schools]. Ed. Lom. Chile.
Rama, G. (1993). ¿Qué aprenden y quienes aprenden en las escuelas públicas de Uruguay? [Who Learn and
What Do They Learn in Uruguayan Public School?]. Montevideo: ECLAC.
Reimers, F. (Ed.). (2000). Unequal schools, unequal chances. USA: Harvard University.
37

EDUCATIONAL POLICIES AND REALITIES:

TEACHERS’ INITIAL EDUCATION IN MEXICO

Etelvina Sandoval
National Pedagogical University, México

To speak of quality education is to refer to teachers, a point of agreement in all the

nations, and it is therefore necessary to face the challenge of their education, both in
their initial formation and while they are in service. In Latin America there is also
agreement that, despite the policies for the reform of the formation of teachers that
have been developed in recent decades, teacher education programs are not adequately
preparing teachers for the new demands presented in education, nor instilling them
with the minimal knowledge and skills needed in order to participate in an increasingly
complex, heterogeneous society with enormous inequalities.1
The quality of education is a recurring theme in all the nations of the region pre-
senting challenges different than those of universal coverage that was the backbone of
educational discussion up until the 1980s. In Mexico, the current orientation of basic
education policy refers to the need to achieve quality and egalitarian education, as all
children having access to a school is not sufficient. It is necessary that the education
provided in that school is of a high quality and allows inequalities to be overcome. This
represents a challenge in itself, in which teacher education occupies an important
place, as it implies breaking traditional frameworks that define schools, students and
the role of the teacher role.
This chapter deals with teachers’ initial training for the basic k-12 education level2 in
an urban context. It will analyze some aspects of teacher education from the perspective
of the reality teachers experience in schools. I will examine the current governmental
educational policies for the teacher education, and the challenges that future teachers
and the institutions that train them have to overcome to effectively respond to the old
and new educational demands of a heterogeneous population. Teachers now work in
the context of great socio-cultural and economic diversity, and within the new visions
and values derived from globalization, both of which affect children and young people
that attend school.
It is important to point out that in Mexico the administrative classification that divides
education into rural and urban based on the number of inhabitants of the locality where
705
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 705–726.
© 2007 Springer.
706 Sandoval

the school is located, has been completely surpassed, particularly in the institutions that
prepare teachers. They are all now located in urban zones. Even those that were founded
in rural areas have been devoured by the growth of the localities. Added to this is the fact
that the initial formation of teachers in Mexico is ruled by plans and study programs that
do not take into account the type of population with which the teachers will work. It can
be argued that at present the real division is between education in impoverished areas
versus education in better economic conditions. The former is encountered in rural and
indigenous zones, but also in poverty-stricken urban areas, which are abundant in
Mexico. Another division, profoundly permeated by the economic conditions, is found
between public education and private education. While public education attends to the
majority of the population (80%), it has gradually been discredited in regards to the quality
of its work, which has strengthened private education in recent years.
An empirical reference in this paper for these divisions will be the Normal Schools
from Mexico City (also known as the Federal District), that prepare teachers who will
teach in urban public schools in a metropolis characterized by marked social, cultural
and, economic contrasts.3

The Context of the Mexican Education

The work of a teacher is carried out within specific contexts. It is important to point out
that although this would appear obvious it is not generally taken into consideration when
talking about teachers and their educational responsibility. Although the classroom and
the school are the immediate context in which their work and real education is under-
taken, it is necessary to point out that in the school space there are expressions of the edu-
cation policy at a macro level, as well as socio-cultural education and the culture of the
surroundings. Regarding the former, we can mention study programs, textbooks, institu-
tional hierarchies, multiple projects, and activities required by the authorities and those
to which it must respond, and trade union actions, among others. For second part, the
social, economic, and cultural environment are manifest in the practices, relations, con-
ceptions, etc. of the school community and, in particular, that of the students.
In the case of future teachers, the educational policy regarding teacher education is
concretely expressed in the Normal Schools and in the organization of the education
practices. Another important context is that of the primary or secondary school class-
room, where the future teachers carries out their professional practice. There professional
teachers come into contact with students, presenting teachers with various social
dimensions, which transcend the classroom and the school. I will demonstrate in this
paper that some of the conditions outside the school have influences within it.

Equality and Diversity

Educational inequality
Mexico has a wide and diversified education system, with huge inequalities. A few
figures demonstrate this fact: The national education system has a little over 31 million
 Educational Policies and Realities 707

students, of which 24 million are in basic education, and of those, almost 15 million in
primary education.
It is important to emphasize that 54% of the total population lives in poverty and
30% in extreme poverty. This reality has generated a gradual and constant migration to
urban areas, which now are home to 75% of the entire population. In these conditions,
I agree with Enrique Pieck (1995) who affirms that “The low levels of wellbeing and
educational marginalization have become, in absolute terms, fundamentally urban
phenomena, although the rural population is that which is most excluded” (p. 24).
The inequalities in the educational system are profound and are expressed in diverse
dimensions that have an affect on education services and quality: infrastructure, prestige,
the size of schools and the teachers that work in them. We therefore find, on the one hand,
multi-grade schools (unitary or incomplete)4 vs. schools with a complete grade organi-
zation. We can also find a lack of teachers with both constant mobility and isolation vs.
a stable and sufficient teaching staff with the possibility of remaining up-to-date.
It is evident that in these conditions of inequality, similar schooling processes can-
not be carried out. Some researchers affirm that national education, by being linked to
the conditions of social inequality, produces differing qualities of work. With respect
to this, Pieck (1995) argues that we can no longer talk about exclusion from the school
system, but that “there operates a socio-educational segmentation by inclusion to a dif-
ferentiated school system, where the more vulnerable groups have less opportunities to
remain and obtain adequate levels of benefits from schooling” (p. 28).
This situation is also reflected in international evaluations that place Mexico at a
low level and therefore contributing to a social discrediting of public schools, which
are labeled as being of low quality. The recently created National Institute for the
Evaluation of Education (INEE) acknowledges that in order to analyze the results of
the evaluation of schools, their context must be taken into account:

There are great differences between the results from diverse sectors of the system.
The weight of the factors of context that influence in learning mean that the great-
est differences are found between the results of students from more favorable
social contexts, which are private schools, and those that belong to contexts of
less favorable conditions, in the schools in urban and highly marginalized rural
zones and, above all, of indigenous students. (2004, p. 229)5

Inequality leads to leaving school or educational setbacks that continue to be a prob-

lem in Mexico. If we take as an example secondary schools in Mexico City (that obtain
better educational levels than those in other states), we find that of the total population
of the age of 15, 11% did not attend school in the year 2000. A lack of interest in study-
ing and economic motives are among the reasons given for leaving school. At a national
level, we found that of the obligatory nine years of schooling that includes primary and
secondary level, only 41 children out of every 100 completed and 59 failed to complete
the term due to failing exams or leaving school. These problems occur across the coun-
try, but with differing intensity in each state, more negatively affecting those with a
greater index of poverty or marginalization.6
708 Sandoval

The coming of diversity

Social, cultural, political, demographic, economic, and technological changes have
also had an impact on schools and demand new educational responses from adminis-
trators and teachers. As has already been stated, the urban population is now the major-
ity population in Mexico, migration to other states or to the United States has increased,
significantly modifying rural communities, the indigenous Zapatista movement in the
South of the country called attention to the “always forgotten” and it could be seen that
indigenous people are not just in the majority in reserve zones, but in other areas as
well. To summarize, education as a whole, but mainly that provided in zones of high-
density population, faces a fundamental challenge: that of “crossing cultural borders”
(Rosaldo, 1991) due to the diversity of the students.
Even in the Federal District, the country’s capital and urban center, the main educa-
tional challenge is the growing social diversity and its manifestations. It is the city that
receives the highest number of migrating indigenous people, whose stay in the city can be
temporary or permanent. According to the most recent census of population and housing
(2000), the city has an indigenous population of 68,246, distributed mainly in three dis-
tricts, among which is Iztapalapa.7 In schools, indigenous children are often overlooked
by teachers as they are confused with other poor children and are characteristically quieter
(perhaps because they do not speak Spanish).
A situation that has a great social impact is that of street children, a term referring to
minors that live or work on the streets of the cities. “Kids in street situation,” due to vio-
lence, family disintegration, addictions, extreme poverty, and marginalization, have been
forced to work in the street at an early age to the detriment of their quality of life.
According to the report Study of Children and Young Workers in the Federal District, car-
ried out by the Government of the Federal District and UNICEF (2004), there are more
than 14,320 minors that use the streets and public spaces of Mexico City as places of work
or as a dwelling. Two out of three of the children studied are in primary or secondary pub-
lic school, but they are irregular students normally. Of those who do not go to school, the
majority did study but left school, and among the causes for that are poverty (50%), not
liking school, expulsion or failing exams (33%), family problems (7%) and lack of docu-
ments such as birth certificates and documents proving educational history, etc. (3%).
Another aspect to consider is the population of adolescents at risk. It is important to
remember that, while Mexico is registering a drop in mortality rates, the birth rate, and
the number of children per mother, the structure of the population has shifted, and the
adolescent population has practically doubled, from 11.4 to 21.1 million, from 1970
to 2000. Close to 25% of the country’s population is adolescent. Besides, the popula-
tion with some kind of handicap represents 1.9% (163,499) of the total population of
the capital city.
The majority of these adolescents study in secondary school, a level that requires
profound changes in their conceptions and practices. These schools have not signifi-
cantly changed since the creation of this educational institution in 1924. The secondary
school and many of its teachers continue to maintain the “manual” concept of adoles-
cents, whose changes are fundamentally physical and psychological, without taking
into consideration the social and cultural contexts that surround them. In schools, firm
and authoritarian discipline is practiced with varied forms of control over students.
 Educational Policies and Realities 709

These controls often lead to academic failure and and/or desertion. The emphasis on con-
trol is supposed to keep the effects of social context from which the students come out of
the school. This has not been successful, as social context is interjected despite the
attempts to ignore it (Sandoval, 2000). Educational authorities acknowledge that there
are changes in students, although little is done to attend to them:

Young people today have a higher level of schooling than their predecessors, they
are more familiar with new technology; they must attend to a larger amount of
information on different aspects of life and on the reality in which they live. But, at
the same time, they face new problems associated with the processes of globaliza-
tion and the growing differentiation between modern societies and others – older
now – that refer to the marked socio-economic inequality that characterizes the
country, and that leads to greater marginalization and violence. Panorama de la
Educación Secundaria en el DF. [Panorama of Secondary Education in Mexico
City]. 2005: 72

The presence and/or consumption of drugs or alcohol, domestic violence, poverty and
migration are also modern problems that present new challenges to schools and their
teachers. Nevertheless, future teachers are little prepared to face these realities. Furlán
(2005) expresses concern over the fact that phenomena previously referred to as
“youngsters” conduct or indiscipline at school … is now referred to under the general
term of school violence,” and for him this “expresses a crisis of trust in schools on their
capacity to deal with this range of problems” (p. 635).
Social diversity emerges in schools and the old codes of schools do not appear to be
pertinent in the face of their multiple manifestations.

Educational Policies for Teacher Education

In the face of these diverse challenges, it is amazing that the teachers’ initial education
in Mexico City is characterized by uniformity. It has been in this way since its creation
as a task of the State. The General Education Law (1993) is today the normative frame-
work that organizes the National Educational System. It empowers the Federal
Executive, through the Public Education Ministry, to elaborate, coordinate, and super-
vise the study programs and plans to be used across the country in basic education and
in Normal Schools, as well in the educational policy as a whole.

A little history to understand the present

In Mexico, the formation of teachers of basic education is largely the responsibility
of the Normal Schools. These institutions were formally created during the rule of
Porfirio Díaz in the last third of the nineteenth century as the complementary part of
an educational project that sought to unify the systems and methods of teaching in pri-
mary schools.8 This implied the existence of a singular preparation program for teach-
ers across the country, one that would cover all the schools and form the components
the system would need in order to create an educational project. It would also replace
710 Sandoval

the teachers without professional training that were working in municipalities. As a

result, teacher education in the Normal Schools is linked to the conversion of teaching
from a liberal profession to a state profession.9
In its beginnings, teacher education formed an elite of primary school teachers that
enjoyed better salaries and positions held for longer periods than teachers with no pro-
fessional formation. Perhaps as a result, the Normal Schools were concentrated mainly
in urban areas, although it must be pointed out that teachers always had a lower status
than other professionals.
The post-revolution governments saw education as a means to benefit the integration of
the emerging Nation–State. Their educational project was to extend primary education to
the whole country. A large number of rural schools were established that, due to the
scarcity of trained teachers and/or their refusal to work in them, were largely attended to
by untrained teachers without knowledge of the region and leadership. During the 1920s
and 1930s, the rural Normal Schools were created with the aim of “forming teachers
exclusively to attend to primary schools in rural areas in order to achieve a cultural, social
and economic improvement of agricultural workers” (Secretaría de Educación Pública-
Consejo Nacional Técnico de la Educación, 1984: 36).10
Over time, Normal Schools diversified and, in 1960, the Normal urban and rural
schools for primary school teachers’ education were joined by the CREN – Centros
Regionales de Educación Normal (Regional Teacher Education Centers), which would
institute the rural intern system with cash scholarships, and the Experimental Normal
Schools. During the first half of the twentieth century, other kind of Normal Schools
(the majority of them in the large cities) were created in order to train teachers for dif-
ferent educational levels and specialties: pre-school, secondary, physical education,
and special education.
In the 1960s, basic education expanded and with it a demand for teachers, which
brought a growth in the number of Normal Schools and exponential growth of the
private teacher preparation schools across the country, leading to a time of excess
of teachers.
The career of a primary school and preschool teacher required a middle educational
level (three or four years after having completed secondary school).11 In 1984, its level
as a university degree course was decreed, with four years of study, which resulted in
a drastic drop in the demand for places in the Normal Schools. This move helped
establish more control of the enrollment by the educational authorities to remedy the
excess of supply. Although there has gradually been a slight recovery of the Normal
School population, it never reached expanding level, above all because of the control
of the enrollment, especially in public Normal Schools.
Arnaut (2004) points out that the Normal Schools are urbanized institutions: the majority
of the old ones are located in large cities and its students are mostly from urban areas. This
also applies to private schools. “Paradoxically, it is in the cities where there is increasingly
less demand for basic education teachers, and the education system lacks teachers with a
rural origin, education and roots available to work and remain in those zones” (p: 17).12
In Mexico however, as in many other countries, the urban context has expanded as a
result of migration to the large cities, the increase in the number of inhabitants, and the
absorption by the cities of the rural zones surrounding them. The 2000 population
 Educational Policies and Realities 711

census showed that 74.64% of the country’s population was located in urban or semi-
urban zones.13 This has led to social changes and new educational demands that must be
faced by teachers who were trained with an urban focus but who work in schools that,
as we will see later on, suffer huge deficits.
In these conditions, the Normal Schools currently exist as the institutions that train
the teachers that will work in basic education schools (generally in cities) and offer
degrees in pre-school education, primary education, secondary education (specializing
in one of the subjects at that level), special education (also with specialization), and
physical education. All of these programs at a tertiary educational level, the student
body representing 6.7 of the total number of higher education students. They are a total
of 575 Normal Schools, and of those only 16 are rural. They are located across the
country and are divided into public and private, the latter being those that have grown
both in number of pupils and number of schools.

Education at a National Level: Normal Schools, Students and Teachers 14

Total Public Private

Schools 525 270 255

Students 155,548 95,690 59,858
Teachers 17,368 10,916 6,452

Teaching degrees: Teacher-researcher or teacher-teaching?

As has already been stated, teaching is a State profession and the federal government
is in charge of defining “the study plans and programs for normal education and the
formation of teachers across the country” (Education Law, 1993, p. 15). As a result,
depending on the dominant tendencies of the government, and the response from
teachers and other social sectors to the government’s proposals, the general orientation
is defined. The definition of the higher education course was placed in this context
after 1984, when a series of political and ideological factors coincided in the concep-
tion, design, and instrumentation of a corresponding studies plan. Under the idea of
“making teaching professional” had been promoted some time before by the powerful
National Education Workers’Trade Union (SNTE).15 This consisted of adding years to
the teachers’ studies in order to bring it in line with “other professions” and a degree-
level study plan was drawn up intending:

to form a new kind of educator: more cultured, more apt for teaching and research,
with an ample aptitude for technical teaching and educational psychology, with a
better conception of the universe, society and humankind that would strengthen
our social rule of law. (1984 Study Plan: 17)

Into this plan were abruptly incorporated various codes that were popular during that
period in different educational, pedagogical, anthropological and sociological disci-
plines. This, referred to by the teacher trainers as “forming a teacher-researcher.” has
experienced serious difficulties as it did not take into account that for many years the
Normal Schools operated as middle education institutions16 without modifying their
712 Sandoval

structure or carrying out deep-rooted changes. Moreover, the same personnel were then
assigned a new charge – an emphasis on research.
Unfortunately, this important change in the conception of teaching and teacher edu-
cation had no additional institutional support other than the decree and the study plan.
Every Normal School and faculty member were free in that with their own resources
and projects, they could strengthen the new professional status and profile proposed
for the formation of their students. This situation was not new. The Normal Schools
had gone through six different study plans in the last 20 years and institutional neglect
that contributed to academic deterioration and consequently to a questioning of their
continued existence.
In 1996 a new project for teacher education emerged: the Program for the Academic
Transformation and Strengthening of Teacher Education (PTFAEN – Programa para la
Transformatión y el Fortalecimiento Académico de las Escuelas Normales) conceived
as an integral proposal that would favor deep-rooted transformation. For that, they
assured, not only changes to the curriculum would take place, but also up-dating of the
teacher trainers, a new work rule and an investment in infrastructure for those schools.
These would be developed through four lines of priority attention:
● Curricular transformation and study plans and programs.
● The bringing up to date and professional improvement of the teaching personnel
in the Normal Schools.
● Drawing up of norms and orientation for the institutional management and the
regulation of academic work.
● Improvement of the facilities and equipment in Normal Schools.
Against the international trend that for years has proposed transferring teachers to the
universities, the PTFAEN expressed the governmental political position to maintain
the Normal Schools as the institutions responsible for teachers’ formation for basic
education.17 The goal was to strengthen and transform them in order to consolidate and
substantially improve academic life.
The line of curricular transformation of the program created new study plans and pro-
grams for each one of the existing degree courses, and which have been designed and
applied successively in all Normal Schools.18 In contrast with the plan of 1984, the new
study plans sought to form basic competencies for teachers: “specific intellectual skills,
the mastering of teaching contents, didactic competence, professional identity and ethics,
and a capacity for perception and response to the conditions of the students and the school
environment.”19 The concept of teacher- teaching thus replaced that of teacher-researcher.
A characteristic trait of these plans was the emphasis they put on linking initial for-
mation with the basic education school, so that the development of professional practices
of observation and work in the classroom becomes a learning space for the task of teach-
ing. The so-called “practice in real conditions” gradually increases throughout the course
until in the last year the student remains in school for three weeks each month. In this pro-
cess, the student is joined with an advisor from the normal schools and the teacher from
the practice school called the tutor.
The focus of training for teaching with practice “in real conditions” is the orienta-
tion that characterizes this present curricular proposal, independently from the degree
 Educational Policies and Realities 713

being studied (primary, secondary, etc.). The plans for all degrees follow the same
model that is only modified in the specification of some of the content that is specific
to level or mode. For example, a subject called child development that appears in the
pre-school and primary degree, in the secondary-school level is called development of
adolescents. A uniform system of teacher education for the basic level is, then, another
feature of this educational policy.
The professors of Normal Schools have, in the majority, accepted the current proposal
for teacher education, in large part because it has similarities with their own education
process. This is despite the reduction of disciplinary and theoretical content in the plans
and programs – as well as the many aspects Normal Schools considered essential to
teacher education (such as songs and games in pre-school education, music and dance in
primary schools and the deepening of knowledge in disciplines in secondary-school).
The downside of the new plan can be seen in the opinion of a teacher educator: “From
my point of view, rather than technical or theoretical training, it is necessary for students
to have a practical formation, because we can be very good in a particular discipline but
not know how to teach it.”20
On another note, the institutional neglect that normal schools suffered for many
years, linked to a strong control of them by trade unions, contributed to their academic
decline. The PTFAEN has proposed improving the academic performance of these
schools, although at the same time it has gradually reinforced the control the federal
authorities have over normal schools.
To sum up, we can see via this brief overview of teacher education that there has
always existed a policy defined by the State that orients it and has had – and still has –
a homogeneous view of the teacher education. Study plans reflect what the govern-
ment has required in different historic periods: to attend to the urban areas or to farm
workers; to form a teacher-researcher or a teacher that knows how to teach, have alter-
natively been the state’s interest.
Normal Schools are institutions with a long history and an urban orientation, and
have passed through different phases. They have gone from being important for con-
tributing to the consolidation of the State, to a gradual neglect for years, up to current
times. Now attempts are being made to strengthen them and at the same time
strengthen the control of the state.

Initial Teacher Education: Pending Issues

Assuming that educational problems are due to multiple factors, then they are not the
exclusive task of teachers or the schools that train the teachers. In the same way, we can-
not deny the influence of teachers in the school environment. It is therefore important
to think about how future teachers are being trained – those who will work in basic edu-
cation institutions for 30 years, the twenty-first Century teacher. We must ask ourselves
about the future of the Normal Schools, the substantive content necessary for the pro-
fession, and the theoretical and pedagogical tools that need to be used in order to effec-
tively develop the education of the nation’s children and young people. To this end,
some of the challenges in teacher education are described below.
714 Sandoval

Future Teachers: Attracting the Best

The schools for teacher education in Mexico City are in great demand and have a con-
trolled curriculum, to the extent that two out of ten aspiring students get to enter. Studies
on the number of students entering those schools show that almost 50% of student
teachers live in the State of Mexico, which borders Mexico City. Their socio-economic
level is low middle class to working class and a large proportion enter Normal Schools
as a second option, after failing to enter other institutions of higher education.
The results of a socio-economic study of the students that recently entered the pre-
school education degree at the National School for Kindergarden Teachers (Escuela
Nacional para Maestros de Jardines de Niños), are very representative:

The strength of the data leads to an immediate questioning of the traditional image
of the student teacher: it is no longer a student from a privileged social sector, that
takes a degree course as a prolongation of maternity. For these students, their con-
dition as young and poor women is a condition of marginalization. They are clearly
women with unsatisfied economic and cultural needs that see the school for
kindergarten teachers as an option for their economic and social development.
(Bárcena, García, & Farfán, 2006, p. 146)

In effect, the prospect of obtaining a job at the end of a degree course is now a power-
ful reason for the high demand in Normal Schools, above all in the face of the unem-
ployment that many young people face, even with degrees. It also offers an opportunity
to study higher education for those with economic difficulties and, in the mind of
many, the opportunity to earn an “easy” degree.
As in other nations of the Americas, the society’s aspiration is to bring the best to a
career in teaching, but between the aspiration and its achievement there is still a wide
gap. The way in which teachers are perceived socially and the reality of their professional
life are not attractive: “teachers’ salaries and their working conditions also strongly affect
the definition of an individual that decides to become a teacher, that stays in the profes-
sion and the way in which they exercise that profession” (OAS, 2003, p. 3).
But it is also true that despite the difficulties mentioned, many young people
develop their fondness for being a teacher during their degree course and in contact
with the school reality and the children. The Normal Schools and instructors play an
important part in this.

Uniforming the Diversity: “This is no good to the students because in the city
there are no Indians.”
The normal schools, formed under the premise of creating “a uniformity of basic edu-
cation,” by the education of teachers under a single study plan, to work in schools
across the country also under uniform plans. Nevertheless, for some time teacher edu-
cation included aspects relating to the particular environment in which the teacher
would work, such as the case of the Normal rural schools.
 Educational Policies and Realities 715

The most recent reform includes two courses called regional that incorporate educa-
tional elements “corresponding to the state” and which are selected by the Normal School
and the state authorities, with the strict requisite that they “not be used to widen the gen-
eral students education but in order to consolidate their competence in a specific environ-
ment.”21 Added to this restriction is the lack of curricular space devoted to regional,
cultural and social diversity that the teachers will face in their work. The characteristics of
the students in urban, marginal or migrant zones, working with multi-grade groups, youth
diversity, among others, are realities that are not seriously taken into consideration in
initial education programs.
This leads to paradoxes such as the fact that in a Normal rural school located in the
State of Mexico with a 47.81% indigenous population, 15.35% monolingual popula-
tion, and a school population of 50%, the indigenous question is not even touched upon:

There is no understanding or differentiation. I am very concerned that languages are

spoken here in all regions, and children do not practice their language because it has
been prohibited … . The education they therefore bring with them is a desire to
urbanize. They don’t like the idea that they are rural and they must promote activities
in the rural environment, and in the Indian environment … If they are not trained for
the rural environment then they are even less prepared to attend to the Indian one.22

In an urban normal school in Mexico City, the teachers that took the study program
called “Regional Culture” and confused culture with folklore, focusing on aspects such
as visits to museums or making regional candies. For their part, the private normal
schools in the same city were opposed to teaching that subject, arguing, “this doesn’t
serve the students because in the city there are no Indians.”
Teacher education is a long way from a discourse of diversity, and further still from
multicultural education. It is the inheritor of a policy of national unification, and of
national language and culture, (bases of the constitution of the Nation–State). As a
result, teachers have difficulty in seeing diversity in their classrooms or including it as
a necessary aspect in training. A student studying teaching in Canada, speaking to
student teachers in Mexico, points out:

When we visited the Higher Teacher Education College of Mexico we asked

about diversity and the students told us of their experiences when they went to
teach in schools isolated from the city. They do not realize that the Indian children
are in the same schools in the city where they are teaching. Perhaps the teachers in
preparation lack visits to schools and more tools in order to be able to acknowledge
diversity. When I asked them how they supposed they would respond to diversity
in their classrooms, a heated discussion ensued. The students discussed the appro-
priate reaction. The dialogue and reflection on how to respond to diversity made
me recall my country, Canada, faced with these same questions. The children in
Canada who speak English as a second language are referred to as those in
“Special Education.” The subtle meaning there is that those children are lacking
something … (Branch, 2005)23
716 Sandoval

On this same visit to a school of teacher education in the Federal District, a teacher-
trainer from the U.S. writes:

Asking the future pedagogues of the Higher Teacher Education College of Mexico
about their experiences with diversity, we learned that they drew a parallel with the
diversity in their experiences with children in special education or in issues relat-
ing to counselors. Leaving there, I thought that for that group (and for the teacher
who agreed with them) diversity is something “extra” that does not require further
study and that can be resolved with a good heart, and by seeing everybody as the
same (color-blind theory) we are opening the doors to the same opportunity for
education. (Flores, 2005)24

Although within the desirable aptitudes of a graduate teacher are the capacity for per-
ception of and response to the social conditions surrounding the school, focused on the
student teacher accepting and respecting the regional, social, cultural, and ethnic
diversity of the country. It also requires acknowledging that such diversity is
omnipresent in their work. The trainers of teachers lack clarity regarding what it means
to approach it, and more often than not, they focus on it from the point of view of affec-
tion, assistance, or the country’s historic past.
In the education of future teachers, diversity is uniformly subsumed under the word
“children” or “students,” a denomination that could include all those in the school, those
of a group or all students. Yet the context in which children live determines their per-
formance in school. In this way, differences are denied and this contributes to margin-
alization via inclusion being not the responsibility of the teacher and something in
which the teacher cannot have an influence. There surely does not exist one teacher that
consciously proposes to marginalize and exclude a pupil. It is even less likely that a
teacher in education would do so. Yet there is a series of shared ideas among teacher
trainers that are transmitted to teachers in training regarding children-pupils, on the
weight of the family and social context on school performance, and on what corre-
sponds to the school and to the teacher that effectively downplay the existence of
diverse qualities of education.
A third-semester group was analyzing its recent practices in primary schools with a
teacher. Those who worked in a school considered to be a “model” complain about the
children’s attitude:

Student 1: They are very disrespectful, very rude and mocking … they began to
jump on the tables and others joined in the game, others began singing a song and,
I don’t know, I started shouting at them.

Student 1: The children are very restless, both the girls and the boys … the girls hit
the boys in the classroom … When I called to them they didn’t like it … I couldn’t
give the class.

After listening to several complaints of this kind, the professor tells them: “It’s impor-
tant to know that many of the problems the pupils have come from their families … and
 Educational Policies and Realities 717

if you have noticed, in this school there are many children with problems.” “Yes, yes,”
the students comment, as if sure that the professor is supporting them, “if the child has
problems at home they will be reflected on the teacher.” The professor continues, “there
are children who suffer violence, the children of divorced parents … they say this is
a model school because there are children from rich parents, but it’s not true, there are
all kinds … They are not given attention and that’s why they behave badly.” The pro-
fessor then recommends that more activities be planned for the children so that they
remain occupied.
In this way, the former teacher and her students assume that all the children in the
group, and those in the school, are rude because there parents don’t pay attention to
them and that they hit them. Further, the student teachers learn that the teacher and the
school cannot do anything about it due to the crushing weight of the context – all that
is left is to seek strategies to maintain the control of the group, independently of
whether the teaching will be affected.
But other ways of thinking and actions on behalf of future teachers are also detected.
They criticize the teachers that punish the children, and those that use repetition as a
means of teaching. They say these are more traditional forms of work in schools and
suggest listening to the children: “from their writings they realize their own spelling
mistakes and that they can work to the rules without repetition,” and “working with
them in teams, giving them rules and forms so that they don’t think it’s going to be a
game.” The student teachers also affirm that the same rules cannot be applied to all, as
“each child needs different things.”
In this way, teachers in education gradually discover that all children are not neces-
sarily the same and that the school, as it is currently organized, does not take this into
account. Although this stems generally from the reflection on their work in the class-
room, it is very common that in the Normal School no deep analysis is made of this, as
concern is focused on teaching “for all children.”

Teachers Education in an Intercultural Perspective

The concepts of diversity, multiculturalism, and above all inter-cultural education, are
relatively new in basic education and in the formation of teachers in Mexico. For many
years, the Public Education Ministry (SEP) promoted national education that implied
the integration (or assimilation) of other cultures, mainly those of the indigenous peo-
ples. It later designed bilingual indigenous education programs, and more recently
inter-cultural bilingual indigenous education. A system of education for indigenous
teachers was also created outside the normal schools, recruiting young people from the
region with college courses or secondary education to work in exchange for a scholar-
ship. The inequality was once again manifest in indigenous education: lesser-trained
teachers with lower salaries and poor working conditions compared to those of other
teachers were allocated to those schools.25 The presence of different cultures in the
school environment was solely a theme of debate and analysis solely for indigenous
education and its experts.
Acknowledging multicultural contexts in the classrooms, the cultural dynamic in
schools due to those circumstances, including the acknowledgement of the other, feedback
718 Sandoval

and mutual respect that characterize inter-culturalism have not been a concern for the ini-
tial education of future teachers in Normal Schools. It is supposed that they will attend
to a national population that is more or less homogeneous, with some differences but not
substantial ones. Nevertheless, classrooms are spaces where the multiplicity of diverse
cultures and identities meet, where “the crossing of borders emerges not only in the
internationally recognized cultural units but also in less formal sections, such as gender,
age and unique status and experience” (Rosaldo, 1991, p. 38). The homogeneous knowl-
edge in the plans and programs by which basic education teachers are trained are ques-
tioned by the social and cultural diversity that they find in the classrooms.
In 2001, efforts on behalf of the SEP led to the creation of the Office of Intercultural
Bilingual Education, which, among its other aims, is designed to “develop intercul-
tural education for all Mexicans” and among its projects is the review – together
with the areas responsible for its design – of the study plans and programs of pre-
school and primary education degrees in accordance with the concept that inter-
culturalism must have a widespread presence in the entire curriculum. This appears to
be more of a long-term matter, as the office responsible for teachers’ study plans
points out that:

The intercultural focus will be incorporated into the 1997 Plan of the Degree in
Primary Education and gradually into the study programs to the extent that, grad-
ually the prospect of intercultural education will be included into all the programs
of that degree course. (web page. Red Normalista)

This highlights the exclusion of the other degree courses that train teachers. Instead of
reorienting all the study plans, the Primary Education Degree with Intercultural
Bilingual Focus was formed, with the intention that future teachers develop and
acquire the profile and aptitudes of the graduate teacher foreseen in the 1997 study
plan of the Primary School as well as specific education to attend to the challenges of
working with Indian communities. The tendency to train teachers with specific pro-
grams according to the educational needs that the government considers pertinent
appears to persist; now extending modules that will all work under a strict homoge-
neous model.
But as is common knowledge, real education is constructed in schools and class-
rooms, where the study plan is only a reference. Each Normal School, depending on
its conditions, incorporates aspects that are not outlined in their programs, above all
those that refer to the social context in which their students will work. For example, a
Normal urban school in Mexico City takes its students for teaching practice in indige-
nous schools located in the same city26 or, in a Normal rural school, the unitary or
multi-grade primary schools are described for the students as they are likely to face
those educational realities in their professional work.
Although the complexity of education needed by teachers in the twenty-first century
make persistent general teaching skills indispensable, which are already contemplated
in the SEP’s curricular plan, these cannot be separated from the existing socio-cultural
context. In order to understand context and so that the teachers act on it professionally,
 Educational Policies and Realities 719

theoretical elements regarding the complexity of the diversity and the handling of a
multicultural focus that goes beyond good faith and assistance is necessary. To propose
that this knowledge should only be provided to the teachers that will work with indige-
nous populations is a limited view of diversity, multiculturalism, and the role of the
school and of their teachers. The challenge therefore is how to combine the homo-
geneity of study plans for a State profession with the different socio-cultural realities
to which those professionals will attend. Or, in other words, it is necessary to acknowl-
edge that cultural diversity is everywhere and that the school space is, in its essence,
multicultural.

A Teacher Who is in Charge of the Reality of the Profession

Teaching is evidently a singular profession, made up of people who have heterogeneous
education,27 with external regulations regarding the content of their work and with
decision-making in schools and/or classrooms, a profession that must respond to social
expectations of education interpreted and defined by others, exercised within a bureau-
cratic and hierarchical institution and with an overwhelming trade union presence. Two
other characteristics distinguish it from other professions across the country, its con-
stant brushing with social problems and the commitment – at least in discourse – to the
more disadvantaged sectors.
In contrast to its social influence, the curricular content for teacher education has
almost always been academically limited and with an instrumental tendency, placing
emphasis on teaching techniques to the detriment of disciplines. The practice of the
current study plan as a space for education that offers elements to theoretically analyze
the reality in education and that seeks to train a “reflexive teacher” more often than not
becomes a space for methodological and procedure recipes that value the didactic
material, work planning, and the immediate “know-how.” In an evaluation of a practice
period the following interaction takes place in an urban normal school:

Student: The time allocated for the class was far too long, it was ten o’clock in the
morning and the children began to ask “teacher, how long until the break? Will we
get a break soon, teacher?” And they stopped working. It got too much for them,
they wanted to go and have a break and have something to eat.” (The student
carried out her practice in a rural school)
Teacher: “You have to modify your planning” (Observation in a class in an urban
normal school)

As can be seen, the teacher educator does not take the context in which the situation took
place into account, or leads the student teacher to reflect on the causes. On the contrary,
she offers an immediate and practical answer: it is planning. The orientation toward solv-
ing immediate problems that the student teachers receive from their professors generates
attention to immediate educational issues. A study that analyzes the education of teach-
ers points out that: “When an inquiry was made into their level of problems as an indis-
pensable element for the reflection on their work, student teachers pointed to conflict
720 Sandoval

situations at a descriptive level but do not carry out an analysis of the situation or offer
possible explanations” (SEP-OEA-DGENAMDF, 2005, p. 27).
Although the teaching profession is one of “know-how,” as work in front of a group
that demands immediate responses, the big challenge is to link that to a premise that
surpasses common sense. Taking elements in practice to a level of reflection and artic-
ulate that with the theoretical aspects of other subjects is difficult and one that is less
frequently accomplished in teacher education programs. It must be a result of a partic-
ular education process and of teachers with up-to-date methods that allow them to
make teaching practice a space for real professional instruction.
Another pending task is to deepen the necessary disciplinary content for the job
of a teacher at a basic level, which was seriously reduced in the current study plan
This proposes that the future teacher should have a sufficient command of the con-
tent of basic education of the level in which the teacher will work and that content
should always be linked to teaching, to the methods and skills that favor students’
learning. As a result, the content always appears accompanied by the words “and
their teaching.” We thus find Spanish and its teaching, math and its teaching, etc.,
and often the efforts are precisely centered on teaching. An example may illustrate
the point:

A day before going out to teaching practice, the student teachers presented their
professor and their colleagues the class that they would give in a primary school.
One student’s theme is the circulatory system:
Student: To begin with, I will ask them some questions, and depending on the
answers they give me I will explain the heart, the arteries … I’ll explain all that to
them, and then talk about the organs (using very illustrative teaching material)
Professor: Which is the aorta? Show me it.
Student: I don’t know. I haven’t studied it.
Professor: So get studying! (Observation in a rural Normal School)

This is very common in the practice teaching of student teachers: illustrative material,
excellent planning, and a superficial knowledge of the content. The Normal Schools
seek to offer alternatives to complement the plan, such as science courses, English read-
ing, computing, all optional and within the framework of the institutional restrictions.
The challenge is how in this profession can the specific initial education form a teacher
that dominates, in a general sense, both the disciplinary content and the realities inherent
in the profession?

Truly Strengthening the Teacher Education Schools

The Normal Schools correspond to the “specific training model,” the idea of which is
“to create centers exclusively dedicated to teacher education, with a joint plan that
includes both education in basic subjects of teaching and pedagogical training”
(Garrido, 1998, p. 27). While Garrido points out that this model has the advantage of
“reinforcing the educational vocation and professionalism,” its disadvantages are the
omission or lack of openness to external factors, the lack of flexibility of these
 Educational Policies and Realities 721

institutions and the segregation of future teachers from the sciences and humanities
they are supposed to teach. Furthermore, the knowledge and values of the profession
are transmitted by people whose professional profiles were formed in institutions that
have barely changed over the years.
The specific training model, the Normal School, has now disappeared in many coun-
tries, while in Mexico it was reinforced with the most recent reform. The challenge
therefore is how to overcome the disadvantages that this education model implies and
seek ways to effectively strengthen the institution. Nevertheless, really strengthening
Normal Schools requires liberating them from a series of negative traditions, political
influences, and institutional controls. It is generally understood that the Normal Schools
are not adequately complying with their task. Researchers tend to compare them with
universities and point to the distance between them, always in detriment to the Normal
Schools.
However, it is important to remember that normal schools have a specific task that
makes comparisons of this kind impossible, due to the type of professionals they
train, their traditions, and a series of structural and political conditions that limit
their academic autonomy. In effect, the tutelage that the State exercises over them lim-
its the possibility of Normal Schools developing different academic views from the
educational authority or forming proposals that are not authorized by it. Exemplary
cases are the proposals that many teacher-education schools have drawn up in recent
years in order to offer master’s degrees and that were rejected by the corresponding
authority for not being in accordance with the orientation imposed by the authority
for the teachers’ education. Another limiting factor for the academic development of
these institutions is the political influence of a trade union bureaucracy that is per-
manently lobbying to increase the power of Normal Schools and the bodies in charge
of Normal education issues. As well, the union seeks to control the entrance into and
the promotion of personnel within the schools, based on political and not academic
criteria.
The Normal Schools have adopted a concept of education that plays the role of a
unifying collective identity, in which the past has an important role of providing cohe-
sion (Sandoval, 1997), and which is also a means of defense against the social devalu-
ation that the schools have suffered. Yet, at the same time, this has functioned as a way
of avoiding a self-critical look at the function of these schools, the teachers they form,
and the formers of them.
It is therefore necessary to redefine the kind of schools appropriate for teacher edu-
cation and to open the existing schools to other ideas and foci, reviewing with a criti-
cal eye the past and present, breaking the endogamy, and recovering the positive
traditions. Yet at the same time, it is necessary that the authorities allow for academic
freedom and creativity so that the normal schools are strengthened as higher education
institutes, a level that was granted to them more than 20 years ago. In any case, it is
possible to affirm that Normal Schools have undergone substantial improvement in
recent years and have developed their own important projects, even within the limita-
tions mentioned and with the slim budget they are assigned.
Strengthening these schools, in order to train the teachers that society needs, also
implies having good teacher trainers. As a legacy of history of Normal Schools,
722 Sandoval

there are heterogeneous teachers. Elderly teachers graduated from schools who
were hired when the profession of teacher was mid-level co-exist with teachers who
were incorporated when Normal Schools became a higher education degree course,
many of whom were trained in other institutions. These older teachers have had to
adapt to the diverse curricular changes, attending to subjects that are foreign to
their professional profile. Many of them have sought to elevate their professional
level by their own means, studying for the master’s degree or through specialized
courses, especially when the course was elevated to degree level. Nevertheless,
there are also those who never elevated their own level beyond that granted them by
their training.
In the same way, the teaching staff varies depending on the school; the schools
known as beneméritas and centenarias (worthies and centenaries) employ full-time
teachers, while others work with commissioned but not full-time teachers (primary,
secondary or pre-school, according to the degree course). The discrepancies in the
education system are also present in the education system. The modernization of
teacher education is fundamental important and unfortunately is scarcely attended to
by the authorities.

Final Comments
The myriad of educational needs and the reality of education require a real improve-
ment in the quality of education. This in turn requires teachers with both a solid aca-
demic background and a deep social commitment to public education. It is clear that
urban education, but also rural schools and those with indigenous students, offer
new challenges that demand that teacher education prepare teachers to attend to
them, independent of the environment where they are to teach. The policies for the
initial training for basic education teachers must respond to the current reality of
education.
Although the Normal Schools, due to their historical origin and the functions
they perform are constricted by the orientation of the State’s education policy, in
practice they seek spaces to develop projects that strengthen the education of their
student teachers. These must also be taken into account by the education authori-
ties. But the schools also must seek ways to strengthen academically, overcoming
practices and traditions that tie them down. While the teacher must study technique
in order to teach, at the same time they must have the sufficient general knowledge
and knowledge of disciplines in order to be a good teacher. The teacher must also
have solid education in order to recognize, respect, and recover the cultural diver-
sity present in the classroom, with a vision that goes beyond simply recognizing
difference.
To sum up, the schools for teacher education created to train teachers with an urban
concept need to broaden their horizons, as the forms of knowledge has multiplied.
Schools are no longer the only way to encounter knowledge and cultural frontiers, as
inequality is encountered in all environments. All this has significant repercussions in
schools, teaching, and in the possibilities of learning.
 Educational Policies and Realities 723

Notes
1. See the recommendations made at the UNESCO 45th International Conference on Education (1996),
Diagnoses, challenges and lessons learned in teacher training, OAS (2004) and the Third Meeting of
Education Ministers, OAS (2003).
2. Basic education in Mexico consists of three levels: preschool, primary, and secondary school.
Although the education of teachers for each has different characteristics, there are many points in
common which are referred to in this article.
3. The author uses diverse references for this work: a diagnosis of the teacher initial education in Mexico City
(SSEDF-DGENAMDF, 2004) and the results of a study on initial education carried out in the framework of
a tri-national project (Mexico, the United States, and Canada) under the auspices of the OAS, both coordi-
nated by the author when she was the General Director of Normal Education and Teaching Modernization
in the Federal District (2001–2005). Added to these works, data from a study she coordinated between 1998
and 2000, on the same theme, in two Normal schools, one from rural area, other than the urban one are used.
4. Multi-grade refers to those teachers that attend to students of different grades. Multi-grade schools are
called “incomplete” when they do not offer the six grades of primary school, or unitary when they are
attended to by one teacher. Around a quarter of primary schools in Mexico are multi-grade and are
located in greater proportion in smaller and isolated localities, and in the states with the largest indige-
nous population and/or highest levels of poverty.
5. The INEE states that in order to evaluate learning in schools it is necessary to generate indices that
allow quantitative and qualitative aspects to be assessed.
6. We are referring to 18 of the nation’s 32 states, among which the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Guerrero
and Veracruz are prominent.
7. The Iztapalapa borough contains 21%, followed by the boroughs of Gustavo A. Madero (11%), and
Cuauhtémoc (10.5%).
8. Primary schooling was declared obligatory in 1888, with the culmination of a project begun in the era of
Benito Juárez in 1873 (Meneses, 1983), which meant that the state was responsible for its orientation.
9. This idea is dealt with and expanded upon by Arnaut (1996) in his excellent book Historia de una
profesión.
10. Over time, and with the changes in political perspectives, rural teacher-education schools ceased to be
useful for such ends and became institutions that were bothersome to the authorities, due to their polar-
ization and demands. This led to more than half of those that existed to close by the end of the 1960s.
Two more are currently about to close amid conflicts, which would reduce the total number of schools
in all of Mexico to 14.
11. On the other hand, schools that trained secondary-school and special education teachers were in the
higher education category from their outset, as it was necessary to be a primary-school, pre-school, or
college teacher in order to gain admission.
12. In order to attend to education in small, rural and/or indigenous regions, a parallel and not very public
teacher-education system has been developed, in which young people who have completed secondary
school or college are trained as teachers and provided with a small scholarship.
13. “An area is urban if the population is of more than 15,000 inhabitants. Areas with less than 2,500
inhabitants are deemed rural, while those of between 2,500 and 14,999 are considered low-intensity
urban areas” (The Education Panorama in Mexico, 2003, p. 38)
14. Data taken from the Mexican Education System. Main figures. 2003–2004 school year.
15. Since 1973 and due to pressure from trade unions, the Federal Education Law had defined teacher
education as higher education, despite the fact that it functioned as a secondary education system.
16. As already stated, this does not include the Higher Teacher Education Colleges (that train secondary-
school teachers) and the Specialization Teacher-Education Colleges, as since their emergence they
have taken on the character of higher education.
17. The SNTE played an important role in this decision, as the PTFAEN discussed with the leadership
with the aim of procuring its support.
18. The application of the new study plans began in 1997 in the Primary Education degree. In 1999 the
degrees of pre-school education and secondary education were added. In 2002 of physical education
and in 2004 Special Education followed.
724 Sandoval

19. These are the fields that constitute the profile of desirable graduation and they are the same for all the
degree courses.
20. Interview with a professor from a normal school. In: La formación inicial de docentes para la edu-
cación básica. El caso de las normales del Distrito Federal [The Initial Training of Teachers for Basic
Education. The Case of Teacher-Training Schools in Mexico City], 2005, p. 35.
21. Plan de estudios de la Licenciatura en Educación Primaria SEP 1997, p. 88. (Primary Education
Degree Course Study Plan, 1997, p. 88)
22. Extract from an interview taken from the archives of La formación inicial de maestros de primaria en
México. Un estudio comparativo, 1998–2000. (The initial teacher education in Mexico: A comparative
study, Sandoval, 1998–2000).
23. Within the framework of the project Responses to the Challenge of Improving the Quality of Education
and Teachers’ Professional Development in North American Countries, in February 2005 a tutorship
was carried out with the participation of teachers and students from Canada, the United States and
Mexico. This fragment is taken from the final report of that activity, drawn up by a student from the
School of Education, Simón Freaser University, Vancouver, Canada.
24. Member of Faculty of the School of Education, University of New Mexico, from the final report of
the tutorship.
25. The Universidad Pedagógica Nacional was a pioneer in the systematic and professional attention to
those teachers by designing a degree in indigenous education and later the Indigenous Primary and
Preschool Education Degree.
26. In this case, the Office for Norms was opposed, arguing that the students should practice in schools in
order to get to know the “educational reality.”
27. As well as the differences in educational level or specialization, current teachers in service represent a
mosaic of the constant curricular changes and their approaches.

References
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26–32. México: Fundación del Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación para la Cultura del
Maestro Mexicano.
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Secretaría de Educación Pública-Administración Federal de Servicios Educativos en el Distrito Federal.
(2005). Panorama de la educación secundaria en el Distrito Federal. Bases para la acción [Panorama
of Secondary Education in Mexico City: Bases for Action]. México: AFSEDF.
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[Primary Education Degree Course Study Plan 1997]. México: SEP.
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Situation of Education and Professional Development Services for Basic Education Teachers in Mexico
City]. México: DGENAMDF.
38

LEARNING TO WORK IN AN INDUSTRIAL

MEXICAN CITY IN TRANSITION (1990–2000)

María de Ibarrola
Departamento de Investigaciones Educativas, CINVESTAV, Mexico

In contemporary Mexican cities, as in many other Latin American cities, unequal

working conditions are visible everywhere. In what might be labeled a “street corner
economy,” the coexistence of formal and informal economic sectors and labor markets
can be observed any day of the week, during business hours and beyond, on most main
streets or at any given intersection. Modern international banks or luxurious commer-
cial centers are accompanied by street venders who sell breakfast juice, coffee, and tra-
ditional Mexican food to business people minutes before opening hours, or at lunch time.
Flowers, magazines, toys imported from China, cutlery, soft drinks, candies, chewing
gum, or whatever else comes to one’s imagination are offered to passers-by walking
down the streets or drivers stuck in traffic. In larger cities these convenience workers
have completely taken control of the some areas of the urban space.
Formal unemployment rates are very low according to national statistics (2.6% in
2004) as compared to those of developed countries. But it has taken many years for the
informal labor market to be officially recognized, and it continues to be measured only
in terms of some of its differences with the formal sector: differences based mainly on
the size of the enterprise, its’ income, the presence or lack of social security, and fringe
benefits. Official accounts still ignore the nature and origin of the many precarious
conditions that are characteristic of this informal sector. Originally conceptualized as
an explanation of the under employment and precarious productivity of many occupa-
tions in the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) report on Kenya (1972), many
Latin American authors have thoroughly developed the concept as one of the major
explanations of the countries inequality and poverty. Micro economic establishments
have an important place in the growth of the informal sector and the interactions
between formal and informal sectors (Gallart, 2004; Labarca, 1999; Tokman, 2004).1
In Mexico, only 3% of the businesses, factories and services, accounting for 48% of
the industrial and services labor force, formally comply with the basic legal require-
ments for employment. Some of them have undergone important modernization
processes and have even been awarded international standards certifications,2 but the
727
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 727–746.
© 2007 Springer.
728 Ibarrola

number of informal workers continues to increase. This explains why most Mexicans
can account for earning some income when asked about it in the census: 56.8% of the
labor force is working in small establishments with five workers or less; 63.5% of the
labor force does not have the minimum social security benefits guaranteed by law, and
28.7% have been identified as working in the informal sector (Secretaría del Trabajo y
Previsión Social, 2003).
Schooling, on the other hand, has been steadily growing in the country.3 As of 1993,
9 years of formal education are compulsory, both for the state, which must guarantee all chil-
dren a place in a classroom, and for the children and their parents who must make sure they
comply. Nevertheless, the school attendance average remains only a little over 7 years for the
population over 15 years old, while universal schooling for the population under 15 years has
not yet been achieved for some 8% of this age group. It has been reported that 48.5% of the
labor force did not complete the nine grades of compulsory basic education, while 14.2%
have at least one grade of higher education (Secretaría de Educación Pública, 2004).
In both the national and local political discourse, schooling is considered the main
factor for improving income and working conditions. National statistics confirm the
idea that those who complete high school, obtain vocational training or go on to higher
education are the ones who, one the average, have better job positions and income
throughout the country.4 Nevertheless, academic research over the last 40 years has
shown how this relationship changes according to different situations: years of school-
ing, the segment of the labor market analyzed, economic development during precise
periods or in specific regions, and even the kind of educational institutions young peo-
ple attend (Carnoy, 1977; De Ibarrola & Reynaga Obregón, 1983; Gordon, Reich, &
Edward, 1973; Hallack & Caillouds, 1980; Singer, 1976). Thus, an important question
raised by studies opposed to the Human Capital theory concerns the centrality of school-
ing as the primary causal factor in the general development of countries or regions: the
question of what comes first, they argue, is still a matter as difficult to resolve as the
ancient riddle about the chicken and the egg. Just as difficult is the issue regarding just
what is the nature of the many complex relations between these two autonomous sys-
tems, and to what degree each is mediated by different logics, rationales, and objectives
(De Ibarrola, 1988). These well known studies have also questioned the causal role of
schooling in the automatic improvement of income and job positions: consider, for
example, references to “the great training robbery” and the “diploma disease.” Clearly,
“illustrated unemployment or under employment” successfully explain, at times, the
dysfunctional data for unemployment in spite of increasing schooling in the country.
A central project for those using Marxist theory to study of education, has been the
effort to analyze how schooling was distributed according to previous social condi-
tions and to argue that schooling is a way of contributing to the reproduction of the
stratification of society. Economists studying the rate of return from schooling also
question again and again how it is that school growth is seen to answer the supposed
demands of the labor market, when in fact it is answering to social demands and polit-
ical projects (Béduwé & Planas, 2002). Researchers periodically register the ineffi-
ciency of investing in different school levels or academic sectors that, at a given time,
do not lead to the kind of jobs or income expected. It is clear that the overall positive
effect of greater schooling on the general living conditions of the population and the
 Learning to Work (1990–2000) 729

economic development of poor countries is not consistent in all aspects. While Latin
American countries have reached higher rates of schooling, they have also experienced
rising levels of economic crisis and income inequality. (De Ibarrola, 2004b).
In summary, it seems fit to propose that once schooling ceases to be a scarce
resource, when its’ impact on how income and job positions vary is, at least partially,
nullified, then other factors such as age, gender, labor sector, and the economic sector
may play a more important role. Specifically, in countries like Mexico, basic education
has become universal for the younger generation, but the same is not true for more
advanced schooling. Consequently, differences in income and job position relate mainly
to attaining a middle or a higher education, a phenomena that embeds a more subtle
degree of social selection with labor qualification (De Ibarrola, 2004a).

Relationships Between Education and Work

Three major studies on this topic have been developed since 1978. These started from
the idea that the relationship between education and work would vary depending on the
differences in the amount and type of schooling analyzed and the kind of labor markets
for which schooling was supposed to prepare young people (Ibarrola, 1994, 2002;
Ibarrola & Reynaga, 1983).5
All three confirmed the general conclusion that the relationships between schooling
and work are: (1) interactive: it is not possible to reduce one to being the effect or the
cause of the other, they influence each other in different ways, according to the nature
of each domain6; (2) changeable: the relationship differ according to social sectors and
specific actors, time, space, type of schooling, and the nature of the labor market.
Sometimes the relationships may be consistent (functional) as to the effects expected,
sometimes they are contradictory (dysfunctional), sometimes they are even perverse,
leading to results different or even contrary to those expected.

An Approach for the Study of These Relationships in a

Specific City
Following these three studies, it became clear that a completely different approach was
required. The new idea was to reorient the central focus, to move away from the corre-
lation of specific educational achievements to specific job positions and income
brackets, towards an understanding of the different opportunities and pathways avail-
able to young people as they prepare themselves for work. Previously, research tended
to be linear in its approach, correlating specific degrees of schooling (higher education
in one case, “middle” technical agricultural education in the other) to job positions and
income in different sectors of the labor market. In one case this was modern businesses
in a Mexico city, in another is was agricultural production in the rural communities.
The new focus, by contrast, aimed to study all the opportunities young people find for
learning to work in their specific and immediate environment in a Mexican city. The
goal was to assess the impact of these different ways of learning on their job positions
730 Ibarrola

and income in the main industry of the city. Conceptually, the integral vision proposed
by the Lynds in “Middletown” and “Middletown in Transition” was used as a backdrop
for this project.7
Due to the ambitiousness of this research agenda, however, some limits were
defined. First, a specific space was chosen namely, the administrative and geographic
borders of a specific city. Second, a specific time span was determined: although data
were recovered in 2000, we would limit the historic interest to the main events of the
last decade (1990–2000). Finally, a specific population was chosen namely, the 15–24
age group. The proposal was designed to study urban school opportunities, both pub-
lic and private, together with intentional on-the-job training opportunities that were
offered in the city during the last decade.
The project was approved and financed by Conacyt, and was carried out from the
middle of 1999 to the end of 2002, when the final report was submitted. Four graduate
students from one of the main local universities accepted the challenge of elaborating
their master’s thesis using data from this project: each took responsibility for one aspect
of the larger study essential for piecing together the complex jigsaw puzzle proposed
in our research agenda. In addition, one Latin-American student asked to be part of the
team in order to develop her doctoral dissertation on the role of NGOs in the city.
In this approach, the city is seen both as a unit of research and as a unit of local polit-
ical decision-making regarding education and economic development. Indeed it is a
very complex unity, where different labor markets and educational opportunities coex-
ist, and different sectors of the population circulate among different types of education
or different sectors of the job market. The city is also a space where young people are
subject to the interaction between schooling and other types of learning and to the con-
junction of all types of learning in the specific fulfillment of the jobs. Finally, the city
is a space where interactions among all types of urban actors: such as government offi-
cials, school authorities, entrepreneurial elites, workers, and non-government institu-
tions, are fostered. The trends of the international economy are visible in the urban
space. Both in schools and in working sites, the constant references to the need to face
new international competitiveness, supports an argument in favor of more schooling
and/or radical changes in the labor organization.
The aim of the research, as explained to different local actors, was captured by the
following three questions: How has the challenge of preparing young people for work
been identified and solved in the city? To what traditions is it linked? and How is its’
future envisioned?
In order to accomplish the various objectives of the study, several kinds of data were
collected and different research methodologies were applied. The idea was to recon-
struct at least the key pieces of what was seen as a huge local and urban puzzle, involv-
ing social, political, economic and educational pieces. In particular, we examined
schooling at all levels, both public and private institution, on-the-job training opportu-
nities, the labor structure in the city, the education and economic policies of institutions
such as government, education, entrepreneurial organizations, and labor unions, and
finally a variety of actors in both the public and private sectors. A major focus of this
work was on the examination of the new and emerging kinds of interactions among
them. After a few initial explorations on the different learning opportunities and their
 Learning to Work (1990–2000) 731

effects on the local labor market, it became clear that the concept of knowledge as
related to learning to work and knowledge as applied to productive work would be
major factors. The most useful theoretical approach was the difference between tacit
and codified knowledge. The first refers to practical knowledge, know-how learned by
experience and through face-to-face interactions. The second refers to knowledge that
is explained, described, stored, and transferred through systems of languages and codes
that function to diffuse and convey them (Villavicencio, 2002).
The local demographic, economic and educational statistics were thoroughly ana-
lyzed. In depth interviews were conducted with some 80 key local actors, some of
whom agreed to review our research several times. The research topics of the partici-
pating students each focused on a specific research methodology. Their work covered
aspects such as:
● A follow-up of students who had graduated in1998 from upper middle education
(Grades 10–12) and high level technicians (Grade 13–14), according to the
Mexican school system in the target city (Cuevas de la Garza, 2002);
● Identification and analysis of public and private institutions offering on-the-job
training in the city (Rojas-Mata, 2002);
● Life histories of 12 young workers (Mijares-Ruiz, 2002);
● An exploration of the nature of NGOs offering vocational training (Girardo
Pierdominici, 2003; Pantoja-Palacios, 2001).
Another part of this research study focused on how these learning opportunities were to
be found in the labor market. To achieve this a survey of 2,200 workers, 80% of the total
labor force of 36 enterprises with different degrees of formality, was carried out. The
study was designed as a representative sample of the shoe industry organized around the
National Chamber of Shoe and Leather Industry located in the city of Leon.8

The City of Leon

The city selected was Leon, located in the state of Guanajuato: this state is in the geo-
graphical center of Mexico. At the time of the study, Leon had a population of 1,134,842
inhabitants: 42.8% of the labor force was engaged in industrial activity and 54% in serv-
ices and commerce. The main industry of Leon is the production of shoes: fully 62.7%
of the industrial labor force is involved in this activity. Leon was selected for a number
of reasons: we had a previous personal history of periodic visits to the city over the last
30 years and familiarity with key actors in the industrial, government, and schooling sec-
tors; the proximity of the site to Mexico City, which reduced research costs; the impor-
tance of the city due to its size and industrial significance in the country: together with
the fact that the city is regularly analyzed as part of national surveys.
Leon is now more than 400 years old. It was established during the Mexican colo-
nial period at the same site where the Chichimecas (the indigenous “barbarian” group
that inhabited the northern borders of the great Mesoamerican cultures) once lived.
Building cities on the same location where previous indigenous ones existed was part of
a general policy for the colonization and pacification of those territories. The economy
732 Ibarrola

of the new city was based on agriculture and cattle, and it was not different from other
nearby cities. Such cities were strategically established as part of the chain of cities at
a horseback ride’s distance from each other. Those industries that developed were only
those necessary for solving the populations’ immediate needs. Nevertheless, by the
end of the nineteenth century, the city was already well-known for the industrious
attitude of its population. An anonymous traveler remarked, “There are not many busi-
nesses, but each family is an industrious group of workers and each house is an estab-
lished workshop.” As of the beginning of the nineteenth century a now well-known
national shoe industry developed, highly protected by the Mexican State. Shoes were
considered to be necessary for satisfying a basic demand of the Mexican population:
moreover, wearing shoes was for some time used in the national census as an indicator
of better living conditions, as opposed to walking bare-footed or even wearing the
ancestral huaraches (sandals). World War II also fostered the economy of the city’s
main industry, because of its production of footwear for soldiers overseas.

The City’s Heterogeneous Shoe Industry

To date, the Leon shoe industry accounts for 50% of the national shoe market, which
provides for 95% of the national shoe demand. The industry is the fifth largest exporter
to the United States. Shoe manufacturing is not only the main industrial activity in the
city, but it is also a good example of the coexistence of formal and informal economies
and labor markets. Highly sophisticated modern factories, with more than 2,000
employees producing some 18,000 pairs of shoes per week, often export all of their
production items. The industry has been awarded an international certification and has
acquired state of the art production technologies. It has also established formal and
legal, long-standing labor relations agreements with their employees. These same
modern establishments coexist, sometimes side-by-side on the same street, with very
small family shops, with between five and ten workers. In these smaller workshops,
some 50 pairs of shoes per week, or even less, are still produced mainly by hand, using
old sewing machines or old tools crafted by the workers themselves. The local census
identifies some 4,100 production units, while the Chamber of the Shoe and Leather
Industry in the city has only an enrollment of about 1,000 businesses: these are classi-
fied in four different sizes: Large factories (more than 250 workers) which account for
2.3% of the registered businesses and 30% of the labor force; Medium size factories
(100–250 workers), which account for 6.2% of the factories and 24.3% of the workers;
Small factories (16–99 workers), which account for 35% of the factories and 36% of
the workers; and Micro factories (up to 15 workers) which account for 55.1% of the fac-
tories and 8% of the workers. The size of the factories is the only explicit trait indicat-
ing their degree of formality or modernization, but other factors were registered during
the research to ratify the heterogeneity of the shoe industry in the city: both the type of
technology used and the rate of exportation of the production were addressed. The main
indicator, however, was the proportion of workers employed as middle or upper admini-
strative and technical operatives. The type of leadership and management employed is
one of the most relevant factors for determining the possibilities for introducing new
 Learning to Work (1990–2000) 733

technologies and new ways of organizing labor (Labarca, 1999). We found that the
current proportion of administrators and technical opperativesin the selected esta-
blishments varied from 5 to almost 30% of the economic unit’s total labor force.
The heterogeneity of the economic activities in the city covers not only the produc-
tion of shoes, but also the supply of all the necessary implements and materials, which
run through both international and local distributors. On the one hand, there are some
extremely sophisticated, modern, and luxurious factories with ties to the international
market, while on the other there are very traditional shops whose business and clientele
are locally-based. The variety of commercial and market activities are readily apparent
within a five block radius. Street venders sell a pair or two of shoes recently produced
in their family’s cottage industry, a local dealer offers a passerby a way to contact a clan-
destine manufacturer and an established informal street vender with a fixed position on
the street lays out an old carpet and arranges some 50 pairs of shoes. In this same area
a produce salesman is trading his fruits and vegetables from his old rural wagon for an
assortment of 400 pairs of shoes that he will then take to rural communities to sell. Each
and every one of these businessmen is using the streets as their work place. In the build-
ings on these same streets are modern commercial shoe centers, where all the formal
factories are located. Here we find the businesses that legally hire sales personnel and
offer their most recent production at fixed prices that include sales tax.
All these complex and heterogeneous activities account, nevertheless, for the high
rate of employment in the city (only 1.3% unemployment in 2000), and the relatively
high income of the population: only 2.3% of the local active population did not receive
any income, as opposed to 8.3% of the population at the national level. Furthermore,
14% of this same active population in the city was classified in the higher income cat-
egory as defined by the 2000 census (as opposed to the national average of 11.8%).
However, it also accounts for the higher rate of workers without any formal contractual
relations or social security (50%).
Since the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993,
all of the more than 4,000 modern firms, small factories, or family workshops face the
new challenges of an open and global economy: this includes new technologies, new
labor organizations and open global markets. In particular, they have to deal with what
is known in the city as “the Chinese menace”: the invasion of very cheap, illegal,
Chinese shoes that have caused many businesses to go bankrupt.

Visions of Urban Future

Government officials and organized producers have agreed to face the future with two
main strategies. These strategies are the recycling the shoe industry in order to consol-
idate an “industrial district,” primarily by fulfilling the complex criteria these kind of
regions now require (Girardo Pierdominici, 2003), and by diversifying the economic
activities of the city. Plans include enlarging the city as regional shopping, financial,
medical, business, education and cultural center.
A range of changes are currently visible in the city: modern buildings, a large num-
ber of new international hotels, hospitals, shopping centers, international food chains,
734 Ibarrola

recently designed thoroughfares, and so forth. Educating young people, training and
“recycling” the labor force, are considered the main strategies for achieving these new
forms of economic development. Those who propose consolidating an industrial dis-
trict propose mainly on-the-job training, starting with the upper cadres, and fostering
new middle and higher education opportunities for specific activities required for the
modernization of the shoe industry. These activities have focused on specific designs
for tailor-made demands, international marketing, quality control processes, interna-
tional certification, and new materials. Those who propose diversifying the economic
base of the city also recognize the importance of a more relevant basic education of
higher quality.

Research Approaches
The interest to discover all of the learning to work opportunities for young people in
Leon lead to three projects. The first project set out to identify, describe, and analyze
formal schooling opportunities, both private and public, particularly the way they had
grown and diversified in the last decade. Two main educational policies were enforced in
the country: (1) the decentralization of basic education, formerly conducted by the fed-
eral government that, as of 1993, was to be operated by state governments; and (2) the
increase of basic compulsory education from 6 to 9 years including also, as of 1993, the
3 years of secondary education, Grades 7–9 (Cuevas de la Garza, 2002; Ibarrola &
Mijares, 2003; Ibarrola & Bernal, 2003).
The second project was to identify, describe, and analyze institutions, both private
and public, offering formal on-the-job training, with special attention to the way shoe
factories were taking advantage of the offer (Rojas Mata, 2002). Again, the idea was to
analyze the way the institutions had grown and diversified in the last decade when var-
ious deep economic transformations took place in the country: the most important
changes were the ratification of NAFTA, and the liberation of a formerly closed inter-
nal shoe market, which until then had been highly protected by the Mexican State.
Export policies were fostered and shoe entrepreneurs were offered different sorts of
facilities. To enhance international quality, on-the-job training policies were accorded
elevated status as one of the main tools for the transformation of all economic activi-
ties, the shoe and leather labor market among them. A major national program was
launched in the country in order to both define and standardize the labor competencies
in all economic sectors, according to international standards and to design educational
and training programs according to those competencies. The shoe industry, repre-
sented by some of the organized entrepreneurs of the city of Leon, was one of the first
sectors to have the National labor competencies standardized.
This project of identifying the range of educational opportunities in the city, sur-
faced the important role played by non-formal learning opportunities taking place on
the shop floor, during the workday. These opportunities were studied using the theo-
retical approach currently known as “situated learning” (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and
following the work of (Mijares Ruiz, 2002) a numbers of life stories were collected
from workers.
 Learning to Work (1990–2000) 735

A third project was to identify NGOs, or third sector associations, that offer training
services for young people excluded from both the school system or the local labor
market (Girardo-Pierdominici, 2003; Pantoja-Palacios, 2001).
Data from all three projects that focused on the educational opportunities offered in
Leon were integrated into the analysis of the type and range of learning that the 2,200
shoe workers reported as their ways of learning their profession (Ibarrola, 2004a). In
spite of the complexity and challenges presented by the research project, and in spite
of the certainty that many pieces of the big puzzle are yet to be reconstructed, some
very interesting results were found regarding the different ways young people are
learning to work. The project also surfaced how the city is actually envisioning and
beginning to solve the needs derived from the new economic challenges. I will outline
below nine important factors that emerged from these investigations.

Poor Results in Training Young People to Work

(1) Training young people to work is recognized as one of the priorities of local
development, nevertheless it is not a generalized reality. On the contrary, one of
the main findings of this study is the poor results achieved in this respect, even
when all types of educational opportunities were examined.
The Increment in School Opportunities
(2) School opportunities have been strongly promoted within the city and have been
the object of very important decentralization policies: these came first from the
federal government to the state government, and somewhat later from the state
government to the city (municipal) government. The city of Leon was estab-
lished as one of the eight administrative regions of the state school system.
(a) Basic education, covering nine grades of compulsory and free public educa-
tion as of 1993 (six grades of elementary school, plus Grades 7–9 of basic
secondary education), had significant growth in the city during the
1990–2000 decade. This change was promoted mainly by the state govern-
ment. One preschool grade, not compulsory at the time, but an obligation
for the state to provide, also showed significant growth. Nevertheless, the
city has not been able to achieve the new compulsory basic education for all
children and youngsters.9 At the time of this research, 73% of the demand
for preschool education, 94% of the demand for elementary education, and
79% of the demand for secondary education was covered both by the public
and private school system. This means that nearly 30,000 children and
young adolescents in the city were not in school: thus they will not achieve
the basic education to which they are entitled and which is required for their
full incorporation as citizen and workers in the near future (Cuevas de la
Garza, 2002; De Ibarrola & Bernal, 2003).
(b) Basic education is still not a requirement for the workers of the shoe indus-
try: one employer reports that, “we are happy if they know how to work.”
736 Ibarrola

But around 80% of the younger generation, workers up to 30 years of age,

have attained at least the six grades of elementary education (the level that
was compulsory prior to 1993), while only 36.8% of the older workers, 50
and up, have completed a sixth grade education. Nevertheless, in the shoe
industry in the city of Leon, having attained this level of education is a direct
effect of the way the schooling increased both in the city and in the country.
Interestingly, there are no differences as to job position or income between
those workers that report having no schooling at all, an incomplete elemen-
tary school education, a complete elementary school education, an incom-
plete secondary education, or a complete nine grade basic education.
Differences as to job position and income are determined by other criteria,
mainly gender and age. Women, independent of the number of years spent
in school, have a lower income than men with the same years of schooling,
while the youngest workers are the ones who have the lowest income.
Workers who acquired a secondary education or less do not believe the
school or their teachers to be an important factor in their learning to work.
Workers in other labor sectors that have been growing as part of the new
economic development of the city, mostly tourism, hotel, and commercial
services, state that they require at least a ninth grade certificate for lower
level positions. Employers, however, report that they have had to diminish
the requirements for the time being because the labor force does not have
the required schooling.
(c) One of the most important questions not answered by recent studies is the
effect this recent growth in the number of workers completing basic educa-
tion has had on the technical and organizational conditions of the production
processes, or on the working and living conditions of the shoe industry work-
ers. This, however, is an important line of inquiry for future research.
(d) While both the upper middle and higher education sectors have had a rela-
tively high growth rate compared with basic education in Leon, the rates of
coverage of the age group demand are still inferior to the National rates.
Upper middle education covered 32.8% of the local demand in 2000, as
compared with 36.6% of the demand on the national scale (age group
15–19). Higher education covers a very small portion of the age group
(20–24) at the National scale (20.3%) and the city is not an exception
(19.5%). This growth has been promoted by private actors in the city who
now offer educational programs to 59.7% of students in upper middle edu-
cation (Grades 10, 11, and 12) and to 70.3% of higher education students.
The private coverage of higher education demands in the city is superior
both to the state average (46.6%) and to the national average (32.1%). Most
of the national private university systems in the country now have a campus
in the city and some local universities have recently attained a prestigious
position within the state of Guanajuato, where Leon is located. The state
government has in some ways fostered the growth of private school opportu-
nities at the middle and upper level in the city, by subsidizing youngsters with
low socio-economic status and offering them full scholarships in private
 Learning to Work (1990–2000) 737

schools. Their argument has been that it is easier and cheaper to offer these
scholarships than to create new public school establishments. Problematic,
however, the fact is that the national public education system has different
priorities with respect to the development of higher education in the coun-
try. Together, the state and the federal government created a new public
technological university, answering the demand of organized employers.
This new University offers what is now known as a “fifth” level of profes-
sional training and a new degree known as a “university technician”: this
initiative covers new professions that require only two years of higher edu-
cation, supposedly required by the local labor market and “relevant” for the
development of the city. The Technological University of Leon, for example,
has been steadily increasing the number of youngsters from the city and
other nearby areas. The graduates do show high employment rates and bet-
ter incomes to date (Cuevas de la Garza, 2002). The state government also
created two distance education systems at the middle and higher education
level that should be of benefit to the lower income population. Nevertheless,
the actual availability of professional education in the city, both at the mid-
dle and higher levels, is not fully integrated into the new visions of eco-
nomic development to which Leon aspires. However, the programs offered
do answer to the evident demand for creating a more highly qualified work
force in data processing, computer science, administration and accounting,
all of which are seen as important for securing higher level jobs.
(e) Having a 12th grade school certificate in the city determines a clear differ-
ence in favor of a better job position and higher income, both in the shoe
industry and in other labor sectors. Workers with this kind of certificate typ-
ically have administrative and technical positions and receive higher
incomes than the general mean. Higher and postgraduate education certifi-
cates, requiring more than 17 grades of schooling, are very restricted in the
city. Clearly they are important with respect to securing employment: work-
ers with these school certificates may triple their income and certainly
occupy high status jobs. At least a third of these workers recognize their
schooling as a major factor in their learning to work: they note that they read
books and manuals, and have made innovations in the production process.
This is fully consistent with the type of knowledge applied in those job posi-
tions. At the same time, however, Leon is already showing higher levels of
unemployment among those who have higher school certificates.

The Role of on-the-Job Training

(3) On-the-job training has also been recognized as a major factor for facing the
new challenges of economic globalization. The employers’ organizations, local
Chambers of Industry and Commerce, have incorporated training departments
into their internal structure and are actively trying to establish relations with the
middle and higher school institutions. This see this as a way of fostering a new
“work culture” and a “knowledge economy”: these are the words used by both
738 Ibarrola

members and their employees. They are establishing innovative and interesting
training strategies, mostly financed by the state or the federal government, but
also by the employers themselves. Private training firms have had an important
rate of growth in the city and the Federal government continues to foster
national training institutions, some of them created decades before and others as
the current Federal response to demands resulting from NAFTA. In both cases,
a new decentralization policy imposes at least half of the financing schema on
the state government and in some cases, even on the employers themselves.

(a) On-the-job training in the city answers only to a part of the vision. Actual
innovative technical contents necessary for the shoe industry are offered
mainly by the public institutions. Private firms, by contrast, are oriented
towards “human and personal development.” Intentional on-the-job training
is given almost exclusively to higher and middle labor positions and to
workers or employers with higher education. It is common entrepreneurial
sense, that workers must have a high school diploma if they are to benefit
from training. This argument is built on the assumption that there are
“codes” workers must master in order to access the technical knowledge that
makes up an important part of the contents offered by these institutions.
(b) To date, very few enterprises have acknowledged the role of on-the-job
training as fully embedded in a new management style: such training should
specifically search to establish a new working organization, together with
better working conditions for all the workers. This new management style
suggests that on-the-job training should benefit from the actual knowledge
all of the workers possess. This, for example, is the basis for both learning
communities and quality circles that are emerging in the literature. In too
many cases, however, where a new labor organization was implemented
with help from a training processes, problems surfaced when reducing the
number of workers became a major threat to employees “who did not want
to learn the new ways.”
(c) Most employers refuse to engage in intentional on-the-job training for a
variety of reasons: Some have accused the workers of not having any inter-
est in the training, or argue that on the job training is a useless expense
because once the workers are better trained, their competitors will lure away
the newly trained workers by offering them a “few more bucks per week.”
Workers, on the other hand, do express an interest in such training. They are
interested mainly so that they can learn how to operate new machines, but
they are also interested in the area of personal human development. It is
clear that they are not interested in formal and intentional on-the-job train-
ing, especially if it is offered after work hours or follows school type pro-
grams. Rather, they prefer informal strategies that are consistent with the
tacit knowledge they possess and the ways they acquired it. Only 12% of the
2,200 workers in the sample stated having had intentional training in the last
year. Those with higher school certificates and higher job positions clearly had
better odds at participating in those few training opportunities offered: Fully
 Learning to Work (1990–2000) 739

55% of the workers with post-graduate education engaged in such training,

as compared with only 7% of workers who did not complete their elemen-
tary education.

Situated Learning: The Most Important Learning

(4) In the shoe industry the most intense way of learning the job is the situated non-
formal learning resulting from face-to-face relations among workers, where one
worker demonstrates knowledge and know-how to the other. Fifty-two percent
of the workers declared that this type of learning started for them during child-
hood. As reported by the workers interviewed during this research, child labor
and apprenticeship are still functioning in the city: The majority of workers,
working in the shoe industry might have started as early as 7 years of age. Eight
of the twelve workers who shared with us the labor learning dimensions of their
life history, were working before they were 14 years old. The discussion of child
labor and its relationship to learning to work in the shoe industry has been ana-
lyzed elsewhere (Ibarrola & Mijares, 2003).
(a) It is evident that the most important actors in this on-the-job learning are the
workers’ peers: Different members of the family, supervisors, employers, and
even factory owners also participate in important ways. In this “silent agree-
ment to teach and learn”(Mijares Ruiz, 2002) no differences were found
among the different types of factories. On the contrary, the employers, having
accepted as the main criterion for hiring a worker the recommendation of fam-
ily members or friends, recognize the efficacy of this type of labor learning.
(b) We must acknowledge that tacit knowledge and situated learning among the
shoe industry workers offer the necessary qualification for performing
the range of activities and tasks that shoe production requires. According to
the workers who were interviewed, it allows them a comprehensive approach
to the complete production process. It is here that they learn about the differ-
ent production areas, enjoy the opportunity to perform different functions,
ask questions and hear about the existing mobility of the workers among
labor positions and different factories. While workers’ turnover and child
labor are very frequent, they contribute in important ways to the social
distribution of tacit knowledge about work.
(c) In some cases, this kind of learning develops the capacity to take full charge
of the production process and in some cases even to creating new factories:
analysis revealed that one-third of the owners and almost 75% of the super-
visors had only this kind of learning, with very little formal schooling.
(d) It should also be noted that this kind of learning also reproduces what
researchers of the shoe industry and many employers and government offi-
cials in the city label the most negative work culture in the city. Several
problems have been noted: employers who attempt to avoid their legal obli-
gations towards employees (e.g., violations involving social security, fringe
benefits and respecting the maximum of working hours permitted by law;
employers who fail to improve working conditions and who resort to “tricks”
740 Ibarrola

to avoid their obligations to the State and suppliers; and employers who
ignore the important aspects of modern administration, quality control,
safety and hygiene, and respect for the environment among others. This neg-
ative work culture has been declared the main obstacle in the structural
change the city has to undertake.

(5) Working conditions in the shoe industry tend to be very precarious. Disorder,
noise, filth, lack of safety measures, use of contaminants and addicting sub-
stances without any precautions, excessive work hours or overtime and no social
benefits are long-standing and widespread practices. Neither the workers, nor
the employers seem to have learned how to change them: the single exception is
a small proportion of the formal and modern factories. Despite the formal oppo-
sition to child labor and the elimination of the apprentice category in the labor
law (under the principle of equal salary for equal work), fully 52% of the work-
ers of our sample reported having experienced this kind of learning. This is a
common denominator to all workers, no matter the nature of their schooling,
what position they hold, or what type of business for which they work.
Interestingly, the experience with childhood work is higher among older work-
ers those who did not reach secondary education: this is also true for those who
are now in supervising positions. It is important to note that the apprenticeship
system, which still continues to exist in spite of all legal restrictions, is the one
system that sustains the tacit and complete knowledge of shoe production in the
city. Moreover, this system constitutes one of the few real possibilities for most
young people in the city to secure and retain a paying job.
(6) It appears that neither schooling, nor intentional on-the-job training was seen to
be necessary at this time of serious crisis the shoe industry during the last
decade. The explanation surely lies in the existence of the informal tacit know-
ledge widespread among the shoe industry workers. Only a small number of
businesses have generated important job positions for modern administrators,
designers, and marketers, or have paid special attention to recruiting workers
with credentials from higher education and subjected them to more intense
intentional on-the-job training. In these positions, the workers do identify the
important role played by school and note that formal schooling is also a hiring
requirement. Recognizing the need of school certificates to enter these positions
goes beyond the social selection resulting from middle and higher education. It
is also due to the technical requirements and new qualifications implicit in mod-
ern production processes, together with the need to access new codified know-
ledge that is available mainly through formal education.
(7) Statistics for the city show that 15,445 young people age 15–19 do not go to school
and also do not work. Statistics also show that 4,834 did not attain the now com-
pulsory secondary education. It is not coincidental that most of them are women,
but we also found nearly 1,000 marginalized and impoverished young men who are
in a “no man’s land” when it comes to receiving institutional support for job train-
ing and/or placement. The most vulnerable group in the city is the significant num-
ber of the women aged 15–19, who are not in the school system or the labor force.
 Learning to Work (1990–2000) 741

(8) Very few social organizations take responsibility for the lack of school opportu-
nities or on-the-job training opportunities that affect this significant proportion
of the city’s young population. It must be stated that most NGOs now existing
are not interested in young people or their labor training problems. Moreover,
many of these organizations also face serious institutional weakness and finan-
cial problems of their own.
(9) In spite of the great value given to job training for young people by the political
and economic actors in the city, there is in fact an important deficit and a great
inequality in the way the issue is being handled. In short, universal basic school-
ing has not been attained in the city. There is a significant percentage of children
and young people who will grow up without ever completing a basic education.
In addition, intentional on-the-job training is offered to very few workers,
mainly those who already have a higher education and perform middle or upper
job positions. As a consequence of these two patterns of involvement, tacit
informal learning in a job situation is, for many, the only universal means of
learning to work. However, learning to work under those circumstances is a very
restricted opportunity. Its efficacy is limited to reproducing old traditional shoe
production practices, coupled with repeating the negative working and living
conditions. It is clearly not a sufficient strategy for meeting the many challenges
the city’s economic development is now facing.

What Does this Study Suggest about Urban Settings

for Education?
Education in urban settings illustrates the complexity of the different types of educa-
tion opportunities open to young people, due mainly to the richness of large cities.
Most education and work research considers only school certificates, but clearly there
are other opportunities for learning that are efficient for the established labor market.
These include a wide range of intentional courses aimed at improving workers abilities
and capacities, together with the rich pedagogical interactions among a large number
of workers, within legal industrial labor settings. It is evident, however, that this com-
plexity of opportunities in an urban setting where young people learn to work, has not
prevented inequality. On the contrary, the research shows that not all young people
access compulsory education, that very few reach middle education and that only a
small minority attain a higher education degree. Intentional on-the-job training seems
to be aimed only at those with better schooling due, in great part, to the idea that it is
necessary to have at least a secondary education in order to benefit from intentional
training. This, of course, eliminates the large number of students who never complete
their secondary education. Sadly, the situated on-the-job learning, which proved to be
the most important learning opportunity for the majority of the workers, is efficient
only in reproducing the long-standing precarious working conditions. The main sug-
gestion derived from the study is the possibility of enhancing the different educational
opportunities in the city and the interaction among them, in order to improve workers
capacities, working conditions and in general, the future of the city.
742 Ibarrola

Recommendations
Based on the central findings of this research eight recommendations can be offered to
economic actors and government officials involved in the process of developing the city
of Leon. First, it is essential to ensure that all children achieve the basic compulsory edu-
cation: preschool, primary and secondary education must be available to all school-aged
students. While it is true that school opportunities have grown in an impressive way in
the city in the last decade, too man children never go to school. A sizeable proportion of
young people between the ages of 12 and 16 years do not complete a 9th grade educa-
tion, while almost two thirds of this group abandon school once they turn 15.
Second, the fact that young people easily find a job in the shoe industry, many of them
during childhood, opens the possibility of developing an intense learning system located
at the workplace. Such a learning system is worthy of serious analysis. This situated
learning system must be developed within the framework of local opportunities.
Historically, the system has focused on offering the minimum training needed for getting
a job in the shoe industry. In addition to being illegal, however, and affecting children’s
rights to a more complete education, it has usually been restricted to learning the manual
tasks that are no longer efficient in the new economy. Moreover, as detailed above, this
informal learning system has also served to propagate the precarious working conditions
in the factories.
Third, a global evaluation should be undertaken to discover what children and young
people who do finish a 9th grade basic compulsory education are actually learning.
Subsequently, specific innovative programs should be carefully planned and imple-
mented in order to assure both educational quality and relevance, taking advantage of
decentralization policies that offer greater educational decisions to local actors. In con-
trast to an exclusive shoe production economy, that could be sustained with a practical
specific on-the-job training, the new economic activities fostered in the search for a new
and broader economic vocation for the city, requires a general basic education for all.
Fourth, it is important to note that middle and higher education is currently in the hands
of private interests in the city. This has had two consequences: (1) private education is too
frequently driven by a market orientation, where it offers cheap services in the traditional
professions to needy students who are often under-qualified to properly weigh their
options, or they turn out poorly prepared graduates in professions that are no longer in
demand and, (2) they continue to contribute to widening the ever expanding socio-
economic gap in the city. Thus, I would argue the the public scholarships that the govern-
ment distributes to ensure school attendance could and should be used to ensure public
interest in quality, relevance and equity, even when the schools are privately administered.
Fifth, among the hidden treasure discovered by the research is the range of intense
educational relations actually taking place in all work places, together with the exis-
tence of a wealth of tacit knowledge generously socialized among the workers. This
way to learn how to work in an industry still shapes the economic activities of the city.
We must acknowledge, however, that this tacit knowledge and the informal means of
transferring it, are no longer sufficient for responding to the challenges presented by
new technology, the demands of labor organizations, and open markets. In noting that
they are insufficient, we must also note that they remain at the deep base where all
proposals for change should be rooted.
 Learning to Work (1990–2000) 743

Sixth, a new apprenticeship system should be designed, one that can be legally
implemented without resorting to child abuse. Such an apprenticeship must be recog-
nized by the school system and become part of the learning-to-work curricula. This
would facilitate the school-to-work transition for all students.
Seventh, most urgent challenge is to enhance the transmission of the powerful tacit
knowledge between young and old and to use it to produce an industry-wide, integrated
and positive work culture. Such a new culture can integrate production knowledge with
citizenship and environmental respect, bringing a focus on city development, decent
work and better living conditions. In the new production paradigm, for example, know-
ledge and learning occupy a central place, not only at the factory level, but in those
levels where social, political, and economic institutions intersect as well. It is this artic-
ulation of knowledge and consensus, the interest in everybody’s success, that consti-
tutes the basis of a truly integrated industrial district. Many in the city are suggesting
that a new effort to develop this kind of training is desperately needed.
Finally, It has to be understood that simply providing training is neither an efficient
nor effective activity if it is only considered an “independent variable” for transform-
ing businesses, if it is seen as a stand-alone activity independent of efforts to improve
the working conditions and salary for workers. Evidence suggests that an increase in
productivity or quality simply cannot be achieved by simply conducting training
courses. Rather, to be successful, such intentional training must be embedded into a
whole transformation program, which must be rooted in the tacit knowledge and skills
the workers possess. Such a step, of course, requires an investment in both time and
money, together with a commitment to foster and sustain change in many current atti-
tudes and work habits. The key is getting to know the work place where the training
will be offered. Currently, however, too many organizations specializing in training
programs offer the same pre-packaged solutions that focus on mechanical solutions for
raising efficiency. They are not designed with the specific site in mind.
Local development, then, requires an integrated and well-articulated vision that
includes all the different educational and working institutions. The different roles these
institutions play and the relative participation each must undertake must be articulated
within a clear vision of the future. An important requirement is a precise definition
of the role young people will play in the future of the city. In this vision, of course, public
and private school systems, public and private training institutions, non-governmental
organizations, firms and enterprises must also come together as potential learning
spaces. Currently, each of them affects the training of young people, but they do not have
the same objectives. In this new vision we can expect them to deliver equitable, relevant
and quality learning opportunities for all of the city’s younger citizens.

Notes
1. For reasons of space, the general conceptions on these two sectors are not described in this text.
2. Most of them make publicity about having received the corresponding International Organization for
Standardization certificate (ISO 9000, or ISO 9001, according to the type of certification).
3. In Mexico, the school system’s structure is as follows: as of 2003, compulsory three grades of pre-
school (age 3–5); six grades of elementary education (age 6–12) and as of 1993, the former “escuela
secundaria” (secondary education, grades 7–9, age 13–15, refers to the higher end of a new compulsory
744 Ibarrola

basic education of 9 grades; “media superior” (upper middle education) refers to grades 10–12 and is
roughly equivalent to the high school years, although the Mexican school system offers essentially two
options: an academically oriented curriculum for those students going on to university and technical
curriculum for those looking for job training. Grades 7–12 are traditionally known as “middle” educa-
tion Only recently (as of 1993) have “Universidades Tecnologicas” (grades 13 and 14) been established.
These schools offer high school graduates two more years of technical training and are close in concept
with community colleges in the United States. Higher education (after grade 13) requires an upper
middle education academic certificate: the bachillerato degree.
4. Mean income per month according to schooling in Mexican pesos (2000): without instruction: 1,664;
elementary education: 2,199; secondary education: 2,746; middle upper education: 3,717; complete
higher education and postgraduate studies: 8,320. Asociación Nacional de Universidades e Instituciones
de Educación Superior (2003). Mercado laboral de profesionistas en México. México, ANUIES.
5. These three studies were designed and directed by the author of this chapter.
6. Other authors like (Béduwé & Planas, 2002) also analyze the nature of each domain.
7. In 1999 I submitted a proposal to the National Council of Science and Technology in Mexico (Conacyt)
for financing a new project on the different ways non-university youths are prepared for work in rela-
tion to the economic development of a specific region.
8. Maria de Ibarrola and Luis Enrique Bernal carried out these research activities.
9. In México, there is not an established age for being compulsorily in school, but the nine grades of basic
education are now a constitutional obligation even for adults.

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39

THE FRAGMENTED COMPOSITION OF THE

ARGENTINEAN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

Guillermina Tiramonti
FLACSO-Latin American College of Social Sciences, Argentina

Introduction
Crises act as salutary lessons by the social imaginary regarding their own identity.
Habermas (1991) argues that crisis occurs only when the members of a society expe-
rience changes as threats to their identity. Undoubtedly, this was the result of the events
in 2001, the failure of the argentine economy, which broke the thread of days, quoting
Oscar Terán (2002) expression. From that moment on, many national intellectual texts
were published, which focused their discussions on the identity issue.
Punto de Vista magazine published, among others, a work by its Director, Beatriz
Sarlo (2001), called “Ya nada sera igual” (“Nothing will Ever be the Same”), in which
the author matches the crisis with a turning point separating “the Argentinean being”
developed over the first 60 years of the twentieth century, characterized by being liter-
ate, a citizen and included in the formal labor market from the new situation of
extreme need leaving no room for citizenship nor for any claims on the right to work,
and where even the public school is broken.
In the same magazine, a year later, Oscar Terán (2002) reflects on the imaginary that
governed the composition process in modern Argentina. The author refers to a negative
pluralism and populist egalitarianism society. By means of the first feature he defines a
polyphonic scenario, which inhibits communicative action. This communicative impos-
sibility may have been prematurely countered by a populist egalitarianism that gave rise
to an old belief of empowerment: equality in positions hierarchy, knowledge, and skills.
In more recent texts these subjects are being reexamined. Romero (2003) reviews
national history and refers to the composition, at the beginning of the twentieth century,
of a mobile and opportunities-full society led by a strong and active State. Such com-
position is lost by the seventies. Cristian Ferrer (2003) talks about a country dominated
by plebeian imagination that made us grow up in the belief that being Argentinean enti-
tled us to a set of rights, among which we could find free schooling and university,
work, paid vacations later, social security and health borne by the State.
747
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 747–762.
© 2007 Springer.
748 Tiramonti

All this and more constitutes the breaking point created by the crisis on the images
we had of the society of which we are a part. At the same time, it shows that all authors
saw some similar elements making up said imaginary of Argentine identity. One of the
elements is the value attributed to equality and acknowledgment of the importance such
assessment has in defining not just the image we create of ourselves but the dynamics
in our collective life. A corollary of this value is the public school and the role it plays
in the realization of the social mobility dream.
The tension in the concept equality (or the socially created myth around this egali-
tarian principle) is an element that plays an important role in the composition of our
culture. Its blatant dismissal challenges the set of values upon which society rests, as
well as risking our oft-held belief in individual rights equal to that of any other citizen.
No matter if that which made us more sensitive to equality is the misfortune of all
being equally helpless, and ultimately being always at risk in the wider social sphere,
as Dussel (2003) points out by resorting to Halperin Donghi’s image, or the fact that
the mere existence of inequality hurts our cultural narcissism or, ultimately, whether it
is a value we are ready to replace, this is an issue demanding reflection in our national
crisis. It is also the key building block in clarifying the Argentina to come.
The creation of the National Education System (in Argentina and others Latin
American countries) was clearly linked to the consolidation of the National State and
to a domination project based on the outreach of citizenship to the population as a
whole. Therefore, public education was operationally to regulate the behavior of free
men. The institutional power behind the government’s proposal neutralized all efforts
made at the creation of alternate conceptions. Dora Barranco’s works (1990) and,
recently, those of Juan Suriano (2001) describe precisely every failed attempt made by
socialism and anarchism at creating and later keeping their own educational institu-
tions. In turn, Morduchowicz (1999), in a comprehensive work on private education
in Argentina features the 1894–1930 period as one of retraction in terms of private
enrollment in primary education as a consequence of the boom of state-owned supply.
However, regarding secondary school, private enrollment grew at the time at a rate
higher than state enrollment. From the data above, it can be concluded that the core for
the State was to keep under its field the training of people, and it engaged in a shared
involvement in the task of training middle-level elites. Private education was to define
the elite who would govern.
Ana Bertoni (1996) has shown the tensions resulting from the installation of foreign
schools in the country at late twentieth century. In this, it is important to stress that
schools as a citizen preparation environment or, in other words, as a device for incor-
porating the population into a specific system of beliefs and for the construction of the
nationalistic representation and the sense of belonging thereto. In a recent work, Susana
Torrado (1998) shows that the school setting enabled the first integration of the various
nationalities of the emigrants into an Argentine identity.
The system arising between the end of the nineteenth century and the 30s of the fol-
lowing century had a centralized organizational structure. The National State con-
trolled both material assets – for administration, management, and financing of school
institutions – and symbolic representations, providing a false universalistic meaning
which expressed, at the national level, the “civilized culture.” The development of the
 The Fragmented Composition 749

educational system clearly addresses this State-centric sociopolitical matrix and acco-
unts for the State infrastructural1 power for defining socialization standards and the
cultural incorporation of a varied population. There was some tension between the ten-
dency towards inclusion and the selection function generating differentiations and
exclusions. Such tension is inherent in every modern system – making legitimation of
the system problematic. However, unlike European systems characterized by institu-
tionalization of differentiated systems regulating student promotion, Latin American
countries played out this tension in an open competition mechanism in which there are
no deteremined paths but only individuals confronting resources and capital (material,
symbolic and social capital).
In this promotion system there was a wide uniform education supplied for the whole
population. Likewise there were pedagogical and curriculum mechanisms that rewarded
only those likely to be assimilated. The demand of the homogenization process of the
school what that the students also mobilize the material and symbolic resources required
by this homogenization – a self-fulfilling prophesy at best.
The egalitarian matrix in Argentina is the result of a specific tension between inclu-
sion and exclusion at the different layers of social life and, specifically, in the educa-
tional system. Social mobility aspirations were processed through the expansion of
schooling offered by the State, which implied an economic and social promotion prom-
ise. The vast Argentinean middle class improved their social an d economic status in this
dispute as a result of an education that gave them a quantum leap, enabling them to
leave their original condition well behind. Obviously, not everything can be explained
by the availability of an educational offering. For example, there was also an extraordi-
nary economic climate which fostered social expectations and created an employment
market which turned educational credentials into a valuable resource for inclusion in
the labor market.
Throughout the twentieth century, as new social sectors were introduced into the edu-
cation system, the processing and sorting methodology got more complex without leav-
ing aside the deregulated struggle feature in which individual decisions define action.
The creation of differentiated sectors within the system, as in the case of the technical
schools segment which emerged during the first Peron’s term, or in the late 60s the
gradual growth of a private sector which started to accommodate medium to high class
groups who were leaving public education because it became socially more inclusive,
added to the traditional differentiation, resulting in added and overlapping mechanisms
for social selection and differentiation.
Through this motley network of institutions having different social and pedagogic
prestige and student having more or less individual capital, the system worked the ten-
sion between equality and inequality, keeping social and individual expectations alive
in terms of the school’s potential to alter life chances. The National State played a core
role in maintaining the myth of equality and mobility.
Braslavsky’s (1985) research supports the idea of favorable expectations regarding
equalizing potential of education. In this conception, the existence of a field symboli-
cally made up by the State is emphasized in which differences among groups of insti-
tutions are acknowledged (called segments), which can be located within a graded scale
of a higher or lesser educational quality. At the same time, the State is the provider of
750 Tiramonti

universal meanings and the one having at hand the possibility of homogenizing the
system through an educational policy breaking the social closure created by dominant
sectors on socially relevant knowledge.
With the restructuring of Argentine society over the last 30 years, the dissolution of
the state-centric matrix of society (Cavarozzi, 1999) and the crisis experience in 2001,
has made it necessary to reposition discussion around inequality. Conceptualizing the
new educational inequality calls for recovering a comprehensive outlook on the system
as a whole. This is because any inequality has a relational nature and is the result of spe-
cific social links and relations compromising the whole of society and not just those
belonging to a specific class. Over the 90s, the treatment of inequality devolved to the
study of poor people and the detection of their needs. Poverty was conceived as an
attribute of certain individuals or groups and inequality as absolute. At best, it was seen
as the comparative shortage of access to goods and services. Compensatory policies
were and are developed as social replacement tools for said deficits.
From our standpoint, the unequal configuration of educational opportunities calls for
analyzing asymmetries in processes comprising the social system and the breaching and
differentiation lines recorded both in institutional characteristics and in the creation of
subjectivities.

The System Fragmented Composition

There is a wide literature in social science referring to society’s fragmented composi-
tion. Unlike the segment, created as a differentiated space within an integrated field,
fragmentation refers to a burst field characterized by breaks, discontinuances and the
impossibility of passing from one fragment to another. Fragmentation denotes loss of
unity, lack of common references, and a fragmented multiple dynamics removing
every possibility of recovery.

… we no longer believe in the myth of the existence of fragments which, as part of

an ancient statue, are waiting for the last missing part to be discovered and thus glued
together creating a unit exactly like the original unity. (Deleuze and Guattari, 1998)

Our societies are fully complicit in the fragmentation and permanent segregation
process. The construction homogeneous groups that separate and distinguish themselves
from other homogenous bodies end up creating a heterogeneous aggregate of separate
institutions, agents, groups, and individuals.
Social fragmentation clearly exists in the educational field and this is the concept we
believe best accounts for the current composition of the educational system as a whole.
The fragment is a self-referent space in the inside of which similarities and differences
may be distinguished. The former providing the boundaries or limits of the fragment, the
latter accounting for the heterogeneity of said spaces. In this way, the fragment acts as a
reference boundary, but does not make an integrated and coordinated whole, not even in
a field in which actors’ and institutions’ positionings might be acknowledged. Rather it
refers to institutional additions having common statutory and cultural references.
 The Fragmented Composition 751

According to our research, this fragmentation concept better accounts for the cur-
rent composition in the school as a social field. In order to illustrate and ground this
fragmented condition,2 we provide the results of our research in the following.

The Dimensions in Fragmentation

What is fragmented? Which is the fragmentation subject? Research clearly accounts
for a break in a field of shared meaning by the group of school institutions and agents
flowing through them. These institutional cultures shape meanings and derive from the
convergence of social mandates, family aspirations and expectations, community
demands, and institutional resources. There is a means for creating the institution of
schooling, which gives rise to the fragmented condition. This means of creation lacks
universal references and is anchored in the assessment of the specificity in the group
being served. There are no universally defined evaluative references; values acquire
definitions and meanings according to the specific group the institution serves.
For example, the “solidarity” value acquires various meanings for the different groups
according to school enrollment. To some, it is linked to explicit training activities aimed
at incorporating into young people from middle or high sectors the “poor people” and to
create a link among them. In other cases, solidarity refers to helping family and friends,
not neglecting relationships after one has been “saved,” or saving oneself in order to help
people close to you. The meaning of being “supportive” is different fro each school and
social group, and none of these meanings refers to common, collective projects and inclu-
sive of society as a whole. In this case, the fragmentation of the rules framework and of
the set of values and beliefs makes up the cultural-ideological layer with which a cer-
tain society integrates and socializes the new generations.
This is particularly meaningful if we regard the school, both public and private, as
an order-creating institution, a device focused on generating “a shared understanding”
of reality upon which a new ethical consensus may be reached by regulating relations
among subjects to create reciprocal expectations (Wirth, 1964).
Building school meanings in a dialogue with the community, and the loss of the uni-
versal reference due to the crisis, both for public and private schools, has changed edu-
cational institutions into a space where specific meanings of order are created. There
is a form of institutional colonization by regulatory frameworks supported by the com-
munity, which contradicts the original “civilizing” mandate the school was to embody.
At the same time, and being part of the same movement, institutions build a social-
izing guideline expressing aspirations, expectations, values and strategies for the
social placement of the group they serve. Each school has a different meaning for each
group and these cleavages do not necessarily match strict divisions among social and
cultural layers.
For elite groups, the school is a space that ensures a certain order of succession
(Bourdieu, 2000), a history, a genealogy and a specific conception that is conveyed
about the world and places “acquired” by past generations.
However, even in this common claim of “privilege reproduction,” a varied range of
institutional proposals is noted, the differentiation of which is connected to the order
752 Tiramonti

of the privilege attempted or the space in which distinctions are supposed to be legit-
imized. So, for some institutions, this is about the preservation of religious traditional
values and symbols associated with class distinction and family descent. These insti-
tutions are characterized by character discipline through a permanent control of school
spaces and subjection to authority as a form of acceptance of asymmetries in power
relationships and, as a result, command legitimacy.
There are other institutions focused on the “elite” that recreate the symbols associated
to those of the successful, cosmopolitan and victorious businessman in a markedly com-
petitive world. In these cases, the value of the institution is linked to the renewal of a cul-
tural and social capital providing that provides resources for successfully “competing.”
Another group of public schools organizes its pedagogical proposal based on a wide
combination of knowledge from the humanist tradition, motivation of individual cre-
ativity and strengthening of intellectual self-government. For the sectors attending these
schools, the future is an individual and unforeseeable creation calling for wide intellec-
tual and cultural resources, and the capacity to mobilize them according to timely
requirements.
In a previous work, we identified a group of public and religious private schools sub-
sidized by the State, which we call “anchorage schools in a disorganized world”
(Tiramonti, 2003). These exist in an ambiguous social space where descending restruc-
turing victims converge with other people frozen in their positions and being threatened
with expulsion. They are embedded in a uniform range of activities in which liberal pro-
fessionals, dealers, and employees are included. These institutions make their proposal
with the wrecks: Part of instruction understood as the incorporation of useful knowl-
edge for labor insertion or for higher education, a little bit of the traditional citizen
ethics, and quite a lot of “continence,” understood as catering to problems and emo-
tional care. Even inside this fragment there are distinct differences between public
schools that inherited a tradition of training citizens, which account for the endurance
of collective projects in the imaginary of young people and religious schools having a
strong pastoral mark.
There are other public schools that are creating a space for living with the crisis and
the collapse as they understand it. These are about providing material and pedagogical
help and delimiting an “understanding” of the scenarios and “coexistence of pairs” for
those actively engaged in the marginal culture. Said institutions do not have a “civiliz-
ing” will, they do not aim to change the lives of their students, but their goal is to help
endure the present. They are aware of their border institution status (Duschatzky, 1999),
they comfort, help, listen, but they know the predefining force of social, economic, and
cultural conditions in their students lives.
This fragmentation in the institutional arena results into a reconfiguration of those
teaching at these institutions. In each institutional group, the features required of teach-
ers are so specific that it is hard to imagine a teacher actually crossing the fragment
barrier to teach at other institutions. As Poliak points out (2004, p. 182):

… diversity of characteristics includes a very wide range of criteria: the commit-

ment towards and “submission” to the most underprivileged schools; bilingualism,
updating abroad and a track record in schools of similar prestige, in privileged and
 The Fragmented Composition 753

elite sector schools; broaching very different nuances in schools where middle
class students attend: an active link with knowledge in progressive schools; shar-
ing (and acting pursuant to) the same religion in denominational schools, personal
qualities and others.

Fragmentation is a configuration type repeating and multiplying itself in each dimen-

sion in the school setting and making each institutional group a single and distinct area
closing in on itself and creating hard to cross borders. These are fragments immersed in
a social closure of permanent dynamics, where exclusions and expulsions occur to close
again on itself, generating new and multiple fragments. Recently, the Secretariat of
Education of the City of Buenos Aires has announced a project for the struggle against
leaving school in the middle level, consisting in the creation of special institutions for
the relocation of those who leave school before the legal age and who attended schools
serving the most underprivileged sectors in society. The proposal is an example of the
trend towards the permanent system fragmentation.

Asymmetry in Individualization and

Deinstitutionalization Processes
There is agreement among social scientists pointing out that structural changes beset-
ting contemporary society are reshaping the individual-society relationships. Charac-
teristically, this link has been a core aspect in sociology. According to the traditional
scheme, there is a dramatic gap between the individual and the society. The latter,
which exists outside and above individuals, shapes the behavior of individuals through
a socialization process via which subjectivities are created. Therefore, subjectivity
is nothing but the incorporation of the social aspect, which defines traditions, aspi-
rations, values, and interests. From this perspective, individuals are the creation of
society.
The most modern theories on socialization suggest that it is not just international-
ization of values, but also socialization process includes a social creation of the body.
Consequently, gestures, movements, and positions are not natural but they are marks
expressing certain paths and social positions. Bourdieu coined the idea of habitus in
order to account for this learning process of the body. Likewise, Foucault (1981) refers
to government technologies based on specific knowledge with a view to creating indi-
viduals satisfied with the dominant project.
Elias (1990) breaks this scheme and replaces the idea of separation between indi-
viduals and society with that of reciprocal conception, according to which society
shapes individuality of its members and individuals shape society through the acts in
their lives in which they apply possible and viable strategies within the social network
of their interdependencies. According to this belief, modern society is defined by an
incessant individualizing action permanently changing through negotiation and which
assumes a constant redefinition of links between individuals and society.
According to several authors, the current stage we are going through is character-
ized by a deep change in the relationship between individuals and society in favor of
754 Tiramonti

the supremacy of individuals over society’s determinations. According to Beck (2000),

industrial society as a system, that is, the economics, politics and science dynamics has
resulted in the disintegration of industrial society as a network of experiences, remov-
ing the anchorage of people to the security of standard forms of living. In turn,
Bauman (2000) argues that early modernity “uprooted” people in order to “reroot”
them. After the break of the rigid social classes, the task for individuals was to accul-
turate themselves to new regulatory action frameworks. In such manner, classes as
inherited, and thus permanent, places were replaced by classes of artificial member-
ships. Unlike this process, in the current capitalism stage Bauman (2003) calls liquid,
there are no flowerbeds for us to “reroot” ourselves, but there are “several musical chairs”
of varying in sizes and styles, number and location. These construct men and women as
always on the move with no promise for “completion” whatsoever. There is no “rerooting”
perspective at the end of the road taken by permanently uprooted individuals.
This point in modern age is marked by a deinstitutionalization process evidenced in
the inefficiency of institutions (it would be very positive if it could always refer to the
school) originated during the industrial age to regulate and determine individual
behavior and which is the commensuate, to position themselves in the existential
framework containing and marking individual movements. As the other side of the
coin, the individualization process has become, quoting Sennett (2000), “the compul-
sion to be oneself.” To what extent and in what manner do these processes translate
into school institutions and the agents involved in them?
Field research found several indicators of these processes and strong expressions of
asymmetries. Some social sectors seem to feel more threatened than others by the evolu-
tion of these processes. The so-called elite groups, on the one hand, seem to fear a strong
“unshaping” of regulatory and institutional frameworks their children go through.
A feature in everyday lives of young people belonging to this social sector is the regula-
tion of their activities in strong institutional frameworks. The school, in this case either
public or private, mainly fills their days and is the main supplier of friends for their ring.
Out-of-school time is filled with extra-curricular activities and the excess free time is
also spent in institutionalized frameworks (the club, the closed villa). These areas, while
regulating and controlling behavior and bodies marking them with class belonging,
ensure socialization among pairs and reinforce the sense of belonging to a privileged
group. The school is, then, a universe equivalent to the family and class one, comple-
menting the actions by the latter in the preservation of privileges (Ziegler, 2004).
Parents in these sectors build a strong fences around schools, in order to support its
regulatory efficiency. At the same time, they make systematic efforts to uproot every
indication of individualization in their children’s behavior. Beyond controls for effi-
ciency, these youngsters seem to have a limited room for action geared to changing
their paths and defining new choices to family imposed ones.
At the other end of the social scale, the everyday life of poor youth is less little insti-
tutionalized public or private spaces outside of school (the neighborhood, the street,
friends’ homes, the bailanta (tropical music dance club). The school, public in this
case, has not enough power to provide sufficient support or to impose a different reg-
ulatory framework than that prevailing in this circle. Both in this case and in the first
one, the school is an environment equivalent to the social circle, the only difference
 The Fragmented Composition 755

being that in this case it is marked by anomia. The reinstatement of institutions and regu-
latory frameworks serve to channel children’s lives. It is a frantic search for rooting places,
which soften the anguish resulting from the compulsive, individualization process that
lacks resources and social continuity.3 This is a “civilizing” claim for the school, a demand
for incorporation into the codes of the ones included, and guidelines for action are
requested to build an inclusion path. It requires a questioning procedure to neutralize the
school as a disqualifying agent. Castel (1997) refers to the exclusion of individuals from
becoming involved in sociability networks and protection systems as “covering” an indi-
vidual from existence risks. The school becomes the integration border but does not
permit removing students from their vulnerable situations (Duschatzky, 1999).
Individualization or individuation, as one chooses, does not mean the expansion of
personal choice. It does not translate into an increase in subjective freedom above social
mandates and compulsions. It is not an emancipation movement but, on the contrary, it
is a compulsive way of life for which people lack the necessary resources to make self-
assertion effective. The individualization process is thus an individual freedom redistri-
bution scheme. There is a divide between the right to self-assertion and the capacity to
control social mechanisms making such assertions viable or not viable (Bauman, 2003).
There is another group of children for whom individualization seems to actually
have extended to the right to self-assertion with the availability of economic and sym-
bolic resources allowing for their realization. These are youths equally subject to
choices, risks, assumed anguish entailed by an option outside traditional paths. These
are youths from families with a good spending power, high education levels and, in
general, are associated with the most modern niches in the economy. These youths,
who may belong to the most learned sectors in middle classes, but also to establish-
ment groups, have a strong mandate of being free, successful and getting personal
rewards in the future.
Such sectors are permeated by market and consumption logic, for which the imper-
ative is becoming themselves. Individualization, for these groups, is an ongoing task
of personal realization. To this effort, the schools they attend – private in general –
contribute a number of resources seen to be suitable for successfully arriving at indi-
vidual self-government. These resources can be “skills for the competition – studies in
classical subjects,” “a wide knowledge of contemporary culture,” “individual creati-
vity” and/or flexibility and adaptation in the face of a changing world. Unlike other
groups of youths, individualization, and its deinsitutionalization counterface, seems to
be the requirement for expanding their freedom.

New Fragmentation Lines

Research has identified new stratification factors fragmenting the universe of students in
secondary schools. In our opinion, there are two significant differentiation lines marking
the borders among the various fragments. One of them is the type of job people aspire to,
and the other is the way in which students articulate with the globalized space.
As regards the type of work, there is a moment that distinguishes those who consider
it to be a means of personal growth and satisfaction, and those who consider it to be the
756 Tiramonti

only possible way to live a “worthy life.” The first ones organize their work relations
from consumption aesthetics, the second ones organize their work from the principles
of the traditional work ethics, which, to be sure, was the moral grounds for industrial
society organization.
Bauman (2000) argues that the aesthetics of consumption today rules what was pre-
viously governed by work ethics. To consumers, the world is a huge matrix of possibi-
lities, of increasingly stronger feelings and deeper and deeper experiences. From this
place, the world is assessed by the feelings it arouses, “the most used compass for mov-
ing through it is always aesthetic, neither cognitive nor moral.” The status granted to
working is deeply affected by aesthetic criteria; it is evaluated by its capacity to produce
pleasant experiences.
The aesthetic value of work has become a powerful stratification factor. Work as
“one’s calling” or personal realization. Work giving meaning to life, as a source for
fame and self-esteem, can be found in the aspirations of a well defined sector of the
students universe. Included there are some fractions of the elite, and clearly the most
dynamic fraction of middle classes is conceiving, as we already pointed out in the
paragraph above, innovative paths. There they combine reward with a rational assess-
ment of opportunities. In general, this is about options and flexibly combining differ-
ent jobs in which knowledge or subject knowledge are articulated with hobbies, so that
there are no clear borders between leisure and work.

I’m going to study arts because that’s what I like and it’s not true that you cannot
live on it. On the contrary, there are many interesting possibilities, such as writ-
ing TV screenplays, teaching, working as a journalist, etc. (17-year-old private
school student)

Based on this paradigm, both for parents and students, “working on something monot-
onous,” “not rewarding enough,” which prevents developing their “potential” or not
awakening their “interest” becomes the most feared choice. Work as a “calling” is the
aspiration of this group of middle sectors, which is testing differentiating structures
that allow it to remain within the higher escelon of the social structure.
For youths belonging to the elite associated with the most modern sectors in the
economy, work is linked to a specific ethics identifying a successful and cosmopolitan
life style, providing wide consumption options. These youths conceive future from
their own consumption perspective, where desire and pleasant experiences are the axis
making life meaningful. Work is part of this idea grounded on the combination of
objects seen as symbols of pleasant and exciting life.
Across the border are those for whom work is linked to a certain hierarchy within
society or to a worthy life. These are the very references of a society in which individ-
uals are integrated via their work, and where such incorporation marks the watershed
between decent workers and indecent “slackers.” At the same time, work integration is
conceived as an allocation method for social places of varying prestige. To the most
traditional elite sectors, the profession and future work performance are not connected
with personal reward, let alone with personal wishes. These are not regarded as rea-
sonable grounds for choice making. The aspiration is to have a job according to the
 The Fragmented Composition 757

family social status, which is achieved through the convergence of a university profes-
sional degree and the relevant performance in the social setting of the reference.
At this end, we find youths who wish to have a worthy living by means of their jobs.
This claim to “worthiness” is clearly a referent to of work ethics from industrial society
and which associates production efforts with worthiness.
At the dawn of the industrial society, the role of work ethics was twofold: solving the
emerging industry labor demand, and at the same time providing an alternative com-
patible with said demand for those who could not adapt themselves to the changes and
were incapable of earning their livings under the new conditions. The work precept, the
only decent and morally acceptable way to earn the right to live, was the basic princi-
ple for public morality and for policies developed for addressing mendicancy. Ethics
upheld the moral superiority of any lifestyle as long as it was supported by the wages
from their own work. This rule justified the principle of the weaker right of those who
required help to survive. Moreover, both today and in the past, this work ethics precept
builds upon the association between marginality and criminality.
The latter is pathetically present in the speech of agents interacting in the so-called bor-
der or margin. To them, work and family are the anchors for a “worthy” and “respectable”
life, and, to the contrary, the lack of the same bodes for a criminal future.
The way in which youths operate in the globalized setting is another stratification fac-
tor in the findings of the research. This perspective divides those who feel at liberty to
move and choose the most interesting scenarios for the development of their lives from
those who are anchored in national borders or forced to migrate faced with the harshness
of life in the country. The first ones consider the world as a space where you can freely
wander taking opportunities. The second ones see it as an exile arena, migration as a con-
sequence of failure or the impossibility of realization at the domestic level.
Experiencing life abroad, taking postgraduate education abroad, making tourism,
conceiving a cosmopolitan life combining travel with stays in the country are a part
of the imaginary of youths in middle to high and high class population sectors.
Teachers and directors at the institutions they attend consider them to be active trav-
elers and never tie their students’ future projections to the country situation. To this
sector, the national environment does not determine the lives of young people; hori-
zons are globalized and this is the context in which the lives of these youths develop.
The world is like a big supermarket offering courses, postgraduate degrees, tourist
adventures, friends, and work opportunities. There is no room for leaving or staying;
no room for exile. There is only a coming and going subject to personal interests and
wishes.
For those who are globally mobile, space has lost its restrictive qualities and it can be
easily crossed in its two versions: the “real” and the “virtual” one. Youths conceiving
cosmopolitan lives have a 99% access to information technology and use it on a daily
basis. In turn, TV consumption by those youths follows a cosmopolitan cultural pattern
clearly influenced by the American lifestyle. In their TV menus, international series
(“Friends,” “That ‘70 show” o “Sex and the City”) or adult cartoons, such as “The
Simpsons” or “South Park,” have a strong presence.
Besides this spatial reduction, there is a future time perception as “snowed under with
activities.” They picture themselves to be constantly busy, with diaries filled up to the
758 Tiramonti

margins according to Bauman’s expressive accounting of the situation of those living in

the first world, where the passing of time and spatial restrictions have been abolished.
Inside this group, cleavages and differences can be noted. There is not just a single
way of inhabiting in the cosmopolitan condition. There are hardly “pure” cosmopoli-
tanism cases where local anchorage is not present. Such individuals belong to that
globalized space where national identities have faded away. They move along in
the world of business, finance, diplomacy, and membership in these “clubs” but not
related with the place of residence. There are other youths for whom national space is
the necessary framework for realizing their elitist aspirations. These groups have built
a strategy focused on intellectual distinction and on a humanist education legitimizing
power positions at the domestic level. These youths enjoy the required cultural and
symbolic capital to move easily in the world. They may think of studying abroad and
living interesting experiences abroad, but their power aspirations tie them to the coun-
try’s borders. The institution director’s words fully embody this local leadership natural
inclination:

I always tell the kids, “when one of you becomes Supreme Court Justice, another
Secretary of the Interior, and yet another one the Archbishop of Buenos
Aires …” and they kill themselves laughing, but it will fatally be the case and you
realize that one you are informally addressing will be the President.

On this side of the border, we find those anchored to the local space and time, for
whom leaving equals exile and staying means tying their future to ups and downs of
the local economy. To them, exile is not a free choice but a compulsion they face as a
result the narrowing of the national labor market. Many middle class youths are part of
this category. They aim at getting higher education levels and at giving the country a
try. Yet if they fail at work placement, they are ready to migrate. “Leaving” means, for
this group, starting the journey back to their grandparents roots, journey which is only
started when faced with the threat of failure.
There are other youths who share the same social and economic environment as the
previous ones, for whom “leaving” is not a choice. They bet on collective solutions and
on the possibility of changing the local situation. They are like survivors from a time
in which the lives of youths were shaped around change projects and being politically
active in favor of such changes. All these youths attend public schools. Private schools
have no room for collective projects. It can be assumed that there is an ideological
component based on the convergence of family principles and school institutions
recreating in this group of youths the inclination towards getting involved in the con-
struction of a better world. It could be theorized that underlying the decision to choose
a school in the private circuit is a family strategy that bets on individual solutions over
collective ones.
The poorest youths experience globalization anchored at the local level. To them,
the future is closely tied to the country and fate of national policies. They shall be what
the country has in store for them. There is no way out. For the ones who are locally tied,
for the ones who are prevented from moving, the ones who must bear the “locality”
they are tied to, real space becomes a closed frontier. The statement by a director we
 The Fragmented Composition 759

transcribed below accounts for this frontier where students, teachers, and directors
horizons converge:

If Argentina makes a good administration of resources, I think there will be oppor-

tunities for these youths, for others, and for ourselves, for our children. I have
children myself, and I’m waiting for our country to change.

For these groups, the global space is not virtually available either. Only 40% of them
have even occasional access to information technology. Their TV consumption pattern
has a Latin feel to it, combining national series with football and Latin American soap
operas. Media is then for them to consume, not for them to create a better world.
The degree of mobility, freedom to choose life path/s, and the chance to feel rewarded
by obtaining actual jobs are components for a full life within the globalized context.
They are also new differentiating factors for reproducing the old inequality experience.

Notes
1. Michael Mann defines infrastructural power as the institutional capacity in a central state, whether
despotic or not, to penetrate in its territories and carry out decisions in the logistic area. Quoted by
Cavarozzi op.cit.
2. We are referring to the research work “La nueva configuración de la discriminación educativa” (The new
configuration of the educational descrimination) developing within the framework of the Education Area
in FLACSO, funded by SECYT and directed by the author. The research used an intentional sample of
14 public and private schools at the intermediate/polimodal level in the city of Buenos Aires and in the
Greater Buenos Aires area. The sample attempts to capture the heterogeneity of institutional profiles
serving the different social sectors. It is difficult to establish frontiers among social sectors and to iden-
tify institutions receiving students from a specific social extraction. The greatest difficulty lies in identi-
fying institutions serving middle sectors, because this is a moving group and thus evidences strong
asymmetries with the attributes package that defines it. In the end, we created a sample with 14 second-
ary or “polimodal” schools (schools that works with several models) – four of which serve the high sec-
tors, the same number serves low sectors and six serve middle sectors. This over-representation of middle
sectors is because of the great significance this sector has regarding attendance to secondary schools and
to typical mobility. Inside each of these categories we have included institutions which a priori evidenced
a differentiated profile. For the highest sector of the population we included more traditional institutions,
the religious or lay schools, and institutions offering a more business-like proposals. As regards schools
for middle sectors, we included institutions serving the most educated population in the sector and hav-
ing resources that allow them to charge a high fee, former national schools which traditionally served this
sector and private religious schools which also are and were the choice for this group. Regarding low sec-
tors, we focused on heterogeneity of situations, including institutions with a higher presence of marginal
populations or those serving low income sectors but having a lower proportion of marginal populations.
In this case, we chose both public and religious private schools.
3. Fernando Robles (1990) coined the idea of individuation in order to differentiate the historically spe-
cific form acquired by individuality in risk societies from the peripheral capitalism characterized by
spread and overriding exclusion.
The big difference between individualization and individuation is the insecurity of those living in the
globalized periphery. They are exposed twice–once as determining an individual biography and in cre-
ating cognitive structures: self-confrontation of the individual with itself is deregulated and, at the same
time, the search for others is compulsory and not elected. For example, family networks for childcare in
the case of single mothers (or “closeness” relationships) are to be entitled to, and included in, some
social benefit. See Robles (1990).
760 Tiramonti

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phy.] In G. Tiramonti (Org.), La trama de la desigualdad educativa. Mutaciones recientes en la escuela
media. (pp. 147–192). Buenos Aires: Manantial. [The plot of educational inequality. Recent mutations
in middle school].
Robles, F. (1990). Los sujetos y la cotidianeidad. Elementos para una microsociología de lo contemporáneo.
Inclusión, exclusión y construcción de identidad. Santiago de Chile: Sociedad hoy. [The subjects and
everyday life. Elements for a microsociology of the contemporary. Inclusion, exclusion and construction
of identity].
Romero, L. A. (2003). La crisis Argentina. Una mirada al siglo XX. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI. [The
Argentinean crisis. A look to 20th century].
Sarlo, B. (2001). Ya nada será igual. Revista Punto de Vista, n.70, Buenos Aires, pp. 2–11. [Nothing will ever
be the same].
 The Fragmented Composition 761

Sennett, R. (2000). La corrosión del carácter: las consecuencias personales del trabajo en el nuevo capi-
talismo. Barcelona: Anagrama. [The corrosion of character: The personal consequences of work in the
new capitalism. New York; London: Norton].
Suriano, J. (2001). Anarquistas, cultura y política libertaria en Buenos Aires 1890–1910. Buenos Aires:
Manantial. [Anarchists, culture and libertarian politics in Buenos Aires 1890–1910].
Teran, O. (2002). La experiencia de la crisis. Revista Punto de Vista, n. 73, Buenos Aires, pp. 1–9. [The expe-
rience of crisis].
Tiramonti, G. (2003). La fragmentación educativa y los cambios en los factores de estratificación. Buenos
Aires: FLACSO (unpublished paper). [The educative fragmentation and the changes in the stratification
factors].
Torrado, S. (1998). Historia de la familia en la Argentina: 1870–2000. Buenos Aires: Universidad de Buenos
Aires. (unpublished paper). [History of family in Argentina: 1870–2000].
Wirth, L. (1964). On cities and social life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ziegler, S. (2004). La escolarización de las elites: un acercamiento a la socialización de los jóvenes de sec-
tores favorecidos en la Argentina actual. [Schooling of the elites: An approach to the socialization of
young people in high social sectors in present Argentina.]. In G. Tiramonti (Ed.), La trama de la
desigualdad educativa. Mutaciones recientes de la escuela media. (pp. 73–99). Buenos Aires:
Manantial. [The plot of educative inequality. Recent mutations in middle school].
Section 5

NORTH AMERICA
40

URBAN EDUCATION IN NORTH AMERICA:

SECTION EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

Michele Foster
Claremont Graduate University, U.S.A.

In this introductory essay, I examine some of the uses and meanings of word urban in
order to highlight the many contradictory uses of the term in general and specifically
with reference to education. My analysis includes lexical items and phrases from the
dictionary and other official sources, along with some disciplinary considerations of
the term. This discussion will introduce and frame the seven chapters contained in the
North American section of the Handbook on Urban Education.
According to the American Heritage Dictionary, the word urban is an adjective
whose definition is “in, relating to, or characteristic of a city or town: the urban popu-
lation.” Entering the lexicon in the early seventeenth century, the word originated from
Latin urbanus, from urbs, urb- “city.” By the middle of the same century, the word
“urbane,” an adjective from the French urbain or Latin urbanus, describing a person,
especially a man who was suave, courteous, and refined in manner became part of the
lexicon. Both the origin and timing of these words’ entry into the lexicon suggests a
positive connotation. It isn’t clear at what point the word urban began to take on a
negative connotation. What is certain, however, is that by the early twentieth century,
negative connotations associated with urban, exemplified in the euphemism inner city
were widely accepted. Although defined as an area near the center of a city, especially
one associated with social and economic problems, an older deteriorating central part
of a city, especially when characterized by crowded, run-down low-income neighbor-
hoods, with inadequate housing, and high levels of crime and unemployment, and
inhabited by poor and disadvantaged people, often minority groups predominate, as
used in the term inner-city schools (American Heritage Dictionary, 2000; Encarta
World English Dictionary [North American Edition], 2006; Oxford American
Dictionary, 1998; Random House, 2005; Wordsmyth English Dictionary-Thesaurus,
2002), the spatial location is not fixed to a particular geographic location, a point to
which I will return later in this introduction.
Perhaps the negative connotation coincided with the entry of the large numbers of
immigrants and African American migrants streaming into the cities of the US from
765
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 765–778.
© 2007 Springer.
766 Foster

the South in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the attendant prob-
lems these migrations spawned, such as poor housing conditions, unhealthy sanitation
problems, bad working conditions, crime, and substandard education (Anderson,
1923). What is beyond question is that by the time urban was linked with the word
renewal in the phrase urban renewal, not only did the term mean the redevelopment of
areas within a large city, it was associated with clearing out the slums. In some quar-
ters, the term urban renewal was known as “Negro removal.”1
One of the acknowledged major influences on the concept of “urban” stemmed from
the Chicago School that was developing its theories of urbanization and inscribing them
into the scholarly canon around the same time that Chicago was growing rapidly largely
because of migration and immigration. Even though some of its ideas have been chal-
lenged or called into question, the Chicago School continues to exert a major influence
in contemporary urban sociology and several of its ideas still persist, coloring the pub-
lic’s conception and understanding of urban life. Among the ideas that continue to influ-
ence urban sociology is the extent to which urbanization (Wirth, 1938) causes major
social problems. Adopting an ecological approach to studying communities, scholars
associated with the Chicago School developed a theory of social disorganization that
they defined as the failure of social institutions such as families, schools, churches,
political institutions, police and businesses in communities and neighborhoods coupled
with deteriorating social relationships that promote cooperation between people. Social
disorganization was thus defined as “the inability of a neighborhood to solve its prob-
lems together” suggesting a level of social pathology and personal disorganization.
Applying these concepts to the African American community and measuring it against
middle-class values, social scientists have argued that poverty and social disorganiza-
tion, in particular marital disruption, destitution, and crime into which African
Americans fell when they migrated to urban environments, contributed to the emergence of an
underclass (Frazier, 1931, 1939). Although William Julius Wilson (1996, 1978) stresses
the role economic conditions play in producing social disorganization more than previ-
ous theorists, his theories are ecologically based and fundamentally aligned with those
of the Chicago School, where he was once a faculty member.
Over the years, other academic disciplines have refashioned this theory. In the
mid-60s, Oscar Lewis, an anthropologist, put forth his “culture of poverty” theory that
asserted that the poor in modern capitalist societies developed a distinct culture and
value system wrought from the social and psychological consequences of poverty and
this distinct culture was intractable, and self-perpetuating, miring the poor in an under-
class (Lewis, (1995 [1966]; 1959). Taken up by educational psychologists in the
1960s, postulated as the theory of cultural disadvantage or deficit, and circulated in
educational circles since then, this theoretical perspective has had considerable staying
power and is evident albeit in altered form in the work of many contemporary scholars
(Deustch, 1967; Hernstein & Murray, 1994; Hess & Shipman, 1965; Jensen, 1969;
Valencia, 1997). Now accepted as conventional wisdom, various permutations of
social and personal disorganization are invoked by the press and repeated by ordinary
citizens and public officials as well (Brimelow, 1996; Klinker & Smith, 1999, p. 163,
164; Huntington, 1996; Kotkin, 1993). Reminiscent of theories promoted during the
period of scientific racism, they have sometimes been used to justify a policy of
 Urban Education in North America 767

“benign neglect.” Thenhen as now, when analyzing the lack of progress of African
Americans and other unassimilable groups of immigrants, some public officials have
assigned greater weight to theories of cultural deficit and social pathology than to
racism and structural barriers. And depending on the political mood, public officials
have invoked these theories to justify cuts in funding for social programs or alternately
to develop programs – such as Headstart, Upward Bound, Talent Search.
Versions of this theory underpin Ruby Payne’s aha! Process, one of the most exten-
sive and successful professional development programs for teachers, currently mar-
keted to scores of school districts seeking to improve the achievement of African
American, Latino and other students from poor and working class backgrounds. Over
a million copies of Payne’s book A Framework for Understanding Poverty are in print.
And, in the past year, district leaders, undoubtedly feeling the pressure of No Child
Left Behind (NCLB) and looking for solutions, paid Ms. Payne’s organization to put
on slightly more than 1,000 workshops (Keller, 2006). Although Payne’s work has ran-
kled some academics, many practitioners find that the workshops help them under-
stand and work better with poor urban students. “It is the most powerful thing to me
that you can give a teacher who has not really worked in an urban setting. It brings into
focus the kids they are serving,” says Ms. Elder, a Black principal in Hamilton County,
Tennessee who has used it with her teachers. Six years ago, her Chattanooga elemen-
tary school was one of the lowest performing in the State, but now her students, the
majority Black, have shown the greatest improvement on state tests than any other
school in Tennessee.
While chronicles of urban sociology typically begin with the Chicago School, this
accepted version overlooks the seminal work of W. E. B. DuBois, an African American
scholar, whose 1899 book, The Philadelphia Negro, written 20 years earlier, was the
first and one of the most comprehensive, rigorous, sophisticated studies of an urban
Black community ever produced. The Philadelphia Negro was also among the most
balanced works in terms of the emphasis placed on the problems internal to the Black
community that would require its response, “the duty of Negroes” to solve and those
external to the Black community, “the duty whites,” (pp. 394–395) that would need
attention from the white community.
DuBois argued that the problems facing Philadelphia’s Blacks were not because of
their supposed racial proclivities, but stemmed from what he called “color prejudice,”
the way they had been treated in the past and were still treated. In order to make this
claim tangible, he provided categories of this treatment with several examples under
each category (DuBois, 1899, pp. 385–397)2:

… color prejudice in this city is something between these two extreme views: it is
not to-day responsible for all, or perhaps the greater part of the Negro problems,
or of the disabilities under which the race labors; on the other hand it is a far more
powerful social force than most Philadelphians realize. The practical results of the
attitude of most of the inhabitants of Philadelphia toward persons of Negro descent
are as follows:
… 2. As to keeping work: Whim and accident will cause him to lose a hard-
earned place more quickly than the same things would affect a white man.
768 Foster

Being few in number compared with the whites the crime or carelessness of a
few of his race is easily imputed to all, and the reputations of the good, industri-
ous and reliable suffer thereby.
… 4. As to his expenditure: He must pay more house-rent for worse houses
than most white people pay …
… 5. As to his children: The Negro finds it extremely difficult to rear children
in such an atmosphere and not have them either cringing or impudent: if he
impresses upon them patience with their lot, they may grow up satisfied with
their condition; if he inspires them with ambition to rise, they may grow to
despise their own people, hate the whites and become embittered with the world.
His children are discriminated against, often in public schools.
… 7. The result: Any one of these things happening now and then would not be
remarkable or call for especial comment; but when one group of people suffer all
these little differences of treatment and discriminations and insults continually,
the result is either discouragement, or bitterness, or over-sensitiveness, or reck-
lessness. And a people feeling thus cannot do their best. To be sure a colored man
to-day can walk the street of Philadelphia without personal insult; he can go to
theaters, parks and some places of amusement without meeting more than stares
and discourtesy; he can be accommodated at most hotels and restaurants,
although his treatment in some would not be pleasant. All this is a vast advance
and augurs much for the future. And yet all that has been said of the remaining
discrimination is but too true … .

The Philadelphia Negro was written more than 100 years ago, yet many of the related
issues are still in play. First, although more scholars of color hold faculty positions than
during DuBois’s time, the tendency to ignore research that does not fit into the dominant
paradigm and to dismiss and marginalize the scholarly work of faculty of color persists
(Bernal & Villalpando, 2005; Foster, 1999, 2005). And, the problems that DuBois exam-
ined in 1899 hold sway American contemporary life. Take housing and education, for
example. African American and Latinos have much lower levels of home ownership than
whites, one in two compared to three out of four. Moreover, even though the percentages
of African Americans and Latinos owning homes is higher than it was 38 years ago, the
gap between whites and non-whites home ownership has actually increased. African
Americans and Latinos are more likely to encounter discrimination in securing housing
– renting and purchasing – including being steered away from certain areas and con-
fronting lending practices that create barriers to home ownership. African Americans and
Latinos are twice as likely as similarly qualified whites to be offered higher cost loans or
rejected for mortgages than whites. And African Americans are far less likely than other
persons of color to live in integrated neighborhoods. One result is that the median home
equity of whites is 51% higher than that of Latinos and 33% higher than that of African
Americans. African Americans and Latinos are still more likely to attend schools that are
under-funded, lacking both in material and human resources, are more likely not to be
placed in AP classes, assigned to special education and less likely to graduate.
Indirectly, the North American section of the Handbook addresses the tendency to
devalue and marginalize the work of scholars of color. Not only is the work of scholars
 Urban Education in North America 769

of color well represented, taken up, considered, and examined,in all of the chapters, but
more than half (8) of the 17 authors are scholars of color.
The first two chapters of this section of the Handbook take up the issues of defini-
tion, and examine how different theoretical perspectives are advanced to explain edu-
cational problems in urban areas in North America and the particular solutions these
perspectives engender. In “Imagining the Urban: The Politics of Race, Class, and
Schooling” Leonardo and Hunter explore some of the multiple and contradictory
meanings, representations, perceptions of “urban.” Specifically, they examine three
meanings of urban: as urbane that is as cosmopolitan, cultured, stylish, and refined
spaces3; as authentic spaces where, by developing their own social and symbolic forms,
communities of color have forged collective identities and accumulated the capacity
required to resist subordination4; and as a “jungle,” a space where pathology, community,
social, and personal disorganization are normative. In the second chapter, “Persuasive,
Pervasive, and Limiting: How Causal Explanations Shape Urban Educational Research
and Practice,” Flessa and Ketelle, analyze four of the most common explanations for
the failure of urban schools and illustrate how these perspectives “generate alternate
and often contradictory solutions.” They contend that the explanations and correspon-
ding solutions emphasize remedies that are either external to the school and therefore
not ameliorable by the actors themselves or internal to the schools and entirely rectified
by the actors. Like the first chapter, this one emphasizes the intricacies, reminding us
that complex situations require multi-pronged solutions and that to solve them we must
heed Mencken’s warning, “There is always an easy solution to every human problem
that is simple, neat, and wrong” (Mencken, 1917, p. 158).
As noted earlier, some of the ideas formulated by scholars of the Chicago School
have not been as stable. One in particular – the development pattern that all major
cities were expected to take – originally advanced by Burgess, has been challenged.
Burgess hypothesized zones of concentric circles with the business quarter located in
the center, the slums, also known as transition areas, abutting the central area, worker’s
homes built further from the center, residential areas established in the next zone and
the middle-class sections built furthest away from the business core (Burgess, 1964,
1967; Suttles, 1968; Wirth, 1928; Zorbaugh, 1929).
Not only have recent patterns of development in cities and surrounding suburbs
revealed flaws in this theory, recent scholarship points out that even when the theory was
first proposed, there were numerous cases where the pattern did not align with the theory
(Wiese, 2004). Conventional images of suburbs are of communities composed primarily
of middle-class inhabitants in which African Americans have made their homes only
recently. These stereotypes, notwithstanding, the historical and sociological record indi-
cates that African Americans have lived in suburban communities since the late nineteenth
century. Prior to World War II African Americans were living in suburban enclaves in all
regions of the country, a phenomenon more prevalent in the south (Wiese, 2004). A seg-
ment of African Americans who migrated to northern and western regions of the country
after World War II also settled in suburban communities. Waves of gentrification have
pushed greater numbers of people of color into outlying neighborhoods or suburbs ring-
ing the city. This situation of people of color living outside of the central zone is similar to
the pattern in some European cities, France for example, where the inner city is where the
770 Foster

most affluent people live and the outlying areas, the “banlieues,” are associated with crime
and poverty. In October 2005, young people in a Paris banlieue clashed with police.
Lasting approximately three weeks, the unrest spread to other cities throughout France.
In four states, Texas (50.2%), California (56%), Hawaii (77%), and New Mexico
(57%),together with the District of Columbia (70%), people of color make up the
majority of the population. In five other states – Maryland, Georgia, New York, and
Arizona – people of color comprise more than 40% of the population. Patterns of diver-
sity, however, vary by region, state, and county. Large populations of Latinos, Asian
Americans, Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders
are found in western and southwestern states, counties, and cities, whereas African
Americans tend to be located in eastern, southern and Midwestern states, counties and
cities. In absolute numbers, California has the largest Latino population, the largest
numerical increase in population, the largest population and greatest growth in Los
Angeles, while New Mexico has the greatest percentage of Latinos.5 California and Los
Angeles County also have the largest population, the largest numerical increase of
Asian Americans with Hawaii the state where Asians make up the greatest percentage.6
Large numbers of American Indians and Alaska Natives reside in California with the
largest increase in Arizona and the largest percentage in Alaska. Hawaii is home to the
largest number and percentage of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders with
California and Clark County, Nevada (Las Vegas) showing the greatest growth.7 Of the
states, New York had the largest African American population, Florida the greatest
numerical increase with the largest percentage of African Americans living in the
District of Columbia. At the county level, Cook County, Illinois had the largest popula-
tion of African Americans with the greatest growth in Broward County, Florida.8
Non-European immigrants gravitate to states that already have large populations of
people of color, seven states in particular, California, New York, Florida, Texas,
Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Illinois. However, migration patterns are also in flux
with the result that more immigrants are settling in communities and states that were
not typically the recipient of large numbers of immigrant families and children.
Between 1990 and 2000 there was an increase of 54.7% in the percentage of the pop-
ulation born outside of the United States with many of the largest increases occurring
in states that had not previously had large numbers of residents born outside of the
United States. Southern states and mid-western states have experienced significant
increases in the number of residents born in other countries. North Carolina, Georgia,
Tennessee, Arkansas, South Carolina, Mississippi, Kentucky, and Alabama had
increases of between 273.7 and 95.8%, the largest increase in North Carolina where
the immigrant population has almost tripled since 1990. With increases of between
121.7 and 97.9%, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Idaho, Kansas, Indiana, Oklahoma have
also received significantly larger shares of immigrants moving to the region.
Because they serve as entry points to the United States for immigrants and also
because large numbers of people relocate there from other US regions, some cities,
like Miami, not only are comprised primarily by people of color, they are cultural
mosaics. Heavily influenced by people from Latin American and the Caribbean,
Miami’s racial makeup of the city was 66.6% White, 22% African American, 22.3%
Native American, 0.2% Asian, 0.7% Pacific Islander, 5.4% from other races, and 4.7%
 Urban Education in North America 771

from two or more races. Almost 69.5% of the population are Latino of any race and
12% of the population are non-Hispanic whites. The ethnic makeup of the city is 34.1%
Cuban, 22.3% African American, 5.6% Nicaraguan, 5.0% Haitian, and 3.3% Honduran.
Slightly more than 74% (74.6) of the population over five speaks a language other than
English at home.
Canada has also experienced a change in the ethnic backgrounds of those who have
immigrated since 1990 with more people from Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the
Middle East, Africa, and Central and South America. The proportion of what Canada
terms “visible minorities” increased substantially between 1981 and 2001. In 1981, the
percentage of visible minorities in Canada overall was 5%, in Toronto 13%. By 2001,
the percentage of visible minorities in Canada overall was 12%, the largest at 42.8% in
the city of Toronto, with the largest groups being South Asians, Chinese, and Blacks
(Canada Year Book, 2001). In 2004, the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) ranked Miami first in terms of percentage of residents born outside of the
country where it is located (59.5%), followed by Toronto (43%).
The second part of this section of the Handbook examines the experiences of chil-
dren of color in North American communities and schools. The first chapter by Lisa
Konczal presents a comprehensive demographic section describing immigrant settle-
ment patterns in both the United States and Canada and several case studies that deal
with Chinese immigrants in Canada, Mexican immigrants in California; and both
Haitian and Cuban immigrants in Miami. In the second chapter, James and Saul explore
the experiences of students of color who reside in Toronto’s suburbs. Comparing the inner
and outer ring suburbs the authors examine the social, cultural, and economic conditions
under which students live, their experiences in school, and the contrasting challenges
students confront in negotiating these suburban spaces.9
Another approach to getting at the meaning of urban is one that considers the rela-
tionship between a geographical area and population density. The US Census Bureau
(2005) defines an urban area as: “Core census block groups or blocks that have a popula-
tion density of at least 1,000 people per square mile (386 per square kilometer) and sur-
rounding census blocks that have an overall density of at least 500 people per square
mile (193 per square kilometer).” Simply put, an urban area is a geographical area that
is densely populated in comparison to areas around. The US Census Bureau has cre-
ated two different categories of urban geographical areas. Urbanized areas, first delin-
eated in the 1950 census, are geographical areas of 50,000 or more. Urban clusters,
consisting of geographical areas of under 50,000 were not added until 50 years later.
The US Census Bureaus lists 1,371 geographical areas – urbanized area or urban clus-
ters with populations greater than 10,000 people.10 In North America, there are 13 cities
with populations of 1 million or more inhabitants; nine located in the United States –
New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, San
Antonio, Dallas, four in Canada – the largest Toronto, in Ontario, followed by Montreal
in Quebec, Vancouver in British Columbia, and Ottawa in Ontario.11 In some instances
large cities also have large urban school districts, but this is not always the case because
in many cases the city and school district are not co-terminus with the result that the
city can be large, but composed of several school districts as the case with Phoenix or
Atlanta that contains several school districts. Conversely, the city may not be one of the
772 Foster

largest, but part of a county school district as Charlotte, that is part of the Charlotte
Mecklenburg School District. With a population of almost one and half million,
Phoenix is the sixth largest US city, but the city contains at least three school districts
ranked between 224 and 244 in size that each contains fewer than 30,000 students.
With fewer than 500,000 residents, Atlanta ranks 42nd in population, but its two
school districts, Fulton County and Atlanta City rank 49th and 67th, respectively. With
758,927 inhabitants in 2000, Charlotte ranks 47th in terms of population, but as part of
the Charlotte-Mecklenburg County School District, it ranks 25th in size, a larger
school district than Austin, 16th in terms of population, but 38th in size of its school
district.
Organizations and governmental units offer other useful ways of defining urban.
By way of example, The Council of Great City Schools (CGSC) is an organization of 66
of the largest schools US districts. To be eligible for membership school districts need
not be exceptionally large, but must be located in a city with a population of over 250,000
and with student enrollment of over 35,000. According to the CGSC, school districts
with general urban characteristics located in the largest city of any state are also eligible
for membership regardless of size. Because it is a member organization, not all of the eli-
gible school systems are members. Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Richmond, VA, Oklahoma
City and Tucson, AZ are members, but Fulton County in Atlanta, GA, Virginia Beach, VA,
Tulsa, OK and no school district in Phoenix belong even though they are all eligible.
Employing the CGSC definition of urban, however, leaves out several districts that
have urban characteristics, but don’t qualify mainly because of size. The West Contra
Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD), 152nd in size, located in the East Bay area of
the San Francisco Bay Area that includes the City of Richmond and several smaller sur-
rounding incorporated and unincorporated communities is a case in point.12 According to
2002 census data, the City of Richmond has a diverse population of approximately
103,000 residents and 34,000 students in the WCCUSD.13 Although some of the commu-
nities served by WCCUSD are mostly middle-class, others are more heterogeneous in
terms of social class while others are beset by many problems that are extant in large
urban communities. In 2005, Richmond surpassed Compton statistically as the most
dangerous city in the California. Approximately 16% of the population and 13% of
families were below the poverty line with 23.1% of those under the age of 18 living
below the poverty line. Of the approximately 34,000 students enrolled in grades K-12
in WCCUSD, 36% are Latino, 29% African American, 11% Asian, 15% Caucasian, and
10% other. Fifteen percent are enrolled in Special Education, 2% are homeless and 29%
English Language Learners. Given this community and school district profile, it isn’t
surprising that the overall achievement of WCCUSD students is poor.
Another case to consider is Madison, Wisconsin. The state capital and home to one the
nation’s most prestigious public universities, Madison with a population of 329,533 it is
the 95th largest urban area. With approximately 25,000 students, Madison’s school dis-
trict ranks 242nd in terms of size. As a progressive university, Madison is not beset by the
same problems as Richmond, CA. Indeed, Madison has what is considered to be one of
the best school systems in Wisconsin. However, although it is considered among the best
in the state, like school districts in many other liberal communities or progressive college
towns, as far as academic outcomes are concerned, it fails many of its students of color.
 Urban Education in North America 773

In a number of politically progressive multiracial communities, some located in col-

lege towns that boast of having an excellent school system, compared to other students
in the district African American students are underachieving, a problem many believe
is found only in urban schools where children are poor and often attend under-resourced
schools. The problem is widespread enough that several school districts have organized
themselves into a group called the Minority Student Achievement Network (MSAN) to
address this situation and to try to find and share solutions to reverse this pattern.14
This phenomenon, the pattern of underachieving African American students, is more
widespread than in communities that belong to the MSAN. A headline of an April 14,
2006 Washington Post article reads, “Fairfax Success Masks Gap for Black Students.”
The gist of the article was that Fairfax County School – incidentally one of the most
respected school districts in the country, its quality long known to draw families, a
community where nearly 90% of public school students go on to college or other post-
secondary education, a district with some of the highest SAT score in the United
States, 8.7% above the national average – was failing its African American students.
Not only was there an achievement gap between Fairfax County’s African American
and white students. But African American students in Fairfax County scored lower on
state standardized tests than African American students in Richmond and Norfolk,
Virginia both majority Black school systems as well as other comparatively poorer
Virginia districts.15 Moreover, although the relative poverty of African American students
residing in Fairfax is used to justify this pattern of underachievement, the percentage of
students qualifying for free and reduced lunch in Fairfax County is 43%, doesn’t explain
why Fairfax County’s African American students score lower than Richmond’s which have
a free and reduced lunch rate of 69%.
Another method of classifying school districts as urban emanates from the New
Jersey Supreme Court’s ruling in the Abbott Case that found that the education pro-
vided to urban school children was inadequate and unconstitutional. The court lim-
ited the remedies16 to a class of school districts identified as “poorer urban
districts” or “special needs districts,” known as “Abbott districts,” with specific fac-
tors used to determine which districts were eligible for this status. These criteria
included:
(1) Being classified as urban by the Department of Education;
(2) Having the lowest socioeconomic status, as measured by the categories on the
New Jersey Department of Education’s District Factor Groups (DFG) scale;
(3) Showing “evidence of substantive failure of thorough and efficient education”;
including “failure to achieve what the DOE considers passing levels of per-
formance on the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA)”;
(4) Having a large percentage of disadvantaged students who need “an education
beyond the norm”;
(5) Having an “excessive tax [for] municipal services” in the locality where the dis-
trict is located; and
(6) Having a large percentage of students of color.
Using these criteria, 28 districts were originally classified as Abbott districts, which
later, rose to 30.17
774 Foster

Whether any of these definitions are useful for distinguishing among various kinds
of schools, there are some who believe that urban schools have particular characteris-
tics that distinguish them from other schools. In her book, Urban Teaching: The
Essentials, Weiner lists some of the characteristics she believes distinguish urban
schools from others. She maintains that urban schools are those marked by three fac-
tors. First, these schools are part of large school systems, with large impersonal
bureaucracies that are removed from the communities they serve. Second, the schools
are also poorly funded, overcrowded, and lack the necessary material, human and time
resources required to do a competent job. Finally, these schools are responsible for
educating a group of very diverse students from many ethnic, religious, and socioeco-
nomic backgrounds. Weiner notes that since the extent and configuration of these three
factors varies, schools differ in the degree of “urbanness” with which they must con-
tend. It is this variation, according to Weiner, that explains the fact that some public
schools in large bureaucratic school systems such as New York function much more
like suburban schools. Assuming that Weiner is correct, this might partially explain
why the school systems that participate in the Minority Student Achievement Network
are not adequately providing African American and Latino students with an education
comparable to that provided the majority white student population. Perhaps the prob-
lem in Madison, Wisconsin, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Ann Arbor, Michigan,
Fairfax County and Shaker Heights is not the large bureaucratic system and lack of
resources, as much as the school system’s inability to teach students from widely vary-
ing backgrounds well, the disconnection of these suburban-like schools from the com-
munities of color they serve, and the lack of trust among the various constituencies that
must work together to insure that the practices undertaken in schools actually lead to
improved academic achievement.
In their recent widely acclaimed book, Trust in Schools: A core resource for improve-
ment, Bryk and Schneider (2002) examine the issue of trust in schools and ask the ques-
tion how public schools can overcome the lack of confidence, cynicism, and suspicion
extant in many poor urban school and manifested in the day-to-day interactions between
parents and the schools. In a multi-year study that included periodic surveys of teachers
and principals conducted in the 1990s, Bryk and Schneider set out to measure levels of
trust at Chicago-area elementary schools. What they learned was that educators working
at the schools in the top quartile reported much higher degrees of trust than their col-
leagues at lower performing schools. Schools with low levels of trust had a one-in-seven
chance of improving student achievement in reading and math, while schools with higher
levels of trust had a one-in-two chance of improvement. Bryk and Schneider argue that
trust is a necessary but insufficient condition to improving schools because it lessens
feelings of vulnerability, increases the likelihood of experimenting with new practices,
promotes accountability and a shared attachment to the school and its vision.
Despite the attention Bryk and Schneider’s work has received, they are not the first or
the only scholars to discuss the importance of trusting relationships to improving schools
and student achievement. In 1989, 13 years before Bryk and Schneider’s book, the
Committee on Policy for Racial Justice at the Joint Center for Political Studies, a
Washington DC think tank that conducts research on a broad range of public policy
issues of special concern to African Americans and other communities of color, wrote a
 Urban Education in North America 775

slim volume entitled Visions of a Better Way: A Black Appraisal of Public Schooling.
Likewise, several other scholars and many scholars of color have also addressed the crit-
ical issue of trust between teacher and student as vital to improved student achievement.
The next set of papers engages and expands many of the issues just discussed. In a
chapter entitled Urban School Reform: To What End? Lytle reviews 50 years of urban
school reform efforts that have culminated in the current No Child Left Behind (NCLB)
legislation that emphasizes standards, high stakes assessment, sanctions for poor per-
formance, competition, required use of research-based strategies and methods. His
chapter establishes that these were all part of the urban school reform agenda before the
actual passage of NCLB. In the next chapter, Success Stories in Urban Education:
A Critical Look at the Ethic of Care in Programs, Projects and Strategies that work from
the classroom to community, Peele-Eady and her co-authors argue that the most suc-
cessful program for urban students are those where learning settings organized to be
culturally and personally relevant in which trusting relationships with caring adults are
crucial, and a caring ideology that purposefully supports students’ view of themselves
as capable, valuable, and contributing members of the learning environment. These pro-
grams emphasize teaching and learning and provide students with the material and
human resources they need to be successful. In the last chapter, A Vision of Urban
Educational Evaluation, Hopson and his co-authors build on the theme of respect and
argue for an approach to evaluation that is culturally respectful and responsive. Echoing
themes in the first two chapters, this vision of evaluation rejects punishing and grading
schools instead embracing approaches that will enable schools to become centers of
excellence that engender hope, opportunity, and transformation.
In reading these chapters, it is critical to be mindful not only of the promise of urban
education but of its limitations, unless hard policy decisions are made to insure its via-
bility and success. If anything threatens urban education it is continuing the long-term
neglect it has suffered, the danger of forgetting that education is intrinsically a social
enterprise. Even when they adopt a pessimistic tone, taken together, these chapters
remain cautiously optimistic.

Notes
1. In the 1960s, my grandfather always used to refer to urban removal as “Negro removal.” Although I
heard others in the African American community use this term as well, I never saw this term in print
until I encountered the book, Places of Their Own: African American Suburbanization in the Twentieth
Century, by Andrew Wiese (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004). On page 107, Wiese writes
that the abuses or urban removal as “Negro removal” have been well documented in cities, but not as
well documented in suburbs even though it also occurred in the suburbs. In support of his claim, he
cites 3 authors, 2 who have written about the process in cities and 1 who has documented the process
in the suburbs. The 2 authors who have documented this process in cities include Mathew Edel,
“Planning, Market or Warfare: Recent Land Use Conflict in American Cities,” in Readings in Urban
Economics, ed. Mathew Edel and Jerome Rothenberg (New York, 1972); also Marc A. Weiss, “The
Origins and Legacy of Urban Renewal,” in Federal Housing Policy and Programs, Past and Present,
ed. J. Paul Mitchell (New Brunswick, NJ, 1985), 253–76.
2. DuBois provided six categories of Black’s experience with “color prejudice” and a seventh category
describing the result These included (1) As to getting work; (2) As to keeping work; (3) As to entering new
lines of work; (4) As to his expenditure; (5) As to his children; (6) As to social intercourse; (7) The result.
776 Foster

3. Urban can refer to the greater availability of cultural resources (such as art, theatre, events, etc.) as
compared to suburban or rural areas.
4. In North America “urban” is often used to refer to hip hop culture or subsets of black culture. In Black
Metropolis Drake and Cayton ([1945], 1993) have described the evolution of the Negro community in
Chicago as a growing population that gradually developed a business and professional class and its
own community institutions. In the 1880s Negroes had ethnic dualism regarding themselves as part of
a larger community and maintaining connection with those in power. After 1900 Negroes lost their
sense of interrelatedness between black and white Chicago and put an emphasis on self-reliance and
development of power within the Negro community.
5. Hispanics (may be of any race) – California had the largest Hispanic population in July 2004 (12.4
million) and the largest numerical increase (351,000) since July 2003; New Mexico was the state
where Hispanics comprised the highest proportion of the total population (43%). Los Angeles County,
Calif., had the largest Hispanic population (4.6 million) in 2004 and the biggest numerical increase
(76,400) since July 2003 (US Census Bureau Fact Sheet, 2002).
6. Asians – California had both the largest Asian population (4.8 million) in July 2004 and the largest numer-
ical increase (123,000) since July 2003; Hawaii was the state where Asians made up the highest proportion
of the total population (58%). Los Angeles County, Calif., had the largest Asian population (1.4 million)
and the largest numerical increase (25,200) from 2003 to 2004 (US Census Bureau Fact Sheet, 2002).
7. Native Hawaiians and other Pacific islanders (NHPI) – Hawaii had the largest population of NHPI
(279,700); California, the largest numerical increase (3,400) since July 2003; Hawaii also was where
NHPI made up the largest proportion (22%) of the total population. Honolulu County, Hawaii, had the
largest population of NHPI (183,200); and Clark County, Nev., registered the largest numerical
increase (1,100) between 2003 and 2004 (US Census Bureau Fact Sheet, 2002).
8. Blacks – New York had the largest black population in July 2004 (3.5 million); Florida had the largest
numerical increase (85,900) since July 2003. The District of Columbia was where blacks comprised the
highest proportion of the total population (59%) (US Census Bureau Fact Sheet, 2002).
Cook County, Ill., had the largest black population (1.4 million); and Broward County, FL, had the
largest numerical increase (17,900) between 2003 and 2004.
9. In 1998, Toronto amalgamated and incorporated many former municipalities into the City. Some are
inner suburbs – older areas, former street car suburbs that are highly ethnically diverse with housing
stock that is made up of pre-war single-family houses and post-war high-rises consisting of low and
government subsidized housing. Others are outer ring suburbs, appear much more suburban in char-
acter with a preponderance of single-family two-car garage residences comprising the housing stock.
10. Of the 1,371 areas designated either as urban areas or urban clusters, 453 of them are urban areas with
the rest classified as urban clusters.
11. The nine US cities with populations of 1 million or more inhabitants in order of size include: New York
(8,104,079), Los Angeles (3,845,541), Chicago (2,862,244), Houston (2,012,626), Philadelphia
(1,470,151), Phoenix (1,418,041), San Diego (1,263,756), San Antonio (1,236,249) and Dallas
(1,210,393). The four Canadian cities with populations of 1 million or more inhabitants include:
Toronto (4,263,000), Montréal (3, 327,000) Vancouver (1,832,000) and Ottawa (1,010,000). The
remaining 41 largest US cities range in population between approximately 904,000 and 359,000.
12. In addition to the City of Richmond, WCCUSD serves the cities of Hercules, Pinole, El Cerrito, and
San Pablo, and the unincorporated areas of El Sobrante, Kensington, Montalvin, North Richmond, and
Tara Hills. Eighty languages are represented in the 110 square mile district.
13. The racial makeup of Richmond was 31.36% White, 36.06% African American, 0.64% Native
American, 12.29% Asian, 0.50% Pacific Islander, 13.86% from other races, and 5.27% from two or
more races. 26.53% of the population were Latinos of any race.
14. Twenty-five school districts comprise the coalition. College towns such as Amherst, MA, Cambridge, MA,
Madison, WI Ann Arbor, MI, Evanston, IL Berkeley, CA, Champaign, IL, Eugene, OR, Columbia, MO,
Princeton, NJ and Chapel Hill, NC, as well as other towns such as Brookline, MA, Oak Park, IL, Arlington,
VA, Montclair, NJ, Cherry Hill, NJ, Windsor, CT and Shaker Heights, OH participate in the MSAN.
15. In Fairfax County, 59% of African American students passed the state reading test compared to 74% in
Richmond and 71% in Norfolk. In math Fairfax County’s African American students performed better with
a 75% pass rate. However, by comparison 86% of their peers in Richmond and 82% in Norfolk passed.
 Urban Education in North America 777

16. Under the court decision, the State was to assure that children residing in Abbott districts received an
adequate – and constitutional – education. The remedy encompassed a set of programs and reforms
that included standards-based education, parity funding; supplemental programs; preschool education;
and school facilities improvements.
17. The following school districts are currently identified as Abbott Districts Asbury Park, Bridgeton,
Burlington City, Camden, East Orange, Elizabeth, Garfield, Gloucester City, Harrison, Hoboken,
Irvington, Jersey City, Keansburg, Long Branch, Millville, Neptune Township, New Brunswick,
Newark, Orange, Passaic, Paterson, Pemberton Township, Perth Amboy, Phillipsburg, Plainfield,
Pleasantville, Trenton, Union City, Vineland, West New York.

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41

IMAGINING THE URBAN: THE POLITICS

OF RACE, CLASS, AND SCHOOLING

Zeus Leonardo* and Margaret Hunter†

*University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A.;
†
Mills College, U.S.A.

Introduction to the Dialectics of the Urban

In the social sciences, there is no paucity of studies about the urban as a “real” place.
To take a few examples, in Massey and Denton’s (1993) American Apartheid, the
ghetto receives plenty of attention, as a historical process whereby Blacks suffer from
Whites’ deliberate construction of housing segregation at the turn of the twentieth
Century. In Anyon’s (1997) own analysis of the ghetto, she traces its origins in the
political economy and the school systems it produces. Massey and Denton, and
Anyon’s sociological accounts have helped scholars and educators understand the
“urban” (particularly the ghetto)1 as a concrete place, whose racial and economic for-
mation is material. In this essay, we discuss how “urban reality” is as much an imag-
ined, in addition to a real, place (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). That is, the urban is
socially and discursively constructed as a place, which is part of the dialectical cre-
ation of the urban as both a real and imagined space. The urban is real insofar as it is
demarcated by zones, neighborhoods, and policies. However, it is imagined to the
extent that it is replete with meaning, much of which contains contradictions as to
exactly what the urban signifies. For instance, there are urban communities that are
“positively” urban like the “Upper East Side” of Manhattan, New York, but not Harlem
or the South Bronx; Santa Monica and West Hollywood, California but not Compton
or Echo Park. In other words, in light of power relations, urban may signify the hall-
mark of civilization and the advances it offers, or a burden and problem of progress.
The urban setting is a dialectical example of the process of modernization. For some
people, it represents an outlet for entertainment and a venue for a sophisticated life,
whereas for others the urban seems like an inescapable cul-de-sac of poverty and daily
degradation. By examining the mediatized and dominant ways of representing the
urban, we arrive at the “social imagineers” (Giroux, 1999) of the urban as both a bless-
ing and a burden. However, this essay is not an urban planning paper, but a sociologi-
cal analysis of daily life as it concerns the urban as an imagined and educative place.
779
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 779–802.
© 2007 Springer.
780 Leonardo and Hunter

Thus, it hinges less on formal processes, like housing policies, and more on the infor-
mal process of meaning-making, of signifying the urban through a chain of images and
discourses, which are themselves constitutive of the education one finds in urban set-
tings. It is not a study of ideology as divorced from the material process (Leonardo,
2003). Rather, it is a search for a proper relation between ideology and material life,
two processes that are dialectically linked instead of opposed. Last, it does not propose
a spatial theory of the urban context, but a theory of the urban imagination.
The discussion shares some affinities with Robin Kelley’s (1998) treatment of the
social science wars over representing the ghetto through structural or cultural theories,
both of which are tethered by the construction of the ghetto as home to a monolithic
and debased underclass culture. Kelley favors a political engagement of the aesthetics
of the ghetto, arguing that its music and daily lifestyles are a source of pleasure for its
participants. To Kelley, the cultural wars have taken “playing dozens,” or hurling
insults as a form of entertainment, to a whole new level that forgets its playfulness and
only deploys insults at the urban and the people who live in it. We go a long way with
Kelley but part from him in our emphasis on the structural, rather than aesthetical,
aspects of the urban as these find their expression through contradictory meanings.
This method has several advantages, including a nuanced look at racialized, commod-
ified, and gendered meanings attached to the urban in popular and youth culture, and
the social relations that both create and are created from such meanings.
As an imagined space, the urban is constructed through multiple and often contra-
dicting meanings. These meanings are sites of contestation as to what the urban signi-
fies in people’s imagination. Consequently, the imagined aspect of the urban setting
affects urban education because it socially and culturally constructs the people who live
in it as well as their needs. Urban dwellers and their “nature” are not a given and must
be mediated through systems of meaning, competing discourses, and ideologies. We
find that the urban has been constructed in three powerful ways: as a sophisticated
space, an authentic place of identity, and a disorganized “jungle.” In order to avoid pre-
senting the urban through a binary as essentially either a “positive” or “negative” place,
we take a critical, dialectical position on the social meanings that constitute the urban
for their traces of power relations, specifically with respect to race and class structures.
In short, the four following sections problematize and critically examine the everyday
meanings of the urban. In the first section, “The Sophisticated Urban Space,” we ana-
lyze the representation of the urban as a sophisticated space where modernism
expresses its advances in civil society through art and culture. In this case, being urban
is a sign of being modern, of civilization itself. It is a reminder of what Matthew Arnold
once called the best that Culture in all its grandeur has to offer. In the second section,
“Urban Space and the Politics of Authenticity,” we argue that urban (often ghetto)
spaces are constructed as authentic places of identity for people of color. Both Whites
and people of color construct the “essential” or “real” person of color as urban, usually
born from the concrete activities and histories of the urban but also a form of style or
the self-(re)presentation of minority youth one often finds in inner city schools.
In the third section, simply titled “The Urban Jungle,” we analyze the popular cul-
tural perception of the ghetto as a pathological place marked by a profound disorgani-
zation, criminal character, and moral malaise. In this most popular and durable
 The Politics of Race, Class, and Schooling 781

representation of the ghetto, images of the underclass shine through the lens of the cul-
ture of poverty argument first launched by Oscar Lewis (1968), reincarnated by
William Julius Wilson (1987), and appropriated by the educational system to address
the “urban problem,” which goes by the common label of the “achievement gap.” This
pejorative sounding section regarding the urban differs from the previous two sec-
tions that cast the urban as “positive.” Last, in “Social and Policy Implications for
Education: Re-imagining the Urban,” we make initial connections between the urban
imagination and educational policies targeting urban settings. We argue that daily con-
structions of the urban (particularly the poor or pejorative version) are consequential
to the way educators imagine the kind of schooling appropriate for urban students. We
end the essay by re-imagining the urban as a place of struggle over the very meaning
of race and class in the context of the United States.

The Sophisticated Urban Space

As part of modernization, the urban represents the advances achieved through tech-
nology (e.g., computer engineering and media), the complexity of metropolitan living
(e.g., contrapuntal lifestyles and cultural hybridization), and confrontation with differ-
ence (e.g., immigration and ethno-racial mixing). In fact, to be “urbane” is literally
defined as a positive thing, as in “to be sophisticated” or “refined.” Since the industrial
revolution, the urban setting has been constructed as a place where the future meets the
city, an idea that Voltaire was fond of and Rousseau despised. The urban represents the
forward progress of civilization both in terms of material production for Karl Marx
and cultural manners for Matthew Arnold. It was the way out of the constrictions of
medieval social systems towards the opening up of the social universe as well as cul-
tural universals. In short, homo urbano was the next development away from provin-
cialism, which is a stone’s throw from primitivism. On this level, the urban defines the
new social subject who is part of global development guided by the new civil society
and the state institutions that Hegel once valorized. In short, being urban is a positive
thing to be.
However, when we consider that urbanization occurs in the context of power rela-
tions, contradictions begin to surface. For example with respect to diversity, being
urban usually connotes supporting the “right amount” of ethnic and racial difference,
but not too much. Often tokenism stands in for real integration in order to preserve a
certain image of the urban as a controlled place of difference. Thus, during the Great
Migration in the U.S. the exodus of Blacks from the South to Northern urban centers
prompted Whites to contain them in ghettos, making integration all but a fantasy rather
than a reality. In this instance, urban carried a double-edged meaning for Blacks who
searched for better job opportunities only to find White labor resistance to their inte-
gration (Ignatiev, 1995; Roediger, 1991). Urban America became an opportunity struc-
ture for ethnic Whites, like the Irish, escaping religious and cultural persecution on
their own land. By choosing to be members of the White racial imaginary, oppressed
ethnic Europeans found their social promotion in the urban setting, edging out Blacks.
In the latter’s perspective, civil society was everything but civil.
782 Leonardo and Hunter

In schools today, controlling for difference is sometimes exemplified in American

colleges and universities’ desire to portray themselves as “diverse,” even if they aren’t,
of using the term “urban” without the burden. In fact, this deception was exposed
when the University of Wisconsin digitally inserted a Black male into one of its mar-
keting photos so that the university could project a particular image of itself for the
public; more important, it enabled the university to create the image it wanted of itself.
In short, some universities and teacher education programs use the signifier “urban” to
describe themselves in a way that seems diverse (and therefore sophisticated), without
having to bear the burden of difference. In this case, appropriating diversity or urban-
ism is a way of marketing a school or program as “cutting edge,” as dealing with
pluribus while only having to live with unum.
Of course, the point is less about policing these universities and creating alibis out of
particular campuses, and more about analyzing how the concept of “urban” is being
constructed in order to deploy a particular image – better yet, deploying power for par-
ticular ends. In other words, the analysis hinges less on casting aspersions about a
school’s desire for diversity and more on the contradictory meanings that result when it
is invoked. Our point is that the increasing value of the signifier “urban” in education
suggests that as the representation of diversity, urban people (read: students of color) are
being recast in a “positive” light. Directly related to the meaning of urban, racial diver-
sity is conscripted into a logic that co-opts it as a marker of cosmopolitanism, but with
neither the reality nor the burden. Educators who deal with the urban are constructed as
sophisticated, but the urban students and families themselves are not.
Currently, American K-12 urban schooling promotes the importance of diversity,
which is said to be good for education in general. In its authentic sense, diverse class-
rooms provide a setting where people from different backgrounds can debate an issue
from various perspectives and in the process learn about their own uniqueness (Banks,
2002). This seemed to be the logic behind the University of Michigan Affirmative
Action Supreme Court decision that supported racial considerations in admission
processes as well as the rationale behind maintaining affirmative action in education
in general. Rather than using the now problematic image of the melting pot, urban set-
tings have become the meeting point of civilization. It holds the promise of unity and
diversity. This does not come without challenges but it promotes the promise of inter-
generational, interracial, and international relations that the new global citizenship
offers in the urban setting.
Because of the popular misconception that multiculturalism is a positive tool for
students of color (see Glazer, 1997) or worse, as dividing the nation (Schlesinger,
1991), in urban settings the signifier “diverse” becomes a synonym for “students of
color.” It happens frequently enough that teachers describe their school with a mostly
Black or Latino student population as “diverse.” Often, they sincerely value such
“diversity.” Of course, a predominantly black or brown school is not diverse, but its
precise opposite, the hallmark of de facto segregated education. In this case, the mean-
ing of urban becomes grafted onto bodies of color, making diversity, urban, and peo-
ple of color coterminous with each other. Urban and multicultural schooling transform
into an education for students of color; rarely do teachers describe an equally White
suburban school as “diverse” or that multiculturalism or race-based pedagogies may
 The Politics of Race, Class, and Schooling 783

enrich their educational and social experience. Whites seldom regard multicultural
education as good for them, as a way to broaden their sense of civil society and expand
their notion of humanity, that is, unless being “multicultural” makes them appear open,
tolerant, and sophisticated. In contrast, many multiculturalists have argued that valu-
ing diversity entails basic education for all students, including Whites (Banks, 2005;
Nieto, 2003; Sleeter, 1995). When critical, it is a form of transformative education that
allows both Whites and students of color to know more deeply their own histories as
inflected by other groups’ struggles. This is urban sophistication in the inclusive sense,
rather than the property of some and a problem for others.
As part of being sophisticated, urban dwellers are often imagined as cosmopolitan,
open-minded and perhaps most important, progressive. This was evidenced precisely
in the 2004 U.S. presidential election when many New Yorkers and Los Angelenos
(both from coastal Democratic-controlled states) blamed Bush’s victory on the
Republican-controlled states in the middle of the country. This is reminiscent of the
national problems of racism typically blamed on Midwesterners or Southerners, who
pose as alibis for the country’s general and pervasive level of racism. In fact, coastal
(including urban) California has been at the forefront of the recent onslaught of racist
policies enacted against immigrants of color, such as Proposition 187 and 227, the for-
mer decreasing undocumented families’ medical and educational services and the lat-
ter attacking the legitimacy of bilingualism in schools and public places (which in
California means Spanish). Despite this onslaught to discredit public schools, they are
among the last institutions to leave the urban setting, watching the steady exodus of
businesses and hospitals flee towards capital and more profitable spaces (Noguera,
1996). In other words, U.S. urban schools bear the burden of progress, of educating
people’s children in the face of increased pressures for privatization.
On the same note, the high profile police brutality cases against people of color have
also been documented in urban Los Angeles and New York. We are not refuting the dif-
ference between Democratic and Republican strongholds. California and New York have
two of the largest urban cities in the country and are obviously Democratic, especially
when compared to other states. Although major urban settings may be racially problem-
atic, people of color have felt a sense of protection by virtue of living in them because
they recognize that difference is a fact of everyday life in these settings. In other words,
people of color see their faces reflected in everyday life, even when these images are
problematic. They are present and rarely silent. That said, the discourse during the 2004
presidential election forsakes a more accurate understanding of white supremacy that
goes beyond the rural-imagined Klan and Neo-Nazis, and implicates even liberal urban
Whites. That is, white supremacy is more about the centrality of white advantage from
which urban Whites do not escape and often actively deploy (Leonardo, 2002). Each
form of racism expresses its specific logic, traditional racism in rural settings and a more
“sophisticated” color-blind racism or tokenism in urban centers.
The urban has become a place for the White enjoyment of arts, music, and dining. In
many cities, middle class Whites may drive their Chevy Suburbans into poor urban
areas to valet park and attend the opera, symphony, or concerts but never have an “expe-
rience of color” despite being in a poor or black/brown area. For example, they may dis-
like Mexicans, resent them for “browning” California, and vote for Proposition 187,
784 Leonardo and Hunter

but they are avid lovers of their local Mexican restaurant and speak the occasional
Spanish food phrase. Angelenos may feel comfortable with Mexicans who provide the
bulk of cheap labor in the Southland, but curtail Mexican families’ access to social
services and basic education. These dynamics are exacerbated in multiracial urban
cities limiting access to high status knowledge and advanced courses in subjects like
math and science (Oakes, Joseph, & Muir, 2004).
In this sense, the meaning of urban becomes a site of consumption. Being urban is
consumed for a given amount of time, enjoyed, and then forgotten until the next excur-
sion. The urban resembles the colonies frequented by the colonists who never feel out
of place, never not in charge (Memmi, 1965). Like the colonist who is numerically out-
numbered in occupied areas, White and middle class people in the urban playground
do not feel conspicuous for long. Using the colonial framework, the urban becomes an
internal colony (Blauner, 1972; see also, Ladson-Billings, 1998), a cultural and mate-
rial condition that links cities as diverse as Soweto and the South Bronx. These spaces
are complete with a colonial-like educational system that treats the urban “natives” as
something to be assimilated, civilized, and converted. Real urban dwellers (not to be
confused with the stylized version of homo urbano) may not be constructed as sophis-
ticated, but through proper education, it is believed they can become modernized.
The urban is a heart of darkness for the internal colonist who enjoys it like Walter
Benjamin’s flaneur, or dandy-about-town. In the popular show, “Sex and the City,” the
White and well-to-do main cast lives the glamorous urban life that is Manhattan. As
petite sophisticates, these four flaneuses treat the audience to adventure after adven-
ture in their endless pit of a high-brow, but seductive lifestyle. Dressed to the hilt and
as cosmopolitan as their drink, the protagonists are a perfect display of the urban sex-
ual splendor at which even Freud may have blushed. Somehow, the show would not
have been as powerful were it named “Sex and the Rural Town,” taking place in small
town U.S.A. and premised on the sexual adventures of two farmers’ daughters,
although this did not prevent Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie from trying. “Sex and the
City” works precisely because of its urban allure, where exploits are part of the new
feminism after the sexual revolution. It does a marvelous job at showcasing the urban
crunch of time and space where meaningful relationships are equally as fleeting yet
fulfilling. It shows the level of emotional sophistication necessary when one-night
stands are reduced to thirty minutes. In the show, the sociology of sex hinges on the
characters’ ability to emerge from the urban landscape emotionally vulnerable but
rarely disheveled in their appearance. This is the urban-as-playground at its best and it
takes an emotionally savvy, sophisticated viewer to appreciate its excesses.
Arguably, New Orleans once posed as the southern urban playground. That is, until
Hurricane Katrina hit. Previously, it was the site of a carnivalesque celebration of dif-
ference during Mardi Gras, where an intersubjective heteroglossia would have made
someone like Bakhtin feel right at home. After Katrina, the urban carnival was aban-
doned and what was once a city by the sea became a city under it. In the dialectics of the
urban, New Orleans could not have experienced a more stark reversal. Amidst fields of
Black evacuees, the city was not only deemed a national disaster area, but abandoned by
what many consider a neglectful president whose reaction was faster during the Asian
tsunami that struck halfway across the globe. The disasters in New Orleans revealed the
 The Politics of Race, Class, and Schooling 785

urban once again as a problem for the poor and Black. The event holds pedagogical
lessons for students as they understand the burdens of being urban.
First, with the help of the Associated Press students learn that White victims “find”
food and drinks, whereas Blacks “loot” stores.2 Second, when the survivors trekked
from New Orleans to Houston, Texas for shelter and aid, former first lady Barbara
Bush commented that the relief efforts may create another problem insofar as the vic-
tims would want to remain in Houston due to the city’s hospitality. Inadvertently, stu-
dents learn that displaced poor people cannot tell the difference between the comforts
of their own home and the utter lack of decent conditions in the Texan holding centers,
notwithstanding the diligent assistance from relief volunteers. Instead of seizing the
opportunity to examine the social institutions that turned a natural disaster into a
social one, Barbara Bush expressed her fears that the evacuees in Houston would over-
stay their time in Texas due to the city’s overwhelming hospitality. In short, she fears
that the evacuees would turn the city of Houston into the wrong kind of urban, filled
with poor Blacks who need help. Mrs. Bush unwittingly became a symbol for what
Joyce King (2004a) calls “an uncritical habit of mind,” a certain “dysconsciousness”
that prevents people from seeing the social order of things. Third, despite the ostensi-
bly racial nature of the slow response, Black folks are again being told that, harking
back to the Rodney King videos, they are not seeing what they think they see with their
own eyes: that is, the response apparently was not racial here. In this instance, urban
means Black and poor, and in the context of post-Civil Rights race discourse both are
part of the life choices one makes. The whole saga prompted Reverend Jesse Jackson
to proclaim that Americans have a high threshold for Black people’s suffering. It prod-
ded the hip hop artist Kanye West to declare that President Bush does not care about
Black people. Luckily with this last point, and appropriating from Spivak (1988), stu-
dents also learn that the urban subaltern can speak, that they are able to “decipher
knowledge” in King’s (2004b) sense (following Foucault) of the ability to critique
regimes of knowledge and alter consciousness in search of an alternative explanation
for social events.

Urban Space and the Politics of Authenticity

Although Whites tend to imagine urban spaces as either sophisticated playgrounds or
dirty, violent ghettos, some people of color offer another way of imagining the ghetto,
as a home of authentic cultural practices. For many people of color, particularly
Latinos, African Americans, and some Asians, urban spaces are home; that is where
they grew up or live, where they return to visit family if they moved away, where they
go for ethnic-specific groceries or for their own ethnic restaurants, where they get their
hair done, or anything else. Because urban areas are home to so many people of color,
both literally and figuratively, there is an abundance of images of urban areas as
romantic, nurturing, accepting havens from a cold outside (read: suburban) world.
Many Black movies and television shows portray poor urban neighborhoods as
homey, familiar, nurturing environments, despite some of their dysfunctions or idio-
syncrasies. These counter-narratives suggest that despite the poverty and occasional
786 Leonardo and Hunter

violence or street crime, urban neighborhoods provide a home to those who live there.
These images are created in contrast to mainstream, White views of poor urban neigh-
borhoods as dangerous, violent, mean, and uncaring (Guerrero, 1993). Whites also
essentialize the ghetto as the place of “real” Blacks, Latinos, and Asian Americans
largely because the mainstay of their interaction with racial minorities comes in the
form of media consumption, of watching television shows and music videos about
them, and listening to rap or hip-hop songs. As the “reality” television show, “Black.
White.” points out very well, an archetype of the White urban imagination is that
Blacks are a rap video, complete with the accompanying expectations that they should
behave in such a manner. Without concrete, therefore varied, interactions with people
of color, Whites project their ideal image of Blacks, Latinos, and Asians as essentially
and one-dimensionally urban and espouse few counter, non-stereotypical images of
them. In schools, this means that a largely White, female teacher population is ill-
equipped to deal with urban students and their realities.
In addition to being portrayed as a loving environment, poor urban neighborhoods
are also imagined by some as the site of authentic cultural practices. The series of movies
that include “Barbershop” and “Beauty Shop,” for instance, centers on the Black hair
salon or Black barbershop. Both of these locations are uniquely Black and house not only
cultural interactions about hair, but ways of talking, interacting, and relating to one
another and the surrounding community in uniquely Black cultural ways. This series
of movies and other contemporary Black movies answer the existential question,
“What does it mean to be Black?” in problematic, yet predictable ways. For many
African Americans and other ethnic groups, authentic identity originates in poor, seg-
regated neighborhoods. Real Blacks reside there and they act, talk, and behave in legit-
imately Black ways. When they do not follow these prescriptions, their authenticity is
questioned. This is ultimately what Fordham (1988, 1996) finds in her studies on
“racelessness,” where Blacks who achieve in schools are perceived as “acting White”
(read: not urban, not authentic).
Authentic cultural practices are thought to abound in urban neighborhoods. For
many Latinos, the ability to speak Spanish is crucial in urban areas where more recent
immigrants are likely to be living (Lopez, 1997). Many people imagine that the food
served in Mexican restaurants in East Los Angeles is more authentic than that sold in
whiter parts of the city or the suburbs. Likewise, many Asians must travel to their own
urban ethnic enclaves – sometimes also poor – to buy the grocery items that they need
to cook the meals specific to their culture. This reality reinforces the notion that authen-
tic language practices and food reside in urban spaces. Like Blacks, Latino students also
face the challenges of essentialism when they do not speak Spanish and are branded as
inauthentic, marginalized from the community, yet are not accepted because of a more
general xenophobia in mainstream White culture (see Suarez-Orozco, Suarez-Orozco, &
Doucet, 2004). It creates a condition that Valenzuela (1999) calls “subtractive school-
ing,” which is another way of saying that education for Latino youth does not only fail
to add to their school experience but actually takes away from their cultural way of
being. Of course, it is possible that the brand of inauthenticity leveled against students
of color involved with their own communities, is a coping mechanism cultivated by
people of color who feel disempowered or are shut out from the culture of power.
 The Politics of Race, Class, and Schooling 787

In order to assuage their own sense of marginalization, it is a power play they can hold
over the heads of minority students who ascend to middle class status. For successful
students, their claims to authenticity may reflect their internal struggles about achieve-
ment and maintaining a close tie with their communities. As part of Du Bois (1984)
“talented tenth” and Steele’s (2004) “domain identified,” this ascending group of stu-
dents face challenges within and without the group, not authentic enough for their own
social group, not White enough for the mainstream.
Both people of color and Whites tend to imagine urban spaces as more authentically
“ethnic” or “racial” than suburban or rural spaces. Because we view urban spaces as
more authentic (e.g., more truly Black, more Latino), being “from the ‘hood” takes on a
particular status and meaning for many students of color. Being from the ‘hood is seen
as a positive and “real” experience of blackness or brownness. In other words, it requires
both race and class authenticity. For example, to be truly Black, the common perception
is that one must be or have been from a poor, Black neighborhood (Johnson, 2003).
Many Whites and people of color believe that exposure to the hardships of Black or
Latino life is a prerequisite for an authentic ethno-racial identity. In mass culture, this
dynamic can be seen in the figures of Kobe Bryant and Alan Iverson. Bryant, a basket-
ball player who comes from an upper middle class upbringing, is said to lack “street
cred(ibility)” (Rovell, 2005, http://espn.go.com/nba/s/2003/0707/1577650.html). He
lacks a certain authenticity with both his Black and White fan base, many of whom are
interpellated by an essentialist discourse on urbanness and Blackness. It is not hard to
imagine that the criticism constructs Bryant as not of the ‘hood, something also leveled
at another player, Grant Hill, who did not grow up in the ‘hood. However, the same can-
not be said for Iverson, whose “bad boy” image and tough childhood earn him the brand
of authenticity and credibility without much effort. Iverson’s Black Horatio Alger sto-
ryline is not only urban but thoroughly American. His case shows that it is also not
enough simply to be from the ‘hood. One must be in regular contact with the ‘hood in
order to avoid being seen by both people of color and Whites as a sell-out or as not
really Black (or Brown or Asian in some cases). The question seems as much about
“Who is urban?” as it is about “Who is Black?”
The problem with imagining authenticity this way is that it locates “real blackness”
or “real Chicanismo” in a particular set of experiences and social locations that are not
part of U.S. public school culture. Schools are then defined as White places and “real”
people of color become interlopers in their own neighborhood schools (Fordham,
1988; Ogbu, 1995). This is true to some extent. U.S. public schools value and inculcate
White cultural practices, and consequently communicate to their students that “White
is right.” Some schools, particularly charter schools, have made attempts to create cul-
turally responsive curricula that value and engage the cultures of the student body
(Gay, 2000). Notwithstanding the criticisms of charter schools as private schools in
public sheep’s clothing, this has been one strategy to bridge the cultural divide between
schools and the students of color from segregated urban neighborhoods and the edu-
cational system that alienates them from their home cultures.
Urban neighborhoods typically represent authentic ethno-racial identities in part
because much grassroots and community based organizing happens in them. Aside from
the problems of urban areas, like drugs and violence, many community organizations
788 Leonardo and Hunter

exist there, in part to help alleviate some of those problems. For example, police bru-
tality is a significant problem for young men of color in poor neighborhoods. Urban
communities have reacted to this problem by creating grassroots organizations to raise
awareness and pressure police departments to change their policies and investigate
cases of police misconduct. The criminalization of youths of color happens in a euphe-
mized form in schools where Black students are punished more harshly than their
White counterparts for similar offenses (Parker & Stovall, 2005). This prompts a
movement that links community based organizing to schools, making them sites for
education and a more comprehensive urban reform beyond, but including, the school-
grounds (Warren, 2005).
For many suburbanites, the community organizations that do much of the work in
sustaining and improving urban communities are outside of their purview. Because so
many Whites and suburban residents have little or no contact with people of color or
the poor (aside from their nannies and housekeepers) their knowledge of life in poor
urban areas is obtained from local news and popular culture. The important role of
local organizations for neighborhood peace, mentoring, affordable and fair housing,
anti-gang efforts, and improved public education are largely unknown to people out-
side urban settings, but very familiar to those who reside there. For example, criticized
for his anti-Semitism in the media, Minister Farrakhan’s role in urban community
building rarely makes it on the news. Turned into a media spectacle, Reverend Al
Sharpton’s community advocacy is eclipsed by his eccentricities. These two examples
suggest that attempts at urban renewal often happen with little recognition or fanfare
from people who essentialize it as authentically ethnic or racial but not as a places of
community agency.
The consequences of suburban and White ignorance of these community organiza-
tions are significant. Much of the public imagines people of color in urban areas as
drains on the school system, lazy, helpless, and hopeless. Even when they are viewed
sympathetically, which is not often, they are seen rather as passive victims of larger
social inequalities, not agents or experts in their own lives. This image of urban residents
portrays them utterly without power, creativity, perseverance, or intelligence to fight
back against an unfair system. As a result, public policies that regulate the urban poor
typically treat them as passive and childlike. This image in part comes from the public’s
general ignorance of the substantial community organizing that happens in urban neigh-
borhoods. People of color create organizations, creatively use meager resources, rou-
tinely lobby their elected representatives, and improve their communities. Even in the
poorest neighborhoods, grassroots organizations exist to help alleviate the social and
economic problems facing urban residents. These authentic community organizations
are a key piece in the puzzle to improving life in urban neighborhoods and their schools.

The Urban “Jungle”

Aside from the many ways we have discussed it thus far, representations of urban
schooling most commonly evoke images of the urban as “jungle.” In this section, we
discuss and problematize this representation in its larger context, including its racist
 The Politics of Race, Class, and Schooling 789

overtones. In the “urban jungle” people imagine their city centers as teeming with
Black, Brown, and Yellow bodies, which are poor and dirty, criminal and dangerous.
Gangs, violence, and drugs are closely tied to any image of the urban for most people.
Some of this is real. Certainly most urban areas deal with disproportionate amounts of
violence, particularly among young men, and a drug economy that makes victims out
of buyers, sellers, and everyone in between. Our task here is not to assess the veracity
of this image, but to define the implications of this particular social imagination on the
schooling experiences of young people in urban areas.
Because so many people subscribe to the racist notion that urban areas are “jungles,”
many Americans believe that spending money on urban schooling is a “waste.” Many
people perceive children in urban areas as hopeless, going nowhere, unworthy, and
without value or potential. In a word, they are “uneducable.” Consequently, allocating
money to urban schools is routinely a fierce political battle. In White Racism, Feagin
and Vera’s (1995) theory of racism as societal waste sheds light on this issue. They sug-
gest that instead of thinking of resources spent on people of color as a “waste” we
ought to realize that allowing all the potential and talent of people of color to go
unused is true societal waste. Feagin and Vera argue that racism is a form of societal
waste that the U.S. cannot afford. “What kind of things might we already have accom-
plished or invented had we developed all of our talent?” they ask. The problem is that
many school board members, superintendents, state congressional representatives, and
governors do not view racism as societal waste. Instead, in our color-blind era they are
more inclined to see the victims of racism as a waste themselves, without talent, cre-
ativity, or intelligence to offer society. Perhaps even worse, many of our policy makers
view children in urban areas as unworthy of the right to an education, and ultimately
only useful for low wage labor or fueling the prison industrial complex (Davis, 2003;
Piven & Cloward, 1993).
Central to how many policymakers view students in urban areas is how they think
the kids and their families got there to begin with. Are the poor deserving or unde-
serving of social aid? This question is the basis for these concerns. The long-standing
culture of poverty debate in social science and public policy circles highlights the way
that different constructions of the problem produce starkly different policy solutions.
Social science researchers have arguably done as much harm as good to poor people
by studying their communities. Several analysts (D’Souza, 1996; Murray, 1995;
Sowell, 1995) construct behavior in ghettos and barrios as out of control, and that the
people living there are pathological and culturally deviant from the mainstream. Even
scholars who acknowledge the effect of institutional discrimination often fall prey to
cultural explanations for ghetto persistence (Anderson, 1990; Massey & Denton,
1993; Wilson, 1987). Some of these researchers have argued that there is an “under-
class culture” that encourages laziness, joblessness (read: welfare dependence), vic-
timhood, lack of personal responsibility (thus the 1996 Welfare Reform Act), instant
gratification (read: illegal activities), irresponsible sexual behavior, and a lack of fam-
ily values (Murray, 1995). Some pundits, like D’Souza (1996), even go as far as argu-
ing that it is the deviant culture of urban people that is the root of the structural
problems social scientists have measured (unemployment, income gap, education gap,
family structure, incarceration rates, etc.). Sometimes, this charge occurs from inside
790 Leonardo and Hunter

communities of color, as in the case of Bill Cosby’s speech in front of the NAACP’s
celebration of Brown vs. Board’s 50th Anniversary, where he criticizes the parenting
practices of poor and working class Black families. We will have more to say about this
event in the last section below.
The scholars and policy analysts who believe that the problem is largely cultural are
likely to suggest “assimilation” efforts aimed at re-socializing the urban poor into the so-
called mainstream. This means tying welfare benefits to “good behavior,” like getting
married, as was done in 1994 in Wisconsin where the welfare reform program was often
referred to as “Bridefare” (Neubeck & Cazenave, 2001). Another strategy from the cul-
ture side of the debate is aimed at re-socializing mothers into workers. Mothers are
rewarded for their “good behavior” of working outside the home by receiving welfare
benefits, now denied to those who do not leave their children in order to enter the work-
force. This national policy, the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act, drastically reduced welfare benefits and required all people to work
(even mothers of small children) in order to create a “culture of work.” This strategy has
been punitive and paternalistic: change your ways or lose out on the resources of the
country. It is also important to note how the family value of mothering is inverted for
poor women and women of color. There is a strong cultural imperative, especially from
conservative policy makers, for mothers to stay at home with their children. When poor
women do this, however, they are seen as lazy, pathological, undermining a culture of
work, and therefore ultimately harming their own children (Reese, 2005).
Others disagree with the cultural analysis and favor a focus on structural explana-
tions of ghetto and barrio conditions. Instead, to explain the educational and social
disparity this set of scholars uses the language of institutional discrimination, inade-
quate educational opportunities, economic restructuring, a reduction of real wages
for the poorest workers, inadequate medical care, and racial segregation (Bonilla-
Silva, 2003; Brown et al., 2003; Feagin, 2001; Gans, 1996; Katz, 1990). The culture
vs. structure debate is still important because the two different understandings of the
problem lead to two starkly different assessments of whether the poor are deserving
or undeserving, and what types of policies should be enacted to solve the problem. In
this analysis, student readiness and home culture are not so much the determining
factors as much as how the breakdown of neighborhood works against stable lives for
young people, economic poverty means that basic material comforts are missing, and
structural racism becomes a daily assault that students of color (particularly poor)
must navigate and avoid despair while doing so. There are still a significant number
of scholars and analysts who believe the problem of persistent poverty is largely insti-
tutional. They suggest structural solutions, such as improving public schools in poor
neighborhoods, strengthening unions, requiring businesses to pay a living wage,
reducing police brutality and abuse, enforcing anti-discrimination laws, and develop-
ing businesses and jobs in inner-city areas (Katz, 2002; Kozol, 1991; Nelson, 2001;
Wilson, 1997).
The culture of poverty debate has always centered primarily on people of color who
are already U.S. citizens. The debates are typically about African American communi-
ties and sometimes about large Latino communities like Puerto Ricans in New York or
Mexican Americans in Los Angeles. However, there is another very important and
 The Politics of Race, Class, and Schooling 791

dominant image of urban neighborhoods – as foreign. Many people imagine urban

areas as dirty, smelly, crowded immigrant enclaves where few people speak English
and residents are hostile to Whites or outsiders. In this scenario, many view urban
neighborhoods as dominated by an informal or black market economy, third-world-
like in their conditions of poverty, and a haven for those who “refuse to assimilate” to
American ways. This image is particularly true in cities that host large numbers of
migrants in the United States such as Los Angeles, Miami, Houston, and New York.
Immigrant neighborhoods, often labeled in the diminutive of their residents’ place of
origin, such as Little Saigon, Little Havana, and Koreatown, represent for many peo-
ple the heart of the problem with today’s immigration: cultural pluralism. Catering to
these “foreigners” by multiculturalizing the school curriculum, providing strong ver-
sions of bilingualism, or diversifying the teaching staff become part of the larger prob-
lem. The solution put forth is to create an educational version of the Patriot Act in
order to reclaim the U.S. nationalism lost in the wake of “minority rights” that led to
the softening of American global domination.
Aside from the most common complaints about today’s immigrants (“They take our
jobs” and “They come for the welfare money”) many people complain that today’s
immigrants refuse to assimilate to American (read: Anglo) ways and are therefore hos-
tile to American culture. Urban immigrant neighborhoods highlight this alarmist con-
cern over national language, food, religion, and increased separatism because they are
typically spaces where business is done in languages other than English, the products
and foods available are unfamiliar to most people outside of that ethnic group, and the
signs and storefronts often reflect the languages, values, and concerns of the particular
ethnic group. Many Whites (and some African Americans as well) find it disconcert-
ing to have their own language and cultural norms de-centered from their dominant
Western and American position. Although the diversity and number of ethnic restau-
rants make urban areas attractive to many people, those traits also offend many
Americans who are uncomfortable when Anglo dominance is challenged.
Nativist attitudes have implications for school policy. Because many policy makers
and even some teachers view urban neighborhoods as foreign and therefore problem-
atic, schools often project negative attitudes toward their students from immigrant
families. Some teachers resent immigrant parents for not being more “involved” with
the school even when the school environment is hostile to non-English speakers
(Valdes, 2001). Attitudes about bilingualism are also wrought with contradiction.
Many people in the U.S. glamorize bilingualism when it is attained through study at
elite European universities, but denigrate it when immigrant languages (e.g., Spanish,
Chinese, or Farsi) are maintained at home (Fishman, 1966). That is, when American
Whites speak a language besides English, this skill is perceived as “liberal” or “sophis-
ticated” (i.e., the right kind of urban). When Mexicans learn to speak English (a
process whose difficulty should not be downplayed), but insist on maintaining their
Spanish, they are imagined as resistant to American culture (i.e., the wrong kind of
urban). Despite the wave of public hysteria to the contrary, noted sociologist Alejandro
Portes (2002) assures the U.S. public that “immigrant children today are rapidly
embracing English over their native languages. The threat is less of a Babel-like soci-
ety than of a society without cultural memory – at a cost to both immigrant children
792 Leonardo and Hunter

and the nation” (p. 10). Ultimately, U.S. xenophobia will erode the nation’s effective-
ness in global interactions and undermine the success of immigrant students in U.S.
schools.
Urban neighborhoods are clearly racialized spaces, but they are also gendered
spaces and the experiences and images of men and women in them differ signifi-
cantly. The racist cliché of the “urban jungle” is also a highly gendered one. The urban
jungle is decidedly feminine when the pundits talk about teenage parenthood, welfare
dependence, and the out of control sexuality of women of color (see Luttrell, 2002).
However, the urban jungle can also be masculine when the topics are gangs, violence,
and the drug economy. Although women and men are of course involved in all of
these activities, the different issues evoke specific images of problem women or prob-
lem men, all of which affect how younger people are perceived in schools. When
women from urban areas are discussed it is most typically in relation to their sexual-
ity and bodies. Popular culture reflects this characterization of young women of color,
particularly through music videos. Even a cursory examination of hip-hop videos
reveals an unending parade of young women of color, hyper-sexualized and routinely
degraded. Similarly and interconnected, real women in ghetto or barrio neighbor-
hoods are seen as sexually out of control (they have several male partners), overly fer-
tile (they have too many kids), irresponsible (they refuse to use birth control), and
unfit mothers (they are addicted to drugs while pregnant) (Collins, 2004). All of these
assaulting images of women of color in urban areas suggest that they are “bad
women” and just as significant, they are unlike the “good women” who are married,
White, suburban, and middle class.
When girls are pregnant in urban high schools they are often humiliated by school
nursing staff and school counselors. They are often told that their futures are over and
they are on the road to welfare dependence and a lifetime of hopelessness and poverty
just like their mothers, aunts, or neighbors. In her book, Pregnant Bodies Fertile
Minds, Wendy Luttrell (2002) describes the dominant discourse on teenage mothers in
schools as “wrong girls.” In her ethnography she chronicles the humiliating treatment
the girls receive from adult school staff as well as the alternate view of themselves that
many of the girls offer. Luttrell’s evidence suggests that despite the pathologization of
young pregnant students of color, this group of girls is able to project a counter-image
of themselves as having some “good sense,” of recognizing the myths that impinge on
their subjectivity, not unlike Willis’ (1977) lads in Learning to Labor, who were able
to penetrate the discourses about their own working class limitations (see also,
MacLeod, 1987). Luttrell’s book is one of a handful of works that discusses how girls
respond to negative discourses and policies toward them as young mothers (see also,
McDade, 1992).
Urban spaces are often seen as hyper-masculine spaces dominated with acts of
machismo and one-upsmanship (Anderson, 2000). This is especially true with respect
to urban gangs and drug markets. Although girls and women are increasingly involved
in gangs and drug sales, the public still largely views these activities as male. In the
nightly news in most American cities, gang culture and life are reduced to the descrip-
tion of a shooting frequently followed by the disclaimer, “Authorities believe the
shooting may have been gang related.” This sentence can be found at the end of almost
 The Politics of Race, Class, and Schooling 793

any homicide description in an urban area, usually attached to the picture of a young
male of color. Certainly, many shootings in urban areas are “gang-related” in the broad-
est sense, but they are also related to many other more mundane things: hurt pride,
self-defense, economic disputes, etc.
The American public is at once enthralled with urban gang life and appalled by it.
Hollywood has produced dozens of movies about young African American, Latino, and
occasionally Asian men involved in illegal activities and violent gang life (Benshoff &
Griffin, 2003). Some of these movies have been more thought provoking than others.
Nonetheless, despite the national love affair with urban crime drama, there is also a sub-
stantial punitive streak among much of the American public. The majority of voters sup-
port harsher and harsher prison sentences for drug activity and violent crime (Johnson,
2001). Laws such as three strikes, mandatory minimums, and longer penalties for crack
cocaine and other “urban drugs” all provide evidence for the punishing tendency of sub-
urban America on urban kids. Nowhere is this development more poignantly captured
than in the 2004 documentary film, “Juvies.” The film takes the viewer through the
lives of troubled adolescents whose mistakes earned them jail sentences made excessive
by the “enhancement” laws that some states, like California, have adopted to punish
criminals who appear to have ties with gangs or were carrying guns when the crime
occurred. These gang and gun enhancements basically seal an adolescent’s life when they
add many years on top of normal sentences. As a commentator on the film remarked, a
youth population that displays violent behavior shows us the extent to which their society
is plagued by a violent condition not of their own making.
Our views of young men in urban neighborhoods have already had a significant
impact on our public policies. The policies of local police forces have also changed in
response to the perceived threat of young urban men: more surveillance, broader abil-
ity to disperse crowds and control what public space people occupy, and the ongoing
problem of racial profiling. For example, in Los Angeles, it is now illegal for people to
“cruise” in their cars with music blaring from them. Our level of tolerance for loud
music aside, this development is clearly racial for it is a response to the booming, bass-
heavy music to which many young students of color listen in the urban setting. In con-
trast, the White image of a motorcycle rider atop a loud Harley Davidson is not
criminalized. In fact, one can order a Harley with a specific muffler sound in pursuit
of a certain aesthetics. The immediate irony here is that the music form of hip-hop
(Black noise) is eclipsed by bellowing mufflers as a form of art (White noise). This
analysis is not meant to caste aspersions on Harley riders, but to point out the racial
politics of urban life, the first criminalized, the second aestheticized.
It is also worth mentioning that all the concern about violence committed by young
men of color is coupled with a near complete disinterest in the hundreds and some-
times thousands of young men of color who are killed in urban neighborhoods each
year (usually by other young men of color). Most suburban residents fear for their own
safety when they think of urban violence and are ignorant of the large number of men
of color’s lives lost in their own cities each year. This ignorance is assisted in part by
the local news outlets that rarely cover homicides of poor, young men of color – that
is, until it involves a White victim. Young men of color’s lives by themselves are often
viewed as too unimportant to be covered in the news.
794 Leonardo and Hunter

The attitude of many White, suburban Americans toward urban life is full of contra-
dictions. In a sort of modern day minstrel show, many middle class White students per-
form their image of urban blackness and brownness by imitating their view of urban
life through clothing, music, language, and behavior. This aping of urban culture, how-
ever, is a big money business. Rappers, clothing companies, the music industry,
Hollywood, and other social imagineers have worked together to sell the ghetto in a
way that is unprecedented in U.S. history. It is fashionable, in its own outsider, low sta-
tus way, to don urban clothing lines (Fubu, Enyce, Baby Phat, Apple Bottom), listen to
rap or hip-hop music, and speak with the current colloquialisms of urban youth. In this
sense, the urban is simultaneously performed and ridiculed. It is contemporary chic
and denigrated – “don’t act so ghetto” – all at once.
Urban life has been commodified and is for sale often for prices only middle class
suburbanites can afford. Urban identity can be performed or “tried on” by White stu-
dents or middle class people. They can dabble in the “urban” without ever losing their
access to suburban space and White privilege. In short, they have the luxury of being
urban without the burden. They can partake in the “jungle” without communing with
its people – that is, unless we invoke the image of Tarzan, played by White actors who
seem to be the only White person in the real jungles of Africa. This is not a new devel-
opment, previously witnessed in the days when White entertainers from Pat Boone to
Elvis appropriated and legitimated Black music. What seems novel about the new
fetishism is its economic intensification and its urban character. In the case of music,
there was much about the previous racial appropriation that took from rural Black
sounds of blues. Today’s appropriation is decidedly urban.

Social and Policy Implications for Education:

Re-imagining the Urban
Imagining the urban is intimately connected with policies that impact urban people’s
lives, particularly students of color. From medication to education, the pathological
depictions of the urban contribute to policy creation that predominantly endorses
behavioral and cultural responses to urban conditions instead of an institutional inter-
vention to address its deep structure. This tone is summarized in the recent furor over
Bill Cosby’s public comments about the crisis in poor Black communities. Previously
in “Fat Albert,” Cosby was able to connect with the Black urban community in a way
that did not alienate its youth. In his most recent speech, Cosby’s criticism of the
“wrong kind of Blacks” (read: poor) imagines the urban as a criminal, pathological,
and largely self-perpetuated poor Black condition. Delivered at the NAACP’s event to
commemorate the 50th anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education, Cosby’s “Ghettoesburg
Address” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghettosburg_Address) has sparked not only con-
troversy but is likely to influence public policy regarding urban education for students of
color. The speech does not only represent Cosby’s clarion call for poor Blacks to change
their “misguided ways”; it is interpreted through the public’s urban imagination, one
that now finds its legitimacy in a high profile Black figure. Cosby’s message reminds
 The Politics of Race, Class, and Schooling 795

us of the class warfare within the Black community itself, one half that relegates the
signifier “Nigger” to racist Whites, while the other appropriates “Nigga” for new
urban politics.
Cosby’s speech is heuristic insofar as it provides an exemplar for our general point
about the social construction of urban spaces. It is not important so much for its truth-
value (i.e., whether or not poor Blacks are responsible for their plight), but for its
social consequences and implications for education policy. Although Dyson (2005)
correctly points out that Cosby does not have a social researcher’s training, Cosby’s
sheer stature is enough to capture the imagination of the American public, its “collec-
tive racial unconscious” (Leonardo, 2006). Cosby’s commentary also affects the Black
political landscape and community. Spike Lee showed mild support for the comedian
whereas “Boondocks” comic artist, Arron McGruder, criticized Cosby for “vilifying
the Black youth.” All three entertainers were interviewed separately by talk show host
Tavis Smiley. One may level the same criticisms at Chris Rock, whose stand up show
in Washington, DC expressed sentiments similar to Cosby when Rock publicized his
disdain for “Niggas” and love for “Black people.” The main difference is that whereas
Cosby’s speech seems to cut himself off from poor Blacks (the wrong kind of urban),
Rock’s performances still seem to maintain a strong connection through his comic
material, including his love for hip-hop and rap. In other words, Cosby leads us to per-
ceive little or no redeeming aspects to the Black urban culture and experience. In his
own defense, Cosby considers his speech a form of challenge to poor Blacks to change
their parenting ways. That said, Cosby’s shaming tactics may subvert his desire to
“uplift” poor Blacks.
In schools, we do not have to look too far for connections. For example, when
Cosby suggests that Black youth should dress more appropriately, this implicates
Black students who may be perceived as not ready to learn based on their appear-
ance. When Cosby shows concern for the way that Black youth speak in public
(whether or not we want to call this Black English), he joins the discussion over lan-
guage politics in schools. Not only does this pressure Black students to adopt a more
middle class vernacular, but what is perceived as a standard, unmarked, White way
of speech. This is reminiscent of a problem with even insurgent books on integration,
such as Kozol’s (1991) Savage Inequalities, where it is assumed that Black students
would do well to study next to White students, that is, Blacks need Whites in order
to do well in school (Foster, 1993). We do not debate the importance of necessary
skills for the advancement of one’s career and social legitimacy. But to suggest that
Blacks lack access to decent education and jobs because they speak nonstandard
dialect and dress with low-rise pants belies the structural origins of their oppression.
In fact, so-called Black wear and language are hardly Black-specific anymore, as
White, Asian, and Latino youth have appropriated such styles. They have become
“merely urban” as hip-hop becomes popular with Whites, many of whom live in the
suburbs. In the case of Whites and Asians, compared to Black youth their life
chances do not seem damaged to the same extent when Whites and Asians dress or
talk “Black.” They are not imagined as criminals in the same way for wearing the
same thing.
796 Leonardo and Hunter

To the extent that urban youth of color promote their style as a form of resistance
to whiteness (Dyson, 2005; see also Rose, 1994), they represent what Gramsci (1971)
calls “good sense.” These acts, while not necessarily counter-hegemonic, recognize
the urban space as a place of struggle. To the extent that they dress against whiteness,
Black youth are cognizant of the racial strife that they did not create but live with on
a daily basis. If educators listen, they discover that youth of color, while ensnared in
their own contradictions, penetrate the racial and class formation, and are able to
exert their own will on these processes rather than merely being reproduced by them.
Instead, the common school reactions to these urban dynamics include: metal detec-
tors, more police on campus, emptying of backpacks, random searches of lockers and
bags, no hats (to avoid gang affiliation). Since most, if not all, educators believe that
creating a learning culture is part of raising achievement, we must conclude that these
incarcerating policies re-create prison conditions where little learning is likely to
take place. Student resistance in the urban setting is often difficult to decipher. It is
complicated by the effects of media, fast capitalism, and a heightened sense of iden-
tity politics. Often, urban youth grow up more quickly than their suburban counter-
parts because the former are faced with harsh conditions and an even harsher future
prospect. The innocence that adults treasure in young people is lost more quickly in
urban youth.
Urban Latino students have dealt with the transformation of the barrio from a literal
term connoting community to a term of burden. Through English-Only movements
and anti-immigrant legislation, Latino students have been imagined as the culprits of
the Third-Worldization of urban places, like Los Angeles. With their national attrition
rates higher than those for Blacks, Latino students may become the new urban under-
class. When we imagine them as “illegal immigrants” rather than displaced people in
search of a decent life, and whose labor is fully welcomed by both policymakers and
business owners, educators ensure that Latino children’s education becomes expend-
able. At best, their education remains irrelevant to their worldview and cultural under-
standing, ignoring much of the cultural resources that urban families have to offer,
otherwise known as “funds of knowledge” to Moll and Gonzalez (2004) and “ecolo-
gies of engagement” to Barton, Drake, Perez, Louis, and George (2004). Or, we run the
risk of dumbing down their curriculum by depriving them of access to classic
European texts with high status and replete with cultural capital, in exchange for a
“relatable education” with examples about drugs, gangs, and other problematic con-
structions that are rarely put in their proper structural contexts.
As mentioned, the urban imagination also comes in gendered forms of racialization.
Cosby’s comments contribute to this dynamic when he criticizes Black women for fail-
ing to control their children, their own sexuality, and their men. Controlling images of
women in urban areas have direct implications on policies in urban schools. For
instance, many girls of color in urban areas are encouraged to use birth control from an
early age. Often the types of birth control that are suggested are invasive and hard to
reverse such as Depo Provera and Norplant. Young urban women’s sexuality is seen as
problematic and needing to be controlled in contrast to suburban female sexuality,
which is often viewed as something to be protected and saved. The sexuality of girls of
color is a problem; the sexuality of middle class White girls is a virtue.
 The Politics of Race, Class, and Schooling 797

In light of the high stakes testing that No Child Left Behind has put in place in U.S.
schools, urban schools again take center stage in the elusive search to bridge the
“achievement gap.” Under this legislation, teachers and administrators are in a mad
dash to show Adequate Yearly Progress or face sanctions, including the reconstitution
of its teaching and administrative staff or takeover by a private educational company.
Commendable for its public decree that failing schools shall not be tolerated any
longer, NCLB won the support of both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill. In
addition, it targets precisely the student subgroups that need the most assistance: stu-
dents with disabilities, English language learners, poor students, and racial minorities.
In particular, urban schools show that several of the subgroups, like English language
learners, children of color, and poor students, meet to paint a complex picture of who
is being left behind, but equally as important, where they are. In addition, since it is a
well-known fact that students of color are classified with disabilities at higher rates
than their White counterparts, NCLB’s impact in urban settings is all-encompassing.
Already suffering from lack of resources, faster teacher burnouts, and higher levels of
violence, urban schools are imagined as the testing ground for a school reform that
offers little extra funding. In fact, NCLB falls short of providing more funds to strug-
gling urban schools in light of the unequal needs they face because its creators declare
that getting students to proficient levels in reading and math is already the school’s job.
High on threats and low on assistance, NCLB dooms public urban schools to fail tar-
gets that are virtually impossible to meet (Darling-Hammond, 2004). The Act lays down
the gauntlet for schools to improve in as little time as two years or lose control of their
funding, face student exodus, or eventual reconstitution of their staff. NCLB receives
criticism not so much for its noble dream of leaving no child behind, but for its ability
to leave behind the social origins and conditions that plague American urban schools,
such as racism, economic inequality, and institutional discrimination (see Cochran-
Smith, 2005). Urban schools suffer a lion’s share of NCLB’s burden and blame if all stu-
dents do not reach 100% competency by 2014, an unreasonable expectation in light of
the fact that no state or country currently boasts those achievements (Linn, 2003).
NCLB’s measure of Adequate Yearly Progress will confirm the popular image of
inner-city schools as a problem, or the negative pole in the dialectics of the urban. It
comes with a “diversity penalty” for urban schools that serve multiple social groups
and are required to report satisfactory progress on more indicators than homogeneous
schools (Novak & Fuller, 2003). Urban immigration, media spectacles, threats of ter-
rorism, violence, and higher costs of living converge to create a learning condition that
NCLB’s focus on higher test scores is woefully unable to crack, a move which “mis-
takes measuring schools for fixing them” (Darling-Hammond, 2004, p. 9). Higher test
scores, while showing one kind of improvement, fail to account for the relevance of the
learning taking place in urban classrooms, favoring a language of outputs (e.g., test
scores) over inputs (e.g., instructional support).
Re-imagining urban schooling takes a concerted effort to recast its conditions nei-
ther as a gift of progress nor its underbelly for some unfortunate people. It requires a
radical shift in urban planning, economic base, and schooling infrastructure. But con-
sistent with this essay’s thesis, it also necessitates an equally radical questioning of the
way educators and concerned people currently imagine the urban from a place of
798 Leonardo and Hunter

decline to a place of possibilities. Part of this recasting of the urban means that busi-
nesses may work more closely with communities in addressing the waste of both
human potential and talent, which would add to the viability of the nation, let alone the
creation of a democracy (Henig, Hula, Orr, & Pedescleaux, 2001). Although it would
be difficult to re-imagine businesses separate from their profit motives in the context
of late capitalism, there is a difference between for-profit educational ventures like the
Edison Project and the kinds of neighborhood compacts that Henig et al. (2001) found
in places like Washington DC and other urban cities around the U.S. Likewise, Henig
et al. suggest that urban leadership would not only help urban communities and
schools through increased funding, but also through increased civic capacity to speak
politically about issues that affect their lives. It no doubt requires a critical amount of
coordination between students, teachers, administrators, parents, scholars, businesses,
politicians, and NGOs, but we should expect nothing less in re-imagining the urban, if
by that we do not mean the idle notion of mind activity. Rather, if by re-imagining we
mean a dynamic and engaged cultural process, then it is more a material act at its base
and less a tinkering with ideas about the urban absent of institutional change.
In this essay, we have argued that imagining the urban is an intimate part of making
urban schools. It is an imagined reality that Americans construct even as we make
daily sense of it. Re-imagining the urban in this context means that school reform must
account for the complexity of teaching in an urban setting where the specific forces of
civilization meet, such as the political economy, racialization, and gendered meanings.
This re-imagining has taken some root in the “new urbanism” movement of housing
and lifestyle that is dense but planned, with a mixed use of housing and commercial
space, mixed income, and smaller utility spaces. This is the urban as anti-suburbia.
This is also a response to the urban as “unlivable.” The dialectics of the urban may still
be resolved into a higher logic that makes its promises and burdens a shared venture
between Whites and people of color, between the rich and poor. Re-imagining the
urban does not only take a certain courage to change, but a commitment to education
in the concrete, rather than sentimental, sense.

Notes
1. We define the ghetto as a racially demarcated space actively constructed by Whites, as a method for
containing Black community development and mobility. In this definition, we are not far off from
Massey and Denton’s study of the ghetto, in their book American Apartheid, as a social phenomenon
that began at the turn of the twentieth century. Before this time, the “dissimilarity index” between
Whites and Blacks in U.S. neighborhoods was not radical. It was not until Whites enacted neighborhood
policies as well as social behaviors during reconstruction that the ghetto was created. As such, the ghetto
is not only a poor place, but rather a racial place where one finds heavy concentrations of African
Americans. Unlike other groups, like Eastern European and Jewish immigrants, for whom the ghetto
has a fleeting history, the Black ghetto seems to have an enduring place in U.S. racial relations.
2. In 2005 several U.S. newspapers showcased a photo taken by the Associated Press on August 30 from
the New Orleans tragedy, featuring a caption describing a Black family holding food and drinks as
“looting.” In contrast, some newspapers featured a similar photo of White families taken by Getty
Images describing its members as having “found” such items. Sometimes this contrast was featured on
the very same page of a particular newspaper, making the racist juxtaposition even more glaring.
 The Politics of Race, Class, and Schooling 799

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42

PERSUASIVE, PERVASIVE, AND LIMITING:

HOW CAUSAL EXPLANATIONS SHAPE URBAN
EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH AND PRACTICE

Joseph Flessa* and Diane Ketelle†

*University of Toronto, Canada;
†
Mills College, U.S.A.

No one commands the power to know all things.

–– Michele Foster (1994), “The Power to Know One Thing is Never the
Power to Know All Things: Methodological notes on two studies
of Black American Teachers”
When we analyze, we simplify … Organizing perceptions along some lines is
essential, but which lines will we use—and come to use unthinkingly?
–– Martha Minow, Making all the Difference: Inclusion,
Exclusion, and American Law
Normal policy making is not about change that shifts power relationships in the
society. Transformative possibilities can often only be envisioned when alterna-
tive information and perspectives are used.
–– Sheila Neysmith, Kate Bezanson, and Anne O’Connell,
Telling Tales: Living the Effects of Public Policy
I don’t expect many victories in the near future, but if we believe that our cities
are worth saving and the world is worth remaking, we need to look in different
places with new eyes.
–– Robin D. G. Kelley, Yo’ Mama’s Disfunktional!
Fighting the culture wars in urban America.

Introduction
Urban public schools in North America, “culturally, racially and linguistically diverse
and economically disadvantaged school settings” (James, 2004) routinely fail to pro-
vide most students with safe, challenging, or culturally affirming opportunities to
learn. As other chapters in this volume attest, scholars examine the inequalities and
injustices of urban education from a variety of disciplinary and methodological per-
spectives. In this chapter, we use the lens of policy and politics to organize some of the
803
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 803–824.
© 2007 Springer.
804 Flessa and Ketelle

existing theoretical and empirical research on urban education as well as to analyze

contemporary issues in urban schooling.
A policy approach to urban education could accurately be caricatured as posing the
following question as its starting point: What’s wrong with urban schools and how can
they be improved? Attempts to answer this question from a policy perspective often
begin with problem definition that typically focuses on school failure, although some
scholars argue that urban education policymakers could more usefully focus on stu-
dent success (Conchas, 2006). Whatever the approach, problem definition in urban
education means engaging with policy narratives that explain current conditions and
propose solutions; these policy narratives are shaped both by elites and everyday
people alike (Neysmith, Bezanson, & O’Connell, 2005; Roe, 1994).
Policy narratives, when they link problems and solutions, inherently rely on causal
logic: because a caused b, therefore c is the necessary reform. Policy stories and the
politics that surround them generate alternative and often contradictory solutions.
John Dewey (1938/1977) warned of this habit among school reformers stating,
“Mankind likes to think in terms of extreme opposites. It is given to formulating its
beliefs in terms of Either-Ors, between which it recognizes no intermediate possibili-
ties” (p. 17). And in fact, we note an Either-Or tendency at the heart of most writing
about goals and politics in urban schools: either the way urban schools look and func-
tion is determined by structural inequalities in the society in which they’re nestled, or
urban schools are the result of individual micro-level actors and actions. Stated another
way, within the broad field of urban educational research, a picture emerges that either
urban schools result from conditions beyond educators’ control (fix the society for the
schools to follow), or urban schools result solely from those things that educators do
within them (address educators’ pedagogical, curricular, and organizational incompe-
tence, and urban schools will succeed).
In this chapter, our underlying argument is Deweyian and posits that in the field of
education, the embrace of theory/policy/practice “either-or” explanations is both
prevalent and problematic. Either-ors are attractive analytically, yet they oversimplify,
and in oversimplifying they limit both researchers’ and practitioners’ thinking and
work towards improving the schools we care about.

Four Frameworks that Organize North American

Urban Education Literature
In order to highlight the particularly urban aspects of the relationship between educa-
tional policy, politics, and goals, we lay out four causal arguments central to debates
about urban education. As urban educational researchers and former urban public
school teachers and school administrators we realize that all of the “causes” we describe
in the following pages are in play at the same time. Schools are complex organizations
and their relationship to the society in which they are nestled is more complicated than
most causal explanations can account for. Nevertheless, our purpose here is to indicate
that there are indeed identifiable, separate, and occasionally quite divergent schools of
thought regarding policy problems and remedies in urban education.
 Persuasive, Pervasive, and Limiting 805

Causal Argument #1: Economic Problems Need Economic Solutions

William Julius Wilson’s (see 1987, 1996) quantitative sociological studies of inner city
Chicago argue that historical (more so than contemporary) racism, in conjunction with
deindustrialization and the accompanying unjust distribution of economic resources,
have caused the poor Black residents of contemporary American cities – thanks to
“concentration effects” and via cultural processes – to perpetuate their own isolation
from power, jobs, and capital. The lever for change, according to his interpretation, is
federal intervention in the economy specifically designed to ameliorate these cultural
problems via the creation of more jobs. Economic reform will interrupt the corrosive
ecology of ghetto life and realign its residents with the mainstream of America.
Applying Wilsonian logic to the field of urban education, Jean Anyon (1997, 2005)
likewise attributes the problems of urban areas to fundamentally economic roots. For
example, in her historical study of Newark’s school system (1997), she portrays the
economy as cause and poor schools as effect. Entirely skeptical of the ability of
school-based reform efforts to counter the most significant problems facing urban
school systems, at least in the absence of a broader social movement resulting in active
federal creation of employment in the inner-city, Anyon (1997) writes, “If we do not
resuscitate our cities, we face an impossible situation regarding urban educational
reform: Attempting to fix inner city schools without fixing the city in which they are
embedded is like trying to clean the air on one side of a screen door” (p. 170). She con-
cludes her book with a call for “old fashioned political struggle” and “fundamental
changes in the distribution of goods and services – and money” (p. 182). Schools not
only reflect economic injustice; in this view, they can do little on their own to change
it. Stated another way, “Individual and neighborhood poverty builds walls around
schools and classrooms that educational policy does not penetrate or scale” (Anyon,
2005, p. 70).

What are the lessons for thinking about goals and politics?
Anyon’s economic argument echoes the older work of Martin Carnoy (1974) who
argues that fundamentally changing the economic and social structure would be nec-
essary before public schooling can be changed. We are also reminded of Katz (1975)
whose early work argued that “Schools exist as part of a social system. Meaningful
change can come to that system only through redistribution of power and resources. In
that redistributive process schools can play a negligible role at best” (p. 152). In later
work, Katz (1995) also wrote critically of reforms that attempt to address economic
inequalities in the society by “improving poor people” through schools:

As a strategy, improving poor people consistently has awarded education a starring

role. Of all options, education has shone as the preferred solution for social prob-
lems by compensating for inadequate parenting, shaping values and attitudes,
molding character, and imparting useful skills. Added to its other assignments,
improving poor people has given American education an extraordinary – indeed,
impossible – load, which is one reason why with regularity since the third quarter
of the nineteenth century critics have alleged the failure of public schools. As the
806 Flessa and Ketelle

history of education shows, improving poor people not only has misdiagnosed the
issues; it also time and again has deflected attention from their structural origins
and from the difficult and uncomfortable responses they require. (p. 4)

A more recent and significantly more conservative book about urban school reform
(Hill, Campbell, & Harvey, 2000) ironically makes the same point, albeit relegated to
a footnote: “This study focuses on strategies for school improvement. It does not
directly address other factors (poverty, e.g., or language background) that might affect
students’ learning. A successful strategy addressing all these problems could have
more dramatic effects on student learning than a school improvement strategy alone”
(p. 194–195).
From this perspective, the policy levers best positioned to have an impact on schools
are not school-based but instead are those that change urban schools’ social context.
One recent policy brief (Rhode Island Kids Count, 2005) puts it this way: “The only
way we can successfully ensure that many more children enter school ready to learn is
to consider the family and community context in which they live, the schools they
attend, and the services that are available to support their healthy growth and develop-
ment” (p. 59). There are serious questions raised by this perspective for school-based
actors. If schools simply reflect the economic realities that shape their context, is the
only appropriate approach for school leadership to agitate for policies of economic
redistribution? The overwhelming majority of urban educational goals and policy
interventions pertain to what schools themselves can and should do differently.
According to this perspective, should we conclude that are school-based reforms are
inevitably doomed to fail? Or, stated another way, “Obviously, the social context in
which schooling occurs is important, but is it so important that it completely overshad-
ows what schools can reasonably be expected to accomplish?” (Noguera, 1996, p. 15).
Some recent work making the economic argument suggests that reforms are not nec-
essarily a waste of time, but must not be over promised. For example, Rothstein (2004b,
2004a) argues that achievement outcomes are less shaped from within schools than they
are from without, but he nonetheless takes a reformist position. On the one hand, in a
critique of Schrag (2006) Rothstein (2004a) states, “Even if lawsuits demanding a ‘ade-
quate education’ could produce more money, class differences will continue to ensure
an achievement gap because schools alone, no matter how well financed, can’t by them-
selves overcome the cultural, social, and economic causes of the differences in aca-
demic achievement.” The achievement gap, from this view, is not the schools’ problem
alone; it is ensured by “class differences.” Nevertheless, he concludes that school-based
remedies, however flawed, may be the best we can do now. “Since the U.S. today has
less social mobility across generations than most other industrialized nations, modest
improvement might be a more appropriate aspiration. If we fail to accept gradual
progress, education reform will remain a hopeless enterprise.”
Darder and Torres (2004), in work that interprets structural inequalities and racism
through a Marxist lens, argue that accountability reforms like high-stakes testing,
whatever their rhetoric of closing the “achievement gap” in public schools “can best be
understood in light of the major changes taking place in the socioeconomic landscape
of U.S. society” (p. 79). Similarly, in the Canadian context, Sears (2003) argues that
 Persuasive, Pervasive, and Limiting 807

school reforms have less to do with schools’ needs than with a policy environment that
seeks limited government expenditures. He argues that, “education reform is aligned
with reorientation of social policy toward the lean state” (p. 231). Both works empha-
size the way that neoliberal structural shifts at a macro level have a negative impact
inside classrooms and schools. Schools need not only be victims of those trends, how-
ever. Darder and Torres call for greater awareness of the ways that standardized tests
perpetuate “the reproduction of racialized economic inequality and injustice” (p. 94);
with this knowledge can come resistance and alternatives. In their theoretical work
with implications for education, Darder and Torres “make no apologies for the cen-
trality of our critique of capitalism and class formations in our analysis of racism” but
also recognize that their argument “will be characterized by some as privileging class
or simply as economic determinism” (p. 22). If the educational system is rigged by
forces outside the schools, this argument asks, can educators do anything but perpetu-
ate the status quo? Sears concludes that “the most important single factor in shattering
the apparent inevitability of the shift to post-liberal education is mobilized opposition”
(p. 233). In this way, he leads us to Causal Argument #2.

Causal Argument #2: Economic Problems Need Political Solutions

Writers like Orfield (1997), Stone (1998), Henig, Hula, Orr, and Pedescleaux (1999),
and Portz, Stein, and Jones (1999) provide a less deterministic alternative to Causal
Argument #1. Both Causal Arguments #1 and #2 hold that schooling problems are
caused by economic problems. However, Causal Argument #2 posits a political solution.
The authors we associate with this causal argument utilize a political-science framework
and accordingly emphasize policymakers, politicians, and political coalitions.
Myron Orfield’s (1997) analysis of the Twin Cities bears some striking similarities to
Wilson (1987, 1996), in the characterization of schools as little more than reflections of
their local environment, in the implication that poverty
isolation  pathology. In the
ultimate call for more and better jobs in the inner city he does suggest a fundamentally
different approach to the same goal. For while nothing short of the resources and redis-
tributive power of the federal government will fix Wilson’s Chicago, M. Orfield’s inner
citizens can, via coalitions with inner-ring industrial suburbanites, out-vote their privi-
leged neighbors and provide themselves with the metropolitan services that may set in
motion wholesale change in ways that matter. The Institute on Race and Poverty (2000)
calls this approach “regionalism,” and likewise argues that it represents a political solu-
tion to economic problems. Similarly, Stone’s (1998) analysis of urban education iden-
tifies the lack of political capital in poor communities and political will at large to
explain persistent discrimination and low performing schools. Like M. Orfield, he
argues that there are currently latent political relationships which, when forged, will
improve urban schools – not necessarily via altruistic social intentions, but in pursuit of
personal interests. For Stone, inequality is attributable primarily to political, not eco-
nomic (a la Wilson & Anyon) processes. Stone’s rhetorical contribution is the notion of
“civic capacity” and his empirical contribution is a collection of nine historical case
studies of desegregation, school reform, and business participation in local schools.
Stone notes, “Civic capacity refers to the mobilization of varied stakeholders in support
808 Flessa and Ketelle

of a community-wide cause. Two elements enter the picture. One is participation or

involvement, especially as it includes contributing in some way to the cause. The more
each sector participates, the greater the civic capacity. The other element is understand-
ing. Civic capacity comes into play when people see an issue as a community problem,
one that therefore calls for a collective (that is to say, civic) response” (p. 15).
Henig et al.’s (1999) analysis of school reform in black-led cities is fundamentally
aligned with that of Stone, but with greater organizing emphasis on race. The dynam-
ics of racial relations, in other words, make it difficult for city stakeholders to coalesce
around shared goals and build the necessary civic capacity. Henig’s argument views
political coalition-building as the key to progressive change.

What are the lessons for thinking about goals and politics?
A focus on the relationship between a city’s schools and its politicians and local poli-
cymakers necessarily suggests that the instruments of local government can improve
the conditions of teaching and learning in urban schools. That political intervention in
city schools most frequently takes the form of changing school district governance
(see Bryk, Burney, Fruchter, & Simmons, 2006; Kirst, 2002; Yee with Flessa, 2004)
would strike some observers as welcome, but insufficient. As long as the connections
between urban schools and the urban labor market are neglected, for example, “the
chances of school reform are limited” (Rich, 1996, p. 200). One recent report
(Edelman, Holzer, & Offner, 2006) focuses on the school’s role in improving economic
opportunities for urban young men, stating:

We think the following have the greatest potential for improving links between
disconnected youth and the labor market: (a) vocational education – now known
as career and technical education (CTE); school-to-work policies; (c) Career
Academies; and (d) alternative and charter high schools. (p. 45)

However, other writers are less sanguine about the possibility of school-based reforms
because “the turmoil in the economy makes planning an economically rational cur-
riculum difficult, if not impossible” (Rich, 1996, p. 195). How much faith should those
interested in urban schools place in politics? Even proponents of the “civic capacity”
framework recognize that politics’ ability to reshape opportunity via school reform is
limited.

Creating common ground is an ongoing task. And finally, the overall economic
and social problems of central cities remain. Entrenched poverty amidst a contin-
uing decline in blue-collar jobs makes mobility for many urban youth unlikely.
Extensive social problems cannot be combated by the schools alone. To build
civic capacity is indeed a formidable challenge, but it is one that merits the atten-
tion and resources of urban leaders. (Portz et al., 1999)

There are important dilemmas raised by this framework for those who seek to improve
urban schools. First of all, what is the relationship, if any, between school work and
 Persuasive, Pervasive, and Limiting 809

metropolitan politics? What role, and what forum, if any, is there for urban educators
in political coalitions? Smith et al. (2004) argue that national “political spectacle” has
rendered local political participation mostly symbolic and indeed locally elected
school boards in cities are increasingly vulnerable (Flessa, 2004; Howell, 2005; Yee
with Flessa, 2004). With growing federal involvement in local schools in the United
States via No Child Left Behind Act (2001) accountability, what role could local polit-
ical organizing play in shaping goals for urban schools? In Canada, where the federal
role is negligible, but schools are tightly coupled to provincial policy, what types of
political organizing, short of voting out the provincial government entirely, influence
educational policy? Is there any reason to believe that urban educators’ participation in
political coalitions will not lead to more “spinning wheels” (Hess, 1999), where
energy is expended but change does not happen? Or, when the consequences of the
“rough politics” of education are divisiveness, unease, and low morale (Gidney, 1999,
p. 280), what sort of municipal coalitions are possible? Are all of the arrows of politi-
cal (and policy) influence pointing from outside the schools in, or are there ways that
some arrows of influence might point out? Can schools shape the political context
whatsoever in ways that respond to persistent economic inequalities in cities? Larry
Cuban (2001) offers a potentially useful framing of the connection between outside
and within school influences and priorities for reformers; as his view makes clear, the
extent of responsibilities school leaders have in urban schools is enormous.

In short, in cities, schools can’t do it alone … [but] of course, broadening the

urban agenda to encompass a community-based strategy to school improvement
does not mean that students, teachers, and principals should be held less respon-
sible for working hard to achieve their goals. Nor does this recognition of a school
being nested in a larger community suggest that there should be different stan-
dards for those who are well off and those who are poor. The obvious fact that
schools are entangled in their communities only makes clear the tasks that face
urban school leaders. (p. 9)

Left unanswered by his statement, however, is where school leaders should start. From
a policy perspective, is political energy best spent attempting school-focused reforms,
or would other starting places make more strategic and substantive sense?

Causal Argument #3: Urban School Failure is a Result

of Racism and Antiracist Solutions Take Many Forms
According to Causal Argument #3, racism is the predominant cause of the form, shape,
and substance of urban schooling. The work we associate with this argument shares the
perspective that racism causes and perpetuates school failure; however, there is no
shared agreement within this body of work on what solutions and policy remedies
make most sense. Although several authors grouped under Arguments 1 and 2 address
race, racism, and racial disparities in their analyses of urban education, the difference
with the work we group in this Argument is that here the authors characterize race
and racism as having the most explanatory power for the nature of urban education.
810 Flessa and Ketelle

The scholars that we have grouped into this argument do not perceive racial discrimi-
nation as merely a result of economic injustice or as a tool enabling politically power-
ful elites to maintain control over material resources and cultural capital; instead,
racism is itself an autonomous, overriding predictor and cause of urban stratification
and of inequitable schooling opportunities. For example, Dei (2003) states, “We know
that within North American society race demarcates life chances more profoundly than
any other form of difference” (p. 4).
Kirp et al.’s (1995) analysis of Camden and a protracted fight over publicly supported
housing for example, calls into question Orfield’s (1997) suggestion that inner-city res-
idents and inner-ring suburbanites would ever see themselves as sharing common inter-
ests. Kirp et al. argue, “The very last thing [these suburbanites] want to do is to assume
responsibility for those whom they have deliberately left behind” (p. 6). In fact, it is the
local failure of and perhaps impossibility of ever forming the very political coalitions
advocated by Argument #2 that historically has necessitated judicial intervention. In this
way there has been an attempt to forge some sort of justice regarding housing, school-
ing and equal access to public services. Political processes that potentially could pro-
mote positive social change have either collapsed or, have never existed at all because
of racism leaving judicial intervention as the only possible lever for change.
Massey and Denton (1993) likewise argue that the major incentive at work in urban
collapse has been the legacy of racism. They note, “The emergence of the black ghetto
did not happen as a chance by-product of other socioeconomic processes. Rather,
white Americans made a series of deliberate decisions to deny blacks access to urban
housing markets and to reinforce their spatial segregation” (p. 19). The causal process
at work is racial prejudice resulting in segregation. The significance is the corre-
spondingly unjust and unequal relationship with and access to resources. The implied
reform, then, is government intervention to break down racial segregation in housing.
Ford (1995) extends this analysis, arguing that not only is segregation something dif-
ferent from the accumulation of individual preference for housing, the racism itself
explains it is an institutionalized process through which white supremacy is main-
tained. He notes, “If racial segregation is a collective social responsibility rather than
exclusively the result of private transgressions, then it must be accepted as official pol-
icy or remedied through collective action” (p. 450).
Gary Orfield, Eaton, and the Harvard Project on School Desegregation (1996) not
only agrees that the most significant determining factor at work in urban schooling is
race, but furthermore posits that the appropriate state action to interrupt this racial
antagonism is desegregation of public schooling. G. Orfield also makes one of the
most consistent and visible normative defenses of the goal of desegregated schooling
as an important urban reform (for more recent work see Orfield, 2001). However, other
authors – for example, Foster (1993), Fultz (2004), and Ladson-Billings (2004) – raise
questions about the frequently overlooked costs that have historically been placed on
Black communities as a result of school desegregation policies.
Within this grouping of writers who posit race as the major causal process there is
divergence regarding both the appropriate way to characterize American racism as well
as the best direction for reform. Calling for the reintroduction of race-conscious analy-
ses from the left, Critical Race Theorists (Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller, & Thomas, 1995)
 Persuasive, Pervasive, and Limiting 811

critique the prevailing view of race relations which treats “the exercise of racial power
as rare and aberrational rather than systemic and ingrained” (p. xiv) and question, for
example, the way that integration replaced school quality as the goal of federal law-
suits on behalf of Black school children (Bell, 1995; Crenshaw et al., 1995). Crenshaw
writes, “Critical Race Theory [CRT] embraces a movement of left scholars, most of
them scholars of color, situated in law schools, whose work challenges the ways in
which race and racial power are constructed and represented in American legal culture
and, more generally, in American society as a whole” (p. xiii). In an article that
connects CRT to educational policy and leadership, López (2003) argues that “CRT
has yet to make significant inroads into other areas of study such as educational
administration, politics of education, policy studies, and political science. As a result,
important discussions surrounding the permanence of racism remain largely absent in
these particular fields” (p. 87). DeCuir and Dixson (2004) state that:

In this historical moment when attacks on remedies for educational inequity, such
as affirmative action, are on the rise, it is essential that we utilize the full power
of CRT, including Whiteness as property, interest conversion, and the critique of
liberalism. These particular aspects of CRT are especially powerful because
through them, researchers are able to uncover and unmask the persistent and
oppressive nature of the normatively of Whiteness, the co-option and distortion of
oppositional discourses, and the ways in which policies that are offered as reme-
dies to underachievement and educational disparity may not be in the best inter-
ests of marginalized groups, but rather serve the elite. (p. 30)

Shared among these authors is an implied solution to current urban educational prob-
lems: CRT should be used not only within academic settings as a tool of critique and
analysis of current policy but also as a framework in schools for formulating racially
just policy.
Education scholars who use anti-racist theories share with colleagues in CRT that
racisms and white privilege, because they under gird everything that happens in edu-
cational institutions, must be identified and labeled in order to be dismantled. Anti-
racist educational theorizing and advocacy has particular salience in Canada, where it
is in part a reaction to the fact that “race relations have been placed under the rubric of
multiculturalism and generally are not recognized in principle as a separate concern”
(Reitz, 2005). As James (2004) notes, “In Canada, where the discourse of multicultur-
alism produces and reproduces difference, hence marginalization, based on race, eth-
nicity, language, and immigrant status, scholars insist on anti-racism as a paradigm
which stands as a counteractive measure” (p. 17–18).
For example, Schick and St. Denis (2005) describe the ways that structural forms of
racism in Canada are obscured “through commonplace national discourses.” They
argue for example that in Canada, “the de facto examples of racism that warrant pub-
lic outrage are often limited to apartheid in South Africa, the Holocaust in Germany,
and slavery in the United States” (p. 304). In other words, Canadian racism is rarely
addressed because racism is framed as something that exists only elsewhere; when
racial and ethnic conflicts arise in Canada, Schick and St. Denis argue, a focus is
812 Flessa and Ketelle

shifted away from an analysis of Canadian racism and towards an examination “cul-
tural difference.” Schick and St. Denis conclude:

In the ubiquitous, well-intentioned information sessions about Aboriginal people,

the fundamental position of whiteness as dominant remains largely unexamined,
as does the standard of what passes for normal. By ignoring the production of
racial identities, whiteness is at once invisible and a marker of difference. In
Canada, discourses of race are ignored or seen as bad manners, allowing a certain
raceless Canadian identity as the norm … Multicultural education that empha-
sizes cultural difference and ignores the salience of race is inadequate as a prepa-
ration for preservice teachers and for any other form of cultural awareness
education intending to increase understanding of Aboriginal and white Canadians
in a post/colonial society. (pp. 312–313)

The implication here is that educational policies that attempt to address racial inequal-
ity in schools without addressing the structures and mechanisms of white privilege fail
at both theoretical and practical levels; school practitioners might make an impact on
racially stratified educational outcomes only if they focus squarely on race, racism,
and privilege in school settings.
In contrast, Ferguson (2000), offers no incremental, schools-based remedy to fun-
damentally anti-Black racism in urban public schools, and in fact critiques educators
and policymakers who would push her in that direction.

This request for solutions is made on the assumption that schools, unlike the fam-
ily and the workplace, are basically sound with flaws that need adjusting. My hes-
itation to propose solutions comes from a conviction that minor inputs, temporary
interventions, individual prescriptions into schools are vastly inadequate to rem-
edy an institution that is fundamentally flawed and whose goal for urban black
children seems to be the creation of “a citizenry which will simply obey the rules
of society.” (p. 234)

There exist numerous qualitative studies that illuminate the dynamics of micro/school
level reproduction of white supremacy; for each specific dynamic, there would be a
specialized recommended intervention. The fundamental argument at the heart of most
of these works is that, regardless of individual intention, schools are institutions that
perpetuate white privilege via, for example, the mechanisms of mono-cultural assimi-
lation (Ginwright, 2004; Olsen, 1997; Valenzuela, 1999), school funding and assign-
ment (Kozol, 1991, 2005), school tracking (Noguera, 1995b), discipline policies
(Ferguson, 2000; Noguera, 1995a) or the views of teachers (Foster, 1993; Pink, 1994).
These works view the phenomenon as having a specifically racial project at its core.
These writers diverge from the class-based sociological investigation of American
schooling which has chronicled the ways in which high status economic elites manip-
ulate school regulations to reinforce their own status (see, Bowles & Gintis, 1976;
Eckert, 1989; Hollingshead, 1949).
 Persuasive, Pervasive, and Limiting 813

Other writers ( see Ogbu, 2003, 1987 or McWhorter, 2001) attempt to explain racial
disparities in schooling with arguments focused on negative student norms or self-
defeating student cultures which, they argue, undermine academic accomplishment.
Noguera (2004) and Conchas (2006) critique these arguments for their monolithically
negative portrayals of Black and Latino student academic “culture,” for their inability
to account for student success, and for their neglect of policy-amenable structural con-
ditions, from funding to discipline policy to teacher quality that must also explain
some of current conditions.

What are the lessons for thinking about goals and politics?
According to one observer (Galston, 2005), educational policy reflects “politicized”
and “polarized” debates because “it is linked to virtually everything Americans care
about” and “education policy straddles the fault lines of the major divisions in U.S.
politics and society, and it cannot avoid replicating those divisions” (p. 57). Galston in
an examination of “the contemporary legacy of racial discrimination – in particular, on
the travails of many urban school systems in which African American students now
constitute the majority” states that “race has been the single most divisive factor in
American educational policy” (p. 71). If schools “cannot avoid replicating” the divi-
sions that exist outside them – in this case, if schools cannot avoid reproducing the pro-
found racial disparities and inequalities that exist within North American society – the
moral and political implications for school practitioners are significant because they
are salaried participants in the maintenance of a racial hierarchy. If schools generally
reflect broader societal problems like racism, then the appropriate educational and
political goals would be to address directly societal racial discrimination. If, however,
there can exist something such as an antiracist school, then educational policymakers’
responsibility is to articulate what would support such schools and to marshal politi-
cal, organizational, and financial resources to support them. Again, one’s perspective
on the solution depends on one’s framing of the problem. If, as Lipman (1998) argues,
the failure of public schools to educate Black children is not a flaw of the system, but
is the system itself, then the remedy is to be found beyond the walls of the school-
house. If, alternately, as recent scholarship on high-performing, high-poverty, high-
minority schools has demonstrated (Conchas, 2006; Jerald, 2001), successful schools
and programs for urban students do exist, policymakers’ responsibility is to determine
how to make such schools less rare.

Causal Argument # 4: Economic, Political, and Racial Problems

in Urban Education Needs Local, Democratic Solutions
The fourth causal argument within urban education posits that urban decline is attribut-
able to the collapse or repression of localized democratic participation, and the corre-
sponding loss of control of social institutions. By implication, those reforms which will
spark local democratic participation may spark a growth in social capital among inner
city residents and thus neighborhood revitalization and school improvement. The rhet-
oric of empowerment via local participation in social institutions has been mobilized to
814 Flessa and Ketelle

serve both the expansion of federal programs (like Johnson’s Great Society urban ini-
tiatives) as well as their decentralization. There is a body of literature (see, Handler,
1996; Rofes & Stulberg, 2004; Sugarman & Kemerer, 1999) which indicts economic,
political, and racial hierarchies as deriving from weak local democratic processes;
inequality associated with economics, politics, and race, can all be ameliorated via
democracy, and this democracy can be built both within schools and via their gover-
nance. Democracy is both the ideological approach and the concrete collection of
mechanisms – like voice, vote, and resources – that can transform individualism into
broad social change. Carnoy and Levin (1985) note:

Observing the relationship of teachers to pupils and of parents to teachers and

administrators suggests, for example, the difficulty of individual family action
(outside social movements) to try to change reproductive practices. Such individ-
ual action is circumscribed by rules, regulations, and attitudes that can only be
changed by collective social action. In a collective group with common interests
and purposes, individual parents, teachers, and students can attack the structure in
which practices are situated. (p. 111)

This argument highlights a classic controversy of whether democratic goals and par-
ticipation are best protected through centralized systems or community control of gov-
ernmental services. Callahan (1962), Ravitch (1974/2000), and Donato (1997), for
example, like school reformers from the Progressive Era, argue that via the bureau-
cratic processes associated with centralized decision-making, a “common school” is
both an accomplishment and building block of democracy.
Notwithstanding the growing federalization of public education in the United States
via the No Child Left Behind Act, such centralized responses are viewed with increas-
ing skepticism. Fuller (2003) writes that the current U.S. policy environment is “shed-
ding essential tenets of modern statecraft,” leaving behind one-best-system policy
conceptions, preferring instead policies that reflect “cultural pluralism.”

The romantic ideals of common schooling, by the 1960s, had been eclipsed by the
school’s impersonal (rational) organization and the realization that not all fami-
lies were joining the middle class. The modern school in many communities had
become a disappointing symbol of ineffectual public authority, yielding for fam-
ilies a shallow stake in mainstream society. Intense policy action by central gov-
ernment, such as desegregation decrees and school finance reforms, yielded only
modest results. (p. 19)

Similarly, Gittell (1971), Katz (1975), Bryk, Lee, and Holland (1993) and Bryk,
Sebring, Kerbow, Rollow, and Easton (1998) interpret both the history and contempo-
rary expression of professionalized, school board-based decision making as not only
inefficient, but also as a way by which elite interests are promoted at the expense of the
urban poor. Policy can structure revitalization of urban areas via the return of
resources, authority, and responsibility to local democratic actors. Bryk et al. (1998),
 Persuasive, Pervasive, and Limiting 815

in their study of Chicago school reform and the empowerment there of school site
committees to make substantive localized school governance decisions argue that:

The loss of local institutions of all kinds – social, economic, and religious – have
denuded urban community life and undermined the viability of these communi-
ties. Any effort to stem the current destruction and to recreate communities
requires a massive commitment to local institution-building. Key in this regard is
expanded opportunities for citizen participation and community education about
local affairs. With sustained local engagement and some external supports, it is
argued that even poor citizens can take control of their circumstances and improve
them. From this perspective, Chicago school reform can be viewed as part of a
larger movement to renew urban life by revitalizing the public sphere. (p. 17)

Westheimer (2005) and Westheimer and Kahne (2004) argue that strengthening democ-
racy, and in turn schools, is possible through civic education, service learning and other
pedagogies. They conceptualize a curriculum that develops citizenship and believe that
such an approach requires political choices which have political consequences.
Karumanchery and Portelli (2005) likewise examine the political implications of pre-
vailing discourses of democracy and education and conclude that “a democratic educa-
tion must speak to the everyday social concerns of the subjects and communities they
serve. It must, in short, contribute to the development of a critical and invested body
politic” (p. 344). Within this causal argument significant emphasis is placed on locally-
driven responses and remedies to macro-level societal problems.

What are the lessons for thinking about goals and politics?
Of the four causal arguments, democratic schooling seems to make the most room for
local educators to envision themselves as part of the remedy for urban school improve-
ment. The question, however, is how much leeway local actors have in an accountabil-
ity era that increasingly tightens the coupling between federal, state, or provincial
policies and local schools. Another recent policy trend that would trouble proponents
of this perspective is the fact that locally elected school boards, particularly in strug-
gling urban areas, have found themselves in several instances removed from decision
making authority through direct state or mayoral takeover or through indirect means
such as mayoral appointees (Kirst, 2002; Yee with Flessa, 2004). Indeed, school
boards’ utility, influence, and effectiveness are under examination with a renewed
intensity (Howell, 2005).
A similar question, raised by Fuller, is whether local, contextually-driven reforms,
which “opt for small public squares, showing little interest in the modern state’s strug-
gle to advance a larger, more inclusive common ground” (p. 16) in fact will leave
“children and parents any better off than before” (p. 22).
For democracy to be the solution for urban education, lack of democracy has to be
the most important problem. Although there are many arenas in which increased dem-
ocratic participation may make a difference, there remain critical questions regarding
816 Flessa and Ketelle

the ability of localized networks to challenge and change the power dynamics that cre-
ated racial and economic inequalities in the first place (Lopez & Stack, 2001). Absent
acknowledgment of urban communities’ unequal power, remedies that embrace the
structures and mechanisms of democratic participation underestimate the difficulties
that almost certainly ensue. We are reminded of Baldwin (1963):

You must understand that in the attempt to correct so many generations of bad
faith and cruelty, when it is operating not only in the classroom but in society, you
will meet the most fantastic, the most brutal, and the most determined resistance.
There is no point in pretending that this won’t happen. (p. 3)

Conclusion
The boundaries of the causal explanations laid out should bother both academics and
school-level practitioners. Some academics might find suspect any universalizing
“grand narrative” that attempts to order the world in one unified, modern, and mutu-
ally exclusive way. Furthermore, how any of the big policy or structural shifts would
affect schools – through what processes these shifts reach into the core technologies of
teaching and learning – is not illuminated by any of these arguments. For that reason,
practitioners are unlikely to embrace any of the causal arguments that seem to under-
play the amount of local influence educators might actually ever be able to have on
urban educational outcomes. And indeed, how can one “either-or” perspective possibly
account for the diversity of issues and problems facing urban school systems?
The four causal arguments presented in this chapter are not cumulative, but instead
represent different, separate ways of framing and understanding urban educational
issues in contemporary society. Causal Arguments #1 and #2 deal with economic
issues while putting forth different solutions. Causal Argument #3 focuses on race and
Causal Argument #4 integrates elements of all the arguments and puts forth various
solutions (Table 1).
We acknowledge there will always be tension between policy, politics, research and
practice and that schools inevitably reflect those conflicting influences. However,
defining the problems facing urban schools in a multifaceted way might lead to more
multifaceted responses; using causal arguments in combination with one another may
have greater utility and be less limiting. As Dei (1996) suggests, “The idea is to
respond to the challenges facing schooling with multiple, overlapping strategies”
(p. 106). If researchers, politicians or practitioners approach their work from a single
frame that has internal limitations, then the solutions proposed would, by their nature,
be inadequate. This inadequacy highlights the need to break down the isolation of one
approach from another from another. After all, in the real world all four causal argu-
ments are intertwined. Issues, generally, are not exclusively economic or political or
racial or democratic but in fact involve all four components, always.
There are, of course, reform recommendations and scholarly treatments of urban
education that attempt to incorporate a variety of perspectives. Kumashiro (2000)
 Persuasive, Pervasive, and Limiting 817

Table 1. Analysis of Causal Arguments in urban schooling

Urban school reform Central premise Implied solution What’s left out?
causal arguments

#1 – Economic Economics Improvement of the Considerations

determines how
successful urban
schools can be
#2 – Economics/Politics Economic success
through political
action will determine
how successful urban
schools can be
#3 – Race Desegregation and
successful school
design determine
how successful urban
schools can be
# 4 – Democracy Developing systems
that adhere to
democratic principles
determine how
successful urban
schools can be
economy will of regional
improve schools policy influence,
school design
and practice
Regional policy that Considerations
focuses on improving of race, school
the economic design and
standing of citizens practice
will improve schools
Desegregation Considerations
successfully of the societal
implemented and/or influences of
successful school economics and
designs focused on public policy
the achievement of
urban youth will
improve schools
Emphasis on school Considerations
designs centered on of regional
democratic schooling differences and
principles will economic
improve schools influences

provides a potentially useful theoretical approach to frame urban educational reform

from an “anti-oppressive” standpoint. McCready (2004) argues for the examination of
race, gender, and sexuality as overlapping and multifaceted components of Black male
students’ experiences of urban schools. Furthermore we note that in practice, reform
recommendations – even those apparently most connected to one of the causal argu-
ments we’ve laid out – may, depending on different articulations of the reform’s pur-
poses, straddle several arguments. For example, both in the United States and in
Canada parent and community organizers frustrated with urban district bureaucracies
unresponsive to community needs have pushed for racially- or culturally-affirming
schools. Ginwright (2004) has examined the purposes behind and challenges encoun-
tered during one public high school’s attempt to institutionalize Afrocentric school
reform; Bancroft (2003) has described the history, aspirations, and pedagogical strug-
gles that characterize an Afrocentric charter school and one Latino community-based
charter school. These reforms were envisioned by participants as attempts not only to
forge racially-affirming educational opportunities but also to create locations for polit-
ical, democratic community organizing.
Similarly, in Canada, proponents of Black-focused schools articulate a variety of
purposes and ends. Advocates point to a variety of empirical facts: that Black students
in Toronto are overrepresented in special education and applied streams (lower,
818 Flessa and Ketelle

nonacademic tracks that limit future economic mobility); that Black students in
Toronto are disproportionately targeted by provincial disciplinary “safe schools” poli-
cies (see Yuen, 2005); that curriculum in mainstream public schools neglect the
accomplishments of Black and African people in Canada; that there are too few Black
teachers and administrators, enabling schools to institutionalize hostility to Black fam-
ilies; that youth violence is on the rise and is disproportionately affecting Black com-
munities (see Toronto Community Foundation, 2006). In order to create educational
opportunities for Black students that might counter these inequities, OISE/UT
Professor George Dei and others have called for the opening of Black-focused schools.

The “Black-focused school” (or as some of us prefer to call “African-centered

school”) is a concept for the promotion of education primarily (but not exclu-
sively) for Black peoples of African descent … The school is offered as one of
many endeavors that can be done to enhance learning for our youth. It should be
on a pilot/experimental basis. If the school succeeds, the lessons can be trans-
ferred into the mainstream public school system. (Dei, 2005, p. 1 and 3)

This proposal has been disregarded (recently, as in the past) by provincial politicians
and educational policymakers who regard the idea of Black-focused schools as “seg-
regation” (see Kalinowski & Brown, 2005). The rejection of the proposal reflects as
much about a political context suspicious of Black community organizing as it does
about fears of “segregation,” given that Ontario currently publicly funds separate
Catholic and French schools with little fanfare (Dei, 2005). The case of Black-focused
schools in Toronto stands as an interesting counterbalance to our characterization of
one-size-fits-all recommendations. Perhaps Black-focused schools might, if given the
chance, become sites of democratic openness, dialogue, discussion, and community
empowerment (Beecher, 2005).
There is a tension created between the macro framing of issues and the micro imple-
mentation of a reform; sometimes this tension is characterized as big picture versus
nuts-and-bolts. When practitioners attempt to implement change solely based on the
local nuts and bolts, there’s a risk of neglecting to see how policy and practical prob-
lems are shaped both from inside and outside the school; there are risks in over prom-
ising what any school-based remedy can accomplish. Likewise, when researchers or
policymakers stand only at arms length drawing the big picture and only critique,
there’s a risk of viewing schools merely as reflections of forces that originate from
without, never from within; such a perspective systematically underestimates the
potential significance of collective school-based responses. There is no easy escape
from this trap although we imagine that a policymaking process more concerned with
implementation and an implementation process more concerned with policymaking is
one way to start.
Many accumulated years of work in both K-12 schooling and in research about
K-12 schools have equipped us with a built-in answer to the question of which of
the diverse conceptualizations laid out in this chapter is most salient or important. Our
response? It depends. We take this stance not from ambivalence or from mushy
theorizing or from ignorance of the existing empirical data, but instead from the
 Persuasive, Pervasive, and Limiting 819

perspective that both practitioners and researchers are better served when able to
embrace an intertwined analysis of what has caused the urban schools and society we
both inherit and create to be the way they are. If we start with “it depends” we are able
to interrogate not only the way that problems are posed, but also which policy levers
(economic, political, racial, or democratic) should be pulled and towards what ends.
On the one hand, the separation of causal claims provides the kind of scrutiny of spe-
cific dynamics that are necessary for knowledge creation. On the other hand, when the
arguments move from descriptive to prescriptive, too tight a focus removes from con-
sideration potentially complementary policy responses. The answer to the question
“What’s wrong with urban schools?” is plural; so, therefore, must be the recommen-
dations for improving them.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the following people who read and commented on ear-
lier drafts of this chapter: R. Pete Mesa and Delaine Eastin at Mills College; Jeffrey
Kugler, Director of the Centre for Urban Schooling at OISE/University of Toronto;
several colleagues in the Department of Theory and Policy Studies at OISE/University
of Toronto; and Rodney Hopson of Duquesne University. We would also like to thank
William Pink for feedback on an earlier draft and Michele Foster for detailed critique
and recommendations at several stages.

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43

THE NEW IMMIGRANTS: SHAPING

THE URBAN EDUCATIONAL LANDSCAPE

Lisa Konczal
Department of Sociology and Criminology, Barry University, Florida, U.S.A.

Introduction
In a crowded hallway of a high school in Miami, Florida, one of the students directed my
attention toward a group huddled at the end of the hall and informed me, “There are the
reffies. You know, the ones ‘right off the boat.’ They don’t speak English. Our neighbor-
hood was a nice place to live before the reffies came.” Offering this narrative was, Anita,
a popular student of Cuban parentage. The group she referenced was the large and
growing crowd of newly arrived immigrant students at her school, mostly from Spanish-
speaking nations. The derogatory term, reffie (from refugee) was something I became
used to hearing even among the other, albeit more assimilated, immigrant youth at this
school. Much to Anita’s dismay, she and these newcomers have a lot in common. Together
they are a part of the growing stock of new immigrants that have entered into the US and
its schools. Besides the teasing and taunting of some newcomers by school peers, immi-
grants today face other challenges unlike those of previous immigrant waves to US.
Indeed, compared to the early stock of foreign-born, observed by scholars during the
beginning of the twentieth century, the portrait of contemporary U.S. immigrants looks
much different. Notably, immigration to the US over the past 20 years is a highly urban1
phenomenon and one concentrated in the largest cities, especially in the poorer, inner-
city areas (Portes & Rumbaut, 1996). In the early 1990s more than half of incoming
U.S. immigrants settled in only ten metropolitan locations (ibid.). On the top of that list
is New York, which has always been the preferred destination, right above Los Angeles,
Chicago, and Miami (US Census, 2000). In Canada 94% of immigrants arriving during
the 1990s settled in metropolitan areas. 73% came to just three major Canadian cities:
Montreal Toronto, and Vancover (McIssac, 2003). Although settling into urban, metro-
politan cities is not something new for migrants to North America, the concentrations
into these cities has increased (see Fry, 2002; Portes & Rumbaut, 1996).
Another difference is that today’s immigrants are faced with a different economy than
that of immigrants 70 years ago (Alba & Nee, 1997; Perlman & Waldinger, 1997;
825
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 825–840.
© 2007 Springer.
826 Konczal

Portes, 1997; Waldinger, 1994). In the past, immigrants could obtain industrial, blue-
collar positions, which offered higher wages, and thus a stepping stone for immigrant
offspring. Jobs in early twentieth century factories within the industrial rust-belt offered
fairly stable work and incomes to parents. In contrast, today’s economy, characterized
by high-tech, white-collar industries offers opportunity and upward mobility primarily
to those with higher educations. Now, more than ever, it is the education of immigrant
children that has become the most crucial and perhaps the only path to advancement.
Finally, today’s U.S. immigrants, who come mostly from South and Central America,
the Caribbean, and Asia are racially distinct from the immigrants of 70 years ago who
were predominately of European descent (Portes, 1995; Zhou, 1997). In Canada,
although people from Europe still make up the majority immigrant population, those
coming from Asia are the fastest growing immigrant group. They are part of what the
Canadian Census refers to as “visible minorities” or “persons, other than aboriginal
peoples, who are non-Caucasion in race and non-white in color.” And Canada’s visible
minority population is growing “nearly six times faster than the total population”
(Statistics Canada, 2003). The new immigrants therefore are often subjected to more
discrimination and blocked from educational and occupational opportunities. During
the 1990s anti-immigrant sentiment was played out within the policies of urban school
systems and on a more micro-level: within the schools themselves.
This chapter will elaborate on each of these changes faced by what contemporary
scholars call the “New Immigrant” and implications for the education of their children.
Besides first-generation (or foreign-born) immigrants, it also refers to second-genera-
tion immigrants (native-born children of immigrant parentage).2 Specifically, this
chapter addresses the following: (1) demographic settlement and socioeconomic pat-
terns among recent immigrants. This data highlights the trends mentioned above:
places of settlement of recently arrived immigrants, numbers reflecting how many of
these immigrants are of school-age, language preferences; and predominate countries
of origin in Canada and the US; (2) contemporary explanations of why some immi-
grant school-age youth succeed in school and some fail, drop-out, and underachieve.
The explanations include new theoretical debates about the process of assimilation and
acculturation; the reactions toward these immigrants, including changing curriculum
and policy within the urban school systems to accommodate new forms of education
for vastly growing population of non-English speaking students; and (3) how these
policies shape the life chances of these children within various urban school settings
across North America. To address the needs and challenges of even half of these
immigrant communities (each with its own unique set of circumstances) would be
impossible, if not unappreciative of the diversity among Canadian and U.S. immigrants.
This chapter, therefore, uses select case studies of Asians in Canada, Mexicans in
California, and Cubans and Haitians in Miami, Florida in hopes of demonstrating a
wide range of immigrant schooling experiences and scholarly discourse about it.

Demographic Overview
The most current numbers from the US Census (2000) reports that about 12% of the
US population are foreign-born, most of whom come from Latin America (Central and
 Shaping the Urban Educational Landscape 827

Table 1. US and Canadian immigrant population by place of birth: 2000

US Canada

No. % No. %

Total population 247,709,873 100 31,021,000 100

Total immigrant population 31,107,889 100 5,448,480 100
Central and South American 13,127,529 42.2 304,650 5.6
Caribbean 2,955,249 9.5 294,050 5.4
Europe 4,915,046 15.8 2,287,550 42.0
Africa 871,021 2.8 282,600 5.2
Asia 8,212,483 26.4 1,989,180 36.5
Oceania 155,539 0.5 52,525 1.0
North America 839,913 2.7 237,920 4.4

Sources: US Bureau of the Census. 2003. The Foreign-Born Population: 2000; Statistics Canada. 2003.
Canadian Social Trends: Update on Cultural Diversity, no. 7.

South America and the Caribbean) followed by Asia and Europe. Mexicans, by a large
margin encompass the largest immigrant group in the US. According to the 2000
Current Population Survey, more than one-quarter of the foreign-born population was
from Mexico, which had the largest share of any country. Cuba, the Dominican
Republic and El Salvador also ranked among the ten leading countries of foreign birth
in the US (ibid.). In Canada, immigrants come predominately from Europe (especially
France) and Asia. Canada has seen a large increase in peoples from China over
recently, especially between 1996 and 2001 when the number of Chinese Canadians
increased by 20% (Statistics Canada, 2003) (Table 1).
Compared to non-foreign-born populations, immigrants in both the US and Canada
have more school-age children (under 18) and have larger families. One in 15 school
children is born outside of the US and one in seven speaks a language other than English
at home (Van Hook, 2000). In Canada 10% of the total population of school-age children
(between 15 and 24) are foreign born (Statistics Canada, 2003).
Immigrants and their children settle in urban, metropolitan areas more than those of
the past. In fact, over one-third of the US immigrant population of 28.4 million live in
only two metropolitan areas, Los Angeles and New York and live in predominately
central city3 areas (US Census, 2003). Similar high proportions exist in Canada: three-
quarters of the immigrants arriving to Canada during the 1990s lived in three major
metropolises. This is an increase compared to the 1970s when less than 60% settled in
metropolitan areas (Statistics Canada, 2003) (Table 2).
In terms of educational attainment in the US, many immigrant children are lagging.
They are less likely to have graduated from high school than natives of the same age
and more than one-fifth of the foreign-born had less than a ninth-grade education in
2003. However, researchers studying immigrant education have found anomalies in
this assessment while observing immigrants with respect to their particular national
origin. Young people from Latin America have the highest drop-out rates, but from that
group, youth from Central America and Cuba do comparatively well in school versus
those who trace their descent to Mexico or Puerto Rico (Garcia & Montgomery, 1990;
828 Konczal

Table 2. Top ten US places (of 100,000 or more population) with the largest popula-
tion and foreign-born populations: 2000

Place No. of foreign-born % of total population

US 31,107,889 11.1
Miami, FL 215,739 59.5
Los Angeles, CA 1,512,720 40.9
San Jose, CA 329,757 36.8
San Francisco, CA 285,541 36.8
New York, NY 2,871,032 35.9
Houston, TX 516,105 26.4
San Diego, CA 314,227 25.7
Dallas, TX 290,436 24.4
Chicago, IL 628,903 21.7
Phoenix, AZ 257,325 19.5
San Antonio, TX 133,675 11.7
Philadelphia, PA 137,205 9
Detroit, MI 45,541 4.8

US Bureau of the Census. 2003. The Foreign-Born Population: 2000.

Table 3. Top 11 Canadian cities with the highest percentage foreign born: 2000

Place No. % of total population

Canada 32,500,000 18
Toronto (Ont.) 2,032,960 43.7
Vancouver (B.C.) 738,550 37.5
Hamilton (Ont.) 154,660 23.6
Windsor (Ont.) 67,880 22.3
Kitchener (Ont.) 90,570 22.1
Abbotsford (B.C.) 31,660 21.8
Calgary (Alta.) 197,410 20.9
Guelph (Ont.) 22,865 19.8
London (Ont.) 80,410 18.8
Victoria (B.C.) 57,590 18.8
Montréal (Que.) 621,890 18.4

Source: Education indicators in Canada: Report of the Pan-Canadian Education

Indicators Program 2005.

Gibson, 1991; Suarez-Orozco, 1991; Suarez-Orozco, 1997). In Canada, Asian immi-

grants achieve above the academic averages of the population as a whole (Table 3).
What makes some immigrants succeed in school, while other fail, drop out, or under-
achieve? While differences in national origin appear to point to prior homeland expe-
riences, researchers studying immigrants believe it is due primarily to the reception
(either positive or negative) of the receiving country and community. The next section
will examine these explanations that contribute to either positive or negative academic
outcomes.
 Shaping the Urban Educational Landscape 829

Incorporation of Immigrants into Schools

The experience of a foreign child adjusting to an unfamiliar school setting is illuminated
within the context of assimilating into a foreign society in general. From the beginning
of research on immigration, scholars assumed that immigrants and their subsequent gen-
erations would eventually assimilate into American society. Park and Burgess (1921)
were the first to research immigrants to the US. As theorists from the Chicago School of
Sociology, they observed their local metropolitan, multiethnic setting and provided a def-
inition of assimilation as, “a process of interpenetration and fusion in which persons and
groups acquire the memories, sentiments, and attitudes of other persons and groups and,
by sharing their experience and history, are incorporated with them a common cultural
life” (Park & Burgess, 1921, p. 735). The adoption of the core culture of the middle class,
largely white, Protestant, Anglo-Saxon represented the direction of American assimila-
tion (ibid. Gordon, 1964). Furthermore, they asserted, assimilation was a prerequisite for
upward mobility. These assimilation theorists anticipated this process would take some
time, even several generations, but would inevitably take place.
In more recent years empirical observation of the children of immigrants has offered
new paradigms that attempt to more accurately reflect the reality of new groups of immi-
grants (Gans, 1992; Glazer, 1993; Kazal, 1995; Ogbu, 1991; Portes, 1995). Portes and
Zhou (1993) argue that classical assimilation theory can no longer apply to today’s immi-
grants, basically due to the three main reasons mentioned earlier (changes in settlement
patterns, new discrimination, and changing economy). The various paths that today’s
immigrant stock may take is substantiated in segmentary assimilation theory (Portes,
1993; Portes & Rumbaut, 1990; Zhou, 1997). In essence, this theory argues that out-
comes of the adaptation process for the new stock of immigrants will not be uniform.
Outcomes are segmented as a consequence of the contemporary contextual factors
(racial distinctiveness, changes in the structure of U.S. economy, and geographic loca-
tion) constraining the chances for successful adaptation of the children of immigrants.

Positive Academic Outlooks

Advocates of the segmented assimilation theory attribute positive academic orienta-
tion to selective acculturation, where learning American ways combines with contin-
uing strong bonds with the ethnic community (Portes & Rumbaut, 1990). While
traditional assimilation theorists argued for giving up homeland cultural traits as a
prerequisite to succeed in the US (including in schools), current observations con-
clude that some immigrants succeed by deliberately maintaining certain ethnic norms
and values such as the belief in the payoff of schooling. For example, children of early
anti-Castro Cuban exiles attending private schools in Miami experienced an environ-
ment that was characterized by a culture that supported parental or homeland ethnic
traits such as language and beliefs (Portes & Rumbaut, 1990; Stepick & Grenier,
1993). Cubans in Miami had the resources and capital to create private bilingual
schools in Miami. In these schools children were taught English, but they did so while
preserving Spanish and a strong attachment to the Cubans’ national history. Because of
830 Konczal

this preservation, rather than despite of it, educational attitudes and achievement were
positive (ibid.).
Similarly, Matute-Bianchi has found that school success is more likely among what
she termed “Mexican-oriented” students: those who maintained strong, positive iden-
tities as “Mexicanos” in addition to valuing educational credentials as a means of
achieving adult success (Matute-Bianchi, 1991). In contrast, “Chicano” students in her
study did not embrace their ethnicity as an asset to their educational success. Instead,
they actively rejected their heritage and, along with it, schooling. Like Cubans in
Miami, Mexican-oriented students in California (Mexicanos specifically) maintained
certain levels of their homeland identity and by virtue of that maintenance, rather than
despite of it, they had a positive attitude about school.
Some researchers attribute positive academic achievement to immigrants who main-
tain a “dual-frame-of-reference” with respect to their education (Ogbu, 1991; Suarez-
Orozco, 1997). Ogbu and Suarez-Orozco found that Central American students were
able to succeed in school, because they compare the opportunities in the US favorably
against those in their homelands. These immigrants interpret academic, economic and
social barriers as temporary problems that they will overcome with hard work and edu-
cation. To John Ogbu immigrants are “voluntary” minorities, who came to the US of
their own will to seek a better life for themselves and their children (Ogbu, 1991). On the
other hand, the ancestors of native-born, “involuntary” minorities were brought to the US
by force for slavery (i.e., Africans) or conquest (i.e., Mexicans in the Southwest US).
Indeed, recent studies have also shown that many immigrant students surpass their
native counterparts (native-born minorities) in school. Portes and Rumbaut (1996), for
example, found that in San Diego and Miami first-generation immigrant students tend
to have higher GPAs than those born in the US. Furthermore, Asians in Britain
(Gibson, 1991; Ogbu, 1978; Tomlinson, 1989), Polynesians in New Zealand (Ogbu,
1993), and Turks and Finns in Australia (Inglis & Manderson, 1991) all academically
achieve higher than comparable native minorities.

Negative Academic Outlooks

What makes some immigrants have a negative or adversarial outlook toward educa-
tion? While addressing this question, researchers attribute degree of discrimination
and the particular settlement patterns as relevant to academic attitudes. A relatively
large number of immigrant children have settled in underprivileged neighborhoods
where immigrants and their children come into direct daily contact with the native
poor (Zhou, 1997). Such is the case of some Mexican immigrants in California and
Haitians assimilating into poor urban areas that lack resources (Ogbu, 1991; Stepick,
1998). They reject mainstream norms and values; that is, they do not assimilate into
this sector, because they actively reject it.
According to Ogbu (1991), the peer culture of today’s inner-city schools often places
immigrant children in a dilemma: if they choose to meet their parents’ expectations for
academic achievement, they are likely to be ostracized as “uncool,” or “acting white” by
their American peers in schools. However, if they submit to peer pressure and to
“American” attitudes they likely will adopt negative attitudes toward school leading to poor
 Shaping the Urban Educational Landscape 831

academic performance that will limit their opportunities for advancement later (Portes,
1995; Portes & Rumbaut, 1996; Zhou, 1997). The end result of this latter adaptation path
is summarized by Suarez-Orozco as “learning not to learn” (Suarez-Orozco, 1991).
Studies of some immigrant youth tend to focus on their negative reception that is
reflected in the extraordinary prejudice and discrimination they have confronted
(Portes & Zhou, 1993; Stepick, 1998; Stepick, Stepick, Eugene, Teed, & Labissiere,
2001). Negative reception has produced cultural dissonance, which is manifest in
youth covering up or hiding their home culture, including language. For example, stud-
ies of Haitians in Miami showed that compared to other immigrants, Haitian students
claimed less knowledge of a foreign language (for them this would be Haitian Creole),
even though they had did not have good English-language ability (Stepick et al., 2001).
In other words, the Haitian students sometimes claimed not to know Haitian Creole, even
though Stepick et al. believes they did. Researchers like Stepick et al. (2001) interpret the
students’ claimed ignorance of Creole as a reflection of cultural dissonance, an effort to
distance themselves from their roots.
Contemporary thoughts on assimilation and schooling of immigrant children stress
the importance of positive treatment of immigrants by agencies on micro and macro
levels: from peers in their new school, from co-ethics in their local community and
from the national policies. Some immigrant students, like Cubans in Miami had a pos-
itive response by the local community, which allowed for (and even encouraged) some
degree of cultural maintenance. Most immigrants, including Haitians and Mexicans,
have a less favorable reception, which ultimately resulted in higher drop-out rates and
lower academic achievement. The following case studies detail the experiences of
these immigrants.

Case Studies
Canada: Chinese School-Age Youth
This case study centers on Chinese-Canadian students for reasons inherent in the
Canadian immigration demographic trends. According to the 2001 Canadian Census,
Asian immigrants make up over 36% of the immigrant population, second to European
(predominately French) arrivals. Asians, predominantly from China comprise the
largest group of recent arrivals “accounting for 40 percent of all those immigrants who
came to Canada between 1978 and 1986 and comprising 3 percent of the total popula-
tion in 1999” (Badets, 1990; Dyson, 2005). More recently Chinese immigrants are
undoubtedly the largest growing immigrant population in Canada, accounting for
17.3% of Canada’s immigrants in 2003 (Dyson, 2005). On average, Chinese immi-
grants in Canada are more likely to hold college degrees than the rest of the population.
However, studies also show that their higher levels of education do not translate into
high-income, prestigious work. Li (1998) found that the Chinese are still underrepre-
sented in professional, white-collar positions. This contradiction (successful education
not leading to equal-level occupations) is a reflection of positive parent cultural atti-
tudes that promote educational achievement, but are restrained by persistent institu-
tional discrimination.
832 Konczal

More optimistic though are observations of Asian immigrants in North America who
succeed academically beyond both their immigrant and non-immigrant peers, what some
scholars refer to as the “model minority” (Fuligni & Wikow, 2004; Waters & Eschbach,
1995). Studies in the US by Kao and Tienda (1998) found that, compared to their White,
Hispanic, and Black peers, more Asian eighth-grade boys had much higher aspirations.
The US Census (2000) shows that over 40% of Asians over 25 years of age had com-
pleted a college education compared with about 27% of non-Hispanic, Whites.
Much scholarly attention has attributed it to a positive relationship between high
parental exceptions and the students’ academic achievement (Peng & Wright, 1994;
Li, 2004). Peng and Wright (1994) as well as scholars cited earlier in this chapter (see
Portes & Rumbaut, Stepick & Matute-Bianchi) all argue that there are significant edu-
cational payoffs for maintaining parental norms and values. However, as these schol-
ars also note, the adoption of parental values depends on support of and acceptance by
the local school and broader receiving society. Experiences of discrimination diminish
the effects of parental human capital. Studies show that Chinese youth in Canadian
schools have been the targets of various forms of discrimination (Peakin & Bienvenue,
1990) including verbal and physical attacks in the schools (Chan, 1987; Huang &
Ying, 1989). The following sections elaborate on both the parental influences and how
they manifest in the experiences of Chinese-Canadian school children.

Parental cultural influences on education

Positive school performance and achievement among Chinese-Canadian immigrants is
often accredited to parental views about education brought from their homeland. In a
qualitative study of seven families Li (2004) found that Chinese parents “praised
Chinese education for providing systematic academic training, but criticized it for limit-
ing children’s non-academic interests. They appreciated Canadian education for nurtur-
ing creativity and originality, but disliked its weak intellectual challenge” (Li, 2004, p. 4).
Similarly, the cultural importance Chinese families place on children is a factor in those
who succeed academically. In Chinese culture, education, and academic achievement of
children is a sign of good parenting and lack of education can result in Chinese parents
losing face in the community (Wason-Ellam, 2001). Hao and Bonsted-Bruns (1998)
found that Chinese immigrant youth are more likely to equate good grades with parental
satisfactions and share their parents’ high academic expectations, regardless of their
socioeconomic status (compared to both their immigrant and native-born peers) (Goyette &
Zie, 1999; Hao & Bonsted-Bruns, 1998; Kao & Tienda, 1998).
Similarly, studies by Stepick et al. (2001) of Haitians in Miami, show that adoption
of parental homeland values can be an asset to the education of immigrant children. But
whether or not the children will follow those homeland attitudes is contingent upon sev-
eral factors outside the home. The cultural beliefs that they are exposed to at the home
may conflict with those beliefs valued by their Western peers, but they are also depend-
ent upon resources acquired vis-à-vis settlement patterns and social capital.

Factors beyond parents’ control

While parental values matter, the extent to which young students are willing and able
to maintain them, depends on other contextual factors, including settlement patterns
and structural discrimination inherent in the school system and broader society.
 Shaping the Urban Educational Landscape 833

In her study of two Chinese-Canadian families with school-age children, Wason-

Ellam (2001) found significant academic differences based on settlement patterns.
Paying homage to Bourdieu (1972) she found that the some Chinese-Canadian families
lacked social capital, settling within “the hub of an old Chinatown area” that had fewer
occasions for them to use English in their day-to-day communications. Instead, children
learned language from their labor-intensive job at their family-owned Chinese restau-
rant with little opportunity to practice “Canadian” language. Both families that were
observed in Wason-Ellam’s study displayed high academic aspirations for the their chil-
dren, but one family simply did not have the resources (including financial and com-
munity social capital) to provide literacy culture favorable for their children to meet
those aspirations. Low academic achievement was due to lack of a cohesive Chinese
ethnic community in small urban area that is “more of a commercial district marketing
ethnic goods and services than a cultural community” (Wason-Ellam, 2001, p. 115).
When immigrant children do not settle into a community with financially success-
ful co-ethnics for support, they must rely on the receiving-nation’s institutions, and
therefore are more vulnerable to institutional discrimination. For example, standard-
ized or literacy tests in the Canadian (or Western) education system, which depends on
language proficiency, delegates newly arrived immigrant students to low achiever
status (Suarez-Orozco, 2001). Literacy can be, according to Stuckey (1991) as “a
weapon the knife that severs society and slices the opportunities and rights of its poor-
est people” (as quoted in Wason-Ellam, 2001, p. 118).

California: Mexican School-Age Youth

By far Mexican immigrants represent the largest and fastest-growing immigrant group
in the US. From 1980 to 1990 the number of people from Mexico in the US doubled
(from 2.1 to 4.2 million) and in 2000 that figure rose to 9.2 million people (30% of the
US foreign-born) (US Census, 2000). Mexican-American students are the fastest
growing population in American education (Crosnoe, Lopez-Gonzales, & Muller,
2004). Yet it is not just the high numbers that strike scholars as interesting. Rather it is
how the children of these immigrants are fairing.
In terms of schooling, they fall short compared to non-Mexican peers. Children of
Mexican immigrants are more likely to fall out of school (Perlman & Waldinger, 1997;
Rong & Preissle, 1998); have lower levels of education brought from their homeland
(Portes & Rumbaut, 1990; Zhou, 1997); score relatively low on standardized test
scores (Chavkin & Gonzalez, 2000; Trueba, 1999); and have higher high school
dropout rates compared to other groups in the US (Ronda & Valencia, 1994; Rong &
Preissle, 1998). Considering the requirements for positive segmented assimilation
(and therefore positive academic achievement), Mexicans have the most detrimental
combination: lack human capital from their homeland (low parental wealth and
education) and high degrees of individual and structural discrimination.

Oppositional cultural
Because Mexican immigrants have been coming to the US in continuous waves for cen-
turies, their case offers varying outcomes depending on generation. Matute-Bianchi’s
study of “Field High” in Central California distinguishes between these various types.
School success is more likely among what she termed “Mexican-oriented” students:
834 Konczal

those with a strong cultural ties to both Mexico and the US. They were primarily bilin-
gual, speaking English at school and Spanish in the home. Most of them were born in
Mexico but had lived in the US for more than five years. They maintained strong, pos-
itive identities as “Mexicanos” in addition to valuing educational credentials as a
means of achieving adult success (Matute-Bianchi, 1991).
In contrast, “Chicano” students in this same study did not embrace their ethnicity as
an asset to their educational success. Instead, they actively rejected their heritage and,
along with it, schooling. They are described by Matute-Bianchi as “not eating lunch in
the quad where all the gringos, ‘white folks,’ and schoolboys hang out … cutting
classes by faking a call slip so you can be with your friends at the 7–11 … sitting in the
back of a class of ‘gabachos’ and not participating … not taking the difficult
classes … doing the minimum to get by.” What is notable about the Chicanos is not so
much their aversion to all things academic, but the factors that influence that aversion.
As Portes notes, oppositional culture is not based on the human capital that immigrant
parents bring with them to the US, but rather the context of reception (of the receiving
country). According to Portes and Rumbaut (2001) Mexican immigrants “represent
the textbook example of theoretically anticipated effects of low immigrant human cap-
ital combined with negative context of reception” (p. 277).
Because of their visibility, Mexican immigrants have continually been targets of hos-
tility by anti-immigration groups. Nothing is more evident of this than recent back-
lashes against “illegals,” something not new to California. In California the 1994
California ballots included the Proposition 187, which among other things, sought to
make illegal immigrants ineligible for public school education at elementary, secondary
and post-secondary levels. Under this proposed proposition, schools and teachers were
expected to report immigrant families who were suspected of being in the country ille-
gally. Although this proposition was found unconstitutional in the courts, Proposition
209 was passed in California shortly after. Known as the “Anti-Affirmative Action
Proposition,” it prohibited public schools and other public institutions giving any type of
preferential treatment. And again, in 1998, California voters overwhelmingly approved
Proposition 227, an initiative that eliminates bilingual education from public schools.
Under this scheme, most Limited English Proficient (LEP) students in California were
shifted as quickly as possible into regular classrooms.

Feelings of discrimination
Poor context of reception results in high degrees of perceived discrimination.
According to the CILS study, perceived discrimination among San Diego Mexican-
American youth are pronounced even when controlling for various levels of English
proficiency. Those who were the least English proficient were found to perceive the
most discrimination – 88% agreed that there is racial discrimination in America and
67% report having personally experienced it. Other studies, such as Stanton-Salazar’s
study in a large urban San Diego high school found similar results describing high
incidences of feelings of discrimination, but this did not affect feels about school
achievement. The same sample agreed that Latino students did have an unequal oppor-
tunity to achieve at school (compared with other ethnic/racial groups).
 Shaping the Urban Educational Landscape 835

Miami: the Tale of Two Schools

By asserting membership in the Cuban enclave in South Florida, young people are not
only celebrating their ancestry, but also asserting their superiority vis-à-vis stigma-
tized or vulnerable populations like those formed by Mexicans. Cuban youngsters are
abundantly represented among those in US private schools and among families with
annual earnings in excess of $150,000 (Rumbaut & Portes, 2001). They are also more
likely than any other group to pursue an advanced education or professional degree
and to own businesses (ibid.).
The beneficial policies toward them made such a situation feasible. The first wave of
Cubans were fleeing a socialist nation and therefore granted one of the most generous
welcoming packages ever bestowed on any immigrant. The combination of easy access
to legal citizenship (in effect giving them the right to vote, a privilege not shared by
most newly arrived U.S. immigrants) and wealth carried from the island by that first
wave of industrious Cubans gave them an advantage that, years later, would be dubbed
“Cuban success story” or the “Golden Exiles” by scholars (Perez, 2002). Their legal
privilege meant that many experienced teachers from Cuba were recruited into Miami’s
schools and became an integral part of the English-as-Second-Language programs. For
Cuban and many Hispanic youngsters in Miami this meant a process of selective accul-
turation (rather than the traditional straight-line assimilation), where learning American
ways combines with continuing strong bonds with the ethnic community (Portes &
Rumbaut, 1990).
In effect, Cubans, were able to achieve a rapid process of incorporation, exhibit-
ing relatively high levels of occupational and political achievement (Perez, 2001;
Portes & Stepick, 1993; Portes & Zhou, 1993; Stepick & Grenier, 1993). In sum,
Latinos in Miami have done exceptionally well, economically and politically, com-
pared to immigrants in other parts of the nation. While Miami has only 5% of the
total U.S. Latino population, it has close to half of the 40 largest Latino-owned
industrial and commercial firms in the country (Stepick et al., 2001). Besides eco-
nomic, Latinos in Miami have substantial political influence. In 1985, the Miami
City Commission were majority Cuban American and has had a Cuban American
mayor almost continually since then. The current county mayor, Carlos Alvarez, is
also Cuban American. Two Miami Cubans are in the U.S. House of Representatives
and the Miami-Dade County state legislative delegation along with the Miami-Dade
County School Board are dominated by foreign-born Latinos, especially Cubans.
Indeed, never before has a minority immigrant group held so much power in a major
U.S. city (ibid.).
This has given young ethnic Cubans, and others who associate with that group
(those from Spanish-speaking populations), an advantage whereby maintaining some
degree of their homeland culture (i.e., language) is beneficial rather than a hindrance.
It is no surprise that the principal at the high school is Cuban and many of the teachers
are fluent Spanish speakers. This is not the situation held by all school children. Even
young Anita, who spoke down upon the reffies in her school speaks with an accent and
proudly calls herself Cuban. She may put herself above the new arrivals at her school,
but soon they will be like her.
836 Konczal

Haitians in Miami
Across town, in a Miami inner-city high school, Haitian students are stigmatized for
being Haitian or as one student put it, “American people are always pickin’ on Haitians.
Like, any time two American people get into an argument or somethin’ the curse word
they use is ‘Haitian’ it’s some type of curse word.” (quoted in Stepick et al., 2001). In
the early 1980s in Miami, when Haitians first started entering the high school closest to
the toughest parts of inner-city Miami in significant numbers, conflict episodically con-
vulsed the school. Students ridiculed and beat up anyone Haitian-looking or who spoke
Creole or accented English. African American, Anglo, and Hispanic students severely
mocked newly arrived Haitians during sports games (ibid.). After years of research in
the South Florida Haitian community and schools Stepick and his associates found that
Haitians are more likely than other immigrant groups to say they have felt discrimina-
tion (especially from other students). Furthermore, they are more likely than their other
immigrant counter parts to strongly agree that racial discrimination exists in the US and
that people will still discriminate regardless of education.
Yet stigmatizing by school peers is a reflection of a more complex struggle within
the broader society. Haitians are sometimes referred to as triple minorities in the US
(Bryce-LaPorte, 1993; Stepick, 1998). First, they are dark skinned and in the context
of the US, automatically labeled as socially Black. Second, they speak an unfamiliar
language, Haitian Creole, unique to the nation to Haiti. Finally, they are immigrants.
Differential policy toward Haitian immigrants was justified by the US government
classifying Haitians as economic, rather than political refugees and thus refused them
asylum on political grounds (Masud-Piloto, 1996; Nackerud, Springer, Larrison, & Issac,
1999). They were regarded as different from, for example, Cubans who came to flee a
Communist government. The double-standard was most evident during the Mariel
boatlift of 1980 when 125,000 Cubans were welcomed to the US with “open arms” while
an estimated 25,000 Haitians, who came around the same time were denied asylum and
threatened with deportation (Masud-Piloto, 1996).
The poor treatment reflects on both their community and schools within Miami’s
Little Haiti area. Although not an official municipality, it is very much a tight knit and
distinctive community where its residents are predominately Haitian. An estimated
85–90% of the neighborhood’s mostly black population is Haitian (Little Haiti Housing
Association [LHHA], 1998). Like similar ethnic towns, such as the Chinatowns of New
York and San Francisco or Little Havana in Miami, Little Haiti encompasses both a res-
idential area and an ethnic business community where immigrants speak their native
language and sell customary goods not commonly available elsewhere in the US (ibid.).
The economic conditions of Little Haiti are difficult. Little Haiti’s poverty rate of 45.6%
is significantly higher than Miami’s citywide average of 31.2% and is roughly four
times the rate for Florida as a whole (LHHA, 1998). According to a 1990 statistical pro-
file, 48% of Little Haiti’s labor force is unemployed (South Florida Housing and
Community Development Corporation (SFHCDC), 1998).
Current figures on educational attainment show that about 35% of Haitian immigrants
in the US do not have a high-school diploma, which is slightly more than the total immi-
grant population and 10% points more than the total US population (US Census, 2000).
However, those who did graduate high school are likely to go on to achieve at least some
upper-level education, although usually they do not attain a Bachelor’s or higher degree.
 Shaping the Urban Educational Landscape 837

Completion of a college degree is relatively infrequent among Haitian immigrants com-

pared to both the US population and total U.S. immigrant population. Ultimately, the his-
tory of poor reception led to a blocked educational opportunity, which echoes within the
halls of the schools in Little Haiti, “… they’re always pickin’ on Haitians.”

Conclusion
The American social transformations that coincided with arrival of immigrants during the
past 20 years have instigated challenges for both the schools and the immigrant children
who attend them. The assertions made by past immigrant scholars no longer apply to new-
comers who are larger in numbers, settle in urban, sometimes inner-city areas and depend
on education more than ever for upward mobility. The idea that immigrants would gradu-
ally become assimilated and, thus successful, has been challenged by segmented assimi-
lation theory. Contemporary research on today’s immigrants articulates that paths that
immigrants and their children take, including those that lead toward academic success,
varies depending on the either positive or negative reception. Reception of immigrant
takes on several forms such as policies about teaching LEP students English, the granting
of legal citizenship and local ethnic social capital. As illustrated by English-Proficiency
debates, the treatment is not uniform via immigrant group nor geographic area.
Young Chinese-Canadian students are caught between the two words of the their
parents, who represent positive homeland norms conducive to a good education and
structural factors in their new, westernized environment. Rather than a choice, the path
the Chinese student takes is determined by structural factors: where they settle, level
of solidarity amongst co-ethnics, level of school institutionalized discrimination, pro-
ducing academic fates dependent upon standardized tests of Western linguistic ability.
Miami’s schools reflect both the city’s already accomplished transformation and, to
some extent, a possible future for some other American cities. Hispanic/Latinos, led by
Cubans, have become the locally dominant group in South Florida and now maintaining
ethnic identity is an asset. These conditions do not apply for Mexicans in the southwestern
US. Powerful and successful Mexican Americans almost never speak with an accent. One
must become more thoroughly mainstream American to succeed in a local context domi-
nated by “Anglos,” or non-Hispanic Whites as the U.S. Census refers to the dominant U.S.
ethnic population. Miami may not be utterly unique in this respect. In parts of California,
Asians have come to dominate in a way that parallels Hispanic/Latinos in Miami.
In Monterey Park, California in particular, Asians control or at least are a powerful
influence in its politics, economics, and school district (Horton, 1995).
On the other hand, discrimination against other immigrants, like Haitians, show that
Miami reflects some of the racism and prejudice that exists in the broader U.S. society.
While Cubans may be at one end of the spectrum, Haitians who some call triple minorities
have had the most challenges, being dark-skinned immigrants (and subject to higher degrees
of discrimination) and speaking a language virtually unknown to those not from Haiti.
In sum, differences in adaptation are based on uneven modes of reception from host
communities and for those who have not been given a chance to fulfill their potential
are those who are left on the margins. These differences resulted in a number of con-
sequences for America’s urban schools and the immigrants entering into them. In a few
838 Konczal

cases, immigrant youth can and do excel academically while maintaining their co-
ethnic community’s homeland culture. Yet, they excel not despite this ethnic preserva-
tion, but rather, because of it. Having a city where the majority of the population are
various groups of immigrant minorities vary dramatically according to the amount of
power the ethnic segment has in the broader society. Settling into an area with a poor,
ethnic minority, inner-city segment is more likely to increase the probability of down-
ward mobility (Portes & Stepick, 1993; Portes & Zhou, 1993). On the other hand,
assimilating into an economically and politically powerful segment can be as or even
more rewarding than assimilating into mainstream American or Canadian society.

Notes
1. The US Census describes “Urban” as densely settled areas containing at least 50,000 people, and in
other places with a population of 2,500 or more (but excluding the portion of a few incorporated places
that contained a significant amount of sparsely settled territory).
2. Scholars and Demographers also refer to the 1.5 generation, usually referring to those who arrived by
age 13 (see Fry, 2002).
3. The US Census defines central cities as those consisting of one or more of the largest population and
employment centers of a metropolitan area (MA).

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44

URBAN SCHOOLING IN SUBURBAN CONTEXTS:

EXPLORING THE IMMIGRANT FACTOR
IN URBAN EDUCATION

Carl E. James and Roger Saul

Faculty of Education, York University, Toronto, Canada

In seeking to address the needs, interests and aspirations of Canadian youth living in
urban and suburban areas in what is commonly referred to as “inner city” conditions in
terms of poverty, highly populated areas, high non-white diversity, and poor school per-
formance, educators have tended to rely on American educational models (including
materials and resources).1 Such approaches speak to the experiences of minority
Americans, particularly as Kincheloe (2004) puts it, “city dwelling African Americans,
Latinos, Asian Americans and Arab Americans” (p. 3). But while the American models
of urban education, to an extent, provide valuable insights for working with racialized
youth populations, the fact that the large majority of Canada’s youth are first and second
generation Canadians2 suggests that unlike the American context, Canadian educators
must evolve an approach to urban education that takes into account the immigrant-
informed experiences and expectations of students. Such approaches must give con-
sideration to how these immigrant-informed experiences are affected by living in
neighborhoods characterized by conditions resulting from social and political margin-
alization, economic exclusion, conflict with schools and the police, nutrition-related
health issues, and the effects of poverty and racism (see Kincheloe, 2004; Phelan &
Schneider, 1996; Portelli & Solomon, 2001).
Relevant here is the fact that in the Canadian context, today’s immigrants are not liv-
ing their lives in the traditional reception, or “inner city” areas of Toronto, Montreal,
Calgary and Vancouver where earlier immigrants tended to settle. In fact, unlike the
United States where “the majority of immigrants tend to settle in urban areas”
(McClafferty, Torres, & Mitchell, 2000, p. 7),3 in Canada the growing numbers of
immigrant families and first generation citizens, either by choice or government plan-
ning, are making their homes in the suburbs. Hence, the suburbs of today no longer con-
form to the stereotype of ethno-racial homogeneity, stability and affluence, and in many
cases are socially, culturally and economically diverse. The resulting “urban” suburbs
can be categorized as “inner-suburban” and “outer-suburban.” We use the term “inner-
suburban” to refer to the geographic areas outside of the urban core (or inner city), but
841
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 841–858.
© 2007 Springer.
842 James and Saul

within the city limits of large Canadian cities that are populated by poor and low income
racial minority immigrants. On the other hand, we use “outer-suburban” to refer to the
suburban areas located outside of the city limits which are populated by immigrants
with similar characteristics. While some of these “urban” (inner- and outer-suburban)
communities are new and were specifically established to accommodate the growing
immigrant population, others were created as a result of the “out-migration” of middle
class, mostly white Europeans (McClafferty et al., 2000) – or as Kincheloe (2004)
terms it, “white flight” – who move outwards, and more recently inwards to downtown
condominiums and now gentrified houses in former “inner-city” areas.
In this chapter, with reference to Toronto, we explore the educational issues faced by
students who live and attend schools in “inner-” and “outer-” suburban areas. We argue
that schooling in today’s suburban areas must address the marginalization, racialization
and exclusion which are often experienced by children of recent immigrants living in
these areas – the new “suburbanites.” Education for these students must include meas-
ures to interrupt the historical tendency of schools to perpetuate structures of social,
political and economic inequality and inequity. We suggest that giving attention to the
immigrant backgrounds of students and the social and cultural capital they bring to their
schooling can help to open up educational opportunities and possibilities, as well as
facilitate and enable school participation that can result in improved academic per-
formance and outcomes for students living in what Wooden and Blazak (2001) refer to
as “suburban hoods.” In what follows, we discuss today’s suburban contexts and the
“new” suburbanites, referring mainly to Canadian cities and Toronto in particular. We
then go on to discuss (1) the lives and experiences of immigrants and their children in
relation to the social and cultural capital they employ in living their lives, (2) how racia-
lization affects the schooling and educational opportunities and possibilities of the chil-
dren of immigrants, and (3) the similarities and differences of life in both “inner-” and
“outer-suburban” areas. We conclude by suggesting that educators need to get to know
about the experiences of students, the social and cultural contexts in which they live,
and develop educational programs that address their needs, interests and aspiration.

The New Suburban Context

We reference Toronto, not only because of our familiarity with the city, but also because
it represents the pattern of suburban “urbanization” that is evident in many North
American and European cities due in large part to immigration (Anisef & Lanphier,
2003; Gregg, 2006; Logan, 2003; Ornstein, 2006; Troper, 2003; Young, 2006). Created in
the late 1960s and early 1970s, the “inner suburbs” – or as Young (2006) puts it, these
“in-between” neighborhoods located between the “glamour zones” of the gentrified
downtown neighborhoods and the country estates of the outer-suburbs – were the result
of a combination of factors that included a significant government investment in pub-
lic housing, shifts in thinking about urban planning and design, and the de-racialization
of Canada’s immigration policy.4 As a result, settlement in “inner” suburban communi-
ties – typically rented high- and low-rise apartments and townhouses – came to be pop-
ulated by large numbers of immigrants on the basis of a combination of affordability
 Urban Schooling in Suburban Contexts 843

(i.e., the low-cost rentals and government subsidized housing), access to transportation
and job opportunities, their desire to live within communities with people of similar
ethnic and racial backgrounds (ethnoburbia),5 and their immigrant-informed under-
standings of “a new start” in life – that is, living in affordable conditions until they can
attain more desirable accommodations.
Today, residents in these racially and ethnically diverse “inner suburban” communi-
ties struggle with challenges related to a variety of social, economic and cultural fac-
tors which are regulated by life in the new society. And while these are not, at least
aesthetically speaking, “inner-cities” in the sense that one will not see abandoned or
decaying properties or vehicles, and boarded-up homes or factories, the orderly
appearance of these neighborhoods with their high-rise apartment buildings and town-
houses, conceals the poverty, hunger, unemployment and underemployment, alien-
ation, inequitable schooling conditions and concern with street crime and violence that
mark them as “inner” suburbs. Writing of an inner-suburban Toronto community,
DeWolf (2004) mentions that the area located in “the far northeastern side of the city”
is, as one newspaper columnist contends, “culturally diverse but very poor” – a situa-
tion which is considered to be “part of an alarming trend of ghettoization and systemic
poverty. You can meet kids who’ve never been downtown. They expect to stay there for
the rest of their lives … . We’ve unwittingly created large pockets of suburban under-
class” (in De Wolf, 2004, p. 3).
On the other hand, in the “outer-suburbs,” one gets a sense of middle-class affluence in
terms of streets with what appear to be single-family homes with double-car garages
occupied by people who are comfortably living life. However, research suggests that these
outer-appearances are somewhat deceptive (Bauder & Sharpe, 2002; Preston & Wong,
2002). In fact, a recent newspaper article reports that within the “row after row of slick
suburban houses” reside immigrants who are experiencing “alienation, stress and tur-
moil” (The Globe and Mail, Saturday, March 11, 2006). The reporter, Anthony Reinhart
(2006) writes of “immigrant families who have pushed past poverty and into the suburban
promised land [where] in reality, many wind up suffering in silence behind walls made
thick by cultural alienation, financial pressures and family turmoil” (p. A7). “Husbands,”
Reinhardt says, working at menial jobs that, “fall short of their qualifications, supplement
their income by working at ‘up to two full-time jobs’ while wives remain at home isolated
and stranded because of inaccessible transit.” Children, he notes, “mature and provide a
bridge between their parents and the mainstream community” (p. A7).
Many immigrants move into these “outer-suburban” areas to purchase or rent houses
or condominiums (in some cases their incomes can do little else but meet their monthly
household expenses). Others live in rented apartments and townhouses – something that
is made affordable by the fact that in their bid to accommodate the housing needs of the
growing immigrant population, city governments have established policies of allocating
“low-income immigrant households to suburban housing complexes” (Bauder & Sharp,
2002, p. 216). And insofar as access to housing and neighborhoods is influenced by the
discriminatory practices of home-sellers, real estate agents, landlord and building man-
agers, we will sometimes find, especially in the “outer-suburban” areas, a high concen-
tration of an ethno-racial group of immigrants (e.g., South Asians and Asians) residing
in particular suburban communities – one of the ways in which “ethnoburbs” are
844 James and Saul

formed (see Preston & Wong, 2002, p. 33). DeWolf (2004) points out that “ethnoburbs”
afford immigrant parents the chance to manage the acculturation of their children and
help them to maintain their ethnic culture and language.
Essentially, the residential patterns of immigrants in the suburbs (inner and outer) are
related to both voluntary and involuntary factors and a combination of “the processes of
economic and residential decentralization” (Bauder & Sharp, 2002, p. 207). That immi-
grants reside in racially, ethnically and economically diverse or homogeneous suburban
communities is a product of a complex interrelationship of choice, ambition, afford-
ability, social, economic and cultural factors, as well as racist and classist structures
which not only enable or limit the integration and participation of immigrants in soci-
ety, but also their aspirations for themselves and their children. Indeed, over time, and
as immigrants become parents and grandparents, many of them move to the outer-sub-
urbs in their bid to establish, if not re-invent, a middle class lifestyle – that is, owning
their homes and living in what is assumed to be a safe, quiet, peaceful and comfortable
environment. The movement from the “inner-suburbs” to the “outer-suburbs” is in
keeping with what Anisef, Axelrod, Baichman-Anisef, James, and Turrittin (2000) refer
to as the “immigrant drive.” In other words, driven by their desire for a “better life” –
represented by outer-suburban living (real or imagined) – many immigrants gain a
sense of upward social mobility and concomitantly social integration into society, when
they escape the economically depressed, and in some cases, ethnoracially homogeneous
immigrant enclaves (or ghettoes) of the inner-city or inner-suburb.
For parents, the move to the outer-suburbs also means securing opportunities for
their children to attend schools that provide the type of education that would enable
their children to attain and/or retain their middle class status. Moreover, insofar as the
suburbs are traditionally thought of as an area of the city with middle-class families
and middle-class schools, it is understandable that immigrant parents, many of them
professionals, would expect that outer-suburban schools would facilitate the lifestyle,
interests and high educational and career aspirations that parents wish for their chil-
dren (see Callejo Pérez, 2003; Sigelman & Henig, 2001). In fact, immigrant parents
tend to see schooling and education as the means by which their children can acquire
the human capital necessary to attain their occupational, social and economic aspira-
tions (Dyson, 2001; Handa, 2003; Li, 2001; Presmeg, 2002); as such, they expect that
educators will provide their children with the social and cultural capital that is neces-
sary for their full participation and success in society.

Significance of Social and Cultural Capital in the Lives of

Immigrant Families
Evidently, there is no typical immigrant experience for there are significant differences
in how generations of immigrant youth, (e.g., second generation and generation-and-
a-half) construct their educational and occupational aspirations. These differences are
related in part to the socialization practices of parents, socioeconomic status (both in
the new country and country of origin), place of residence, family composition (or
structure – i.e., one or two parent-households), parents’ education,6 aspirations and
 Urban Schooling in Suburban Contexts 845

perception of possibilities for their children’s social mobility, cultural traditions and
attachment to these traditions, acculturation processes, parents’ active involvement in
their children’s lives, the children’s schooling experiences, and the ways in which
structural factors operate to facilitate their settlement in the new society (see Boyd &
Grieco, 1998; Foner, 1997; Gibson, 2005; Henry, 2005; James, 2005a; Kao & Tienda,
1995; Portes & MacLeod, 1999; Waters, 1999; Zhang, Ollila, & Harvey, 1998; Zhou,
1997). Nevertheless, researchers agree that the close family and social ties and net-
works of immigrants, their sense of biculturality (as a result of straddling the worlds of
their both foreign-born parents and the society in which they live), and their feelings
of solidarity rooted in cultural memory have the potential to strengthen rather than
limit their chances of succeeding in society (Boyd & Grieco, 1998; James, 2005b;
Portes & Macleod, 1999; Zhou, 1997).
Portes and MacLeod see immigrants as having social and cultural capital – “the
ability to command scarce resources by virtue of membership in networks or broader
social structures” (p. 257) – that will enable them to counteract barriers to their partic-
ipation in society and their construction of high aspirations. So contrary to the view
among many teachers that racialized immigrant parents, and hence their children, lack
the social and cultural capital to effectively navigate school, evidence indicates that
while financial support for their children might be limited, parents and their ethnic
communities do provide moral support which may help their children to develop forms
of behavior that will likely “break the cycle of disadvantage,” thus leading to upward
social mobility (Zhou, 1997, p. 91). The case of Mark (pseudonym), who grew up in
one of Toronto’s outer-suburban areas is a good example of how his immigrant back-
ground inspired his educational aspirations and outcomes (James, 2005a). Mark, a
Black, male high school student who immigrated to Canada from Trinidad at the age
of 13 years to join his mother, explains that his move to Canada with his younger
brother was precipitated at the urging of their mother who highly valued the educa-
tional opportunities they would receive in Canada. According to Mark “Well, she [his
mother] had us pretty convinced that it is a better standard of living, and basically the
main reason is to look out for your future. She wanted us to have an opportunity … .
So I wanted to come for two reasons: to live with her and to make a better future for
myself ” (p. 233). A second year university student at the time of the interview, Mark
credits the supports and expectations of his mother and grandparents, as well as his
Trinidadian upbringing and schooling with providing him the foundation for attaining
his educational goals. In Mark’s view, his educational and career ambitions are as much
a product of the advantages he took of the educational and sporting opportunities he
gained in Canada, as his “Trinidadian” social and familial discipline and values upon
which he was able to draw. In this regard, with reference to the role of Mark’s family,
James writes: “He looked to them for guidance, willingly complied with their expecta-
tions of him, and was comfortable with them living vicariously through him” (p. 240).
Like parents, the immigrant communities of racialized students play a significant
role in cultivating the necessary social and cultural capital that enable them to effec-
tively navigate and negotiate their schooling and attain their educational ambitions.
Portes (1995) suggests that the community network of immigrants represents a “sense of
‘we-ness’ prompted by the experience of being lumped together, defined in derogatory
846 James and Saul

terms, and subjected to the same discrimination by the host society” (p. 256). This per-
ception of commonality of experiences, combined with parents’ communication of
high aspirations to their offspring,7 serves to influence their children’s desires to
achieve in the face of experiences with discrimination and marginality. For example, in
Zhou’s (1997) study of adolescents living in a Vietnamese community in the U.S.,
some of them mentioned that they were “constantly reminded of their duty to show
respect for their elders, to take care of younger siblings, to work hard, and to make
decisions upon approval of parents not simply within a particular family but in the
community where other families practiced similar values” (p. 82). In his study of uni-
versity students from an “inner-suburban” community in Toronto, James (2005b) found
that the students’ motivation to obtain a university education was, in part, based on their
desire to challenge and change the negative stereotypes of their community. They felt
that by “giving back” to “their” community they could help change the reputation that
is held of the community by residents and outsiders alike.
Research demonstrates that children of immigrants often operate with social and cul-
tural capital that places significance on their schooling and education. In this regard,
instead of emphasizing students’ deficits through ubiquitous and prevailing assimila-
tionist models of schooling, educators should recognize and build on the social and
cultural experiences, values, ideas and ambitions of students and their parents (see
Beynon, LaRocque, Ilieva, & Dagenais, 2005). Research indicates that the experiences
and aspirations of students are often influenced and informed by deeply internalized
understandings among the students of the sacrifices their parents, families, and often
their ethno-racial communities have invested in them. As such, it should be self-evident
that teachers should acknowledge the potential that this social and cultural capital offers
students, rather than trivializing, repressing or dismissing them as irrelevant to the
schooling contexts of these students.

Schooling and the Racialized Experiences

of Immigrant Students
As discussed earlier, immigrant parents often conceived of education as an essential
mechanism for achieving the desired middle class existence which they seek, if not for
themselves, then for their children (Anisef et al., 2000). Nonetheless, the schooling situ-
ations of many children of immigrants who have settled in both inner- and outer-
suburban communities are frequently characterized by difficulties rather than successes.
One reason for this has to do with the prevailing assumptions and stereotypes that teach-
ers hold of racialized immigrant students’ differences and possibilities. Much of these
assumptions are informed by the dominant multicultural education model employed in
Canadian schools. This model promotes “celebrating difference and diversity” through
a variety of educational initiatives such as having students display their immigrant her-
itage in organized activities (multicultural days). Within this model, teachers would also
uncritically use, “multicultural literature” (often American) with the expectation of
engaging students. For example, in his essay about teaching in an inner-suburban school
in Toronto, Andrew Allen recalls trying to use “multicultural picture books to get his
 Urban Schooling in Suburban Contexts 847

students to read. He tells of choosing books with which he felt his students would
identify – books that reflected ‘urban life’ in terms of ‘racial diversity, hardships and
poverty’ ” (1996, p. 157). Despite his efforts and enthusiasm, Allen’s grade three stu-
dents refused to work with the books because as Allen concludes, they could not relate
to the “often exaggerated poverty; and the Black characters depicted were usually sit-
uated in an environment filled with adversity and laden with traditional stereotypes” –
for example, children in “pauper clothing” and portraits of children “looking unhappy,
depressed, upset or as having silly mischievous grins” (p. 162). The multicultural
approach to meeting the needs and interests of Canadian students, frequently ignore
the social and cultural contexts of students and the structural inequities that have medi-
ated their schooling experiences. The result is tokenistic, celebratory approach that
most often works to obscure the very real challenges against which these students
struggle in their schools and communities. Furthermore, salient ways in which the
social and cultural capital of these students might be drawn upon are ignored in favor
of overly simplistic understandings of difference.
The failure of “suburban” schools to fully engage students in their schooling and
educational processes has resulted in many of the conflicts, difficulties and contesta-
tions that we observe between teachers and students. The irony is that teachers use the
actions of students to reinforce their assumptions and stereotypes of the students from
these suburban communities and in the process impose disciplinary measures such as
suspensions and expulsions that often work to the disadvantage of students. Such
actions by teachers are often based on the policy and practice of “zero tolerance” which
many ethno-racial community members and teachers have observed (as in the US) dis-
proportionately affects Black male students (see also Noguera, 2003; Ruck, Smith, &
Fine, 2004).
For example, in their study of the racial profiling of Black students within the
Toronto area school system, Solomon and Palmer (2004) found that the Safe Schools
policy of “zero tolerance,” where students are suspended or expelled from school for
various infractions, have differential effects on Black students resulting in their school-
ing and life opportunities being seriously limited. The authors note that “zero tolerance
policies do not take into consideration the social and environmental contexts of inter-
personal interactions when deliberating youth’s infractions of school rules and regula-
tions” (Solomon & Palmer, 2004, p. 8). Additionally, the Ontario Human Rights
Commission has repeatedly claimed that minority students are disproportionately
penalized under the government’s Safe Schools Act and discipline policies, and as
recently as October 2005, the Commission ruled against one School Board in the met-
ropolitan Toronto area for its disciplinary practice toward four Black students. The stu-
dents were suspended for up to 20 days – a punishment the Commission felt was based
on the racial background of the students.
Similarly in the United States, as Ruck and his colleagues (2004) report, zero toler-
ance policies have led to large increases in expulsions and suspensions. Under zero tol-
erance, writes Rick and his colleagues, “the number of students suspended each year
in U.S. schools almost doubled from 1.7 million in 1974 to 3.1 million in 1998, with
87,000 students being expelled” (p. 206). And in Chicago, in the three years following
the 1995/1996 implementation of zero tolerance policies, students were increasingly
848 James and Saul

“suspended or expelled for non-violent non-drug offenses, cutting classes and tardi-
ness, and fighting.” Ruck et al. appropriately argue that “if zero tolerance policies were
orking then we should have seen a decrease in suspensions and expulsions but this is
not the case even with the decline in youth violence” (p. 207). According to the
American Bar Association, “Zero tolerance is a perverse version of mandatory sen-
tencing, first, because it takes no account of what we know about the child and ado-
lescent development, and second, because in the criminal justice system … when
mandatory sentences exist, there are different mandatory sentences for offenses of dif-
ferent seriousness” (cited in Ruck et al., 2004, p. 203). Given the fact that zero toler-
ance policies have a negative impact on students – leading in some cases to emotional
problems and school drop-out (Ruck et al., 2004; Dei, Mazzuca, McIsaac, & Zine,
1997), it is important, as Ruck and his colleagues state in their warning to Canadians,
for schools “to challenge the assumption that students themselves are the sole cause of
misbehavior and examine the possibility that disciplinary action is also a function of
school and classroom characteristics” (p. 214).
Another significant way in which Black youth, especially males, experience their
schooling is related to the ways in which educators frequently read their interest in
sports. In this regard, James (2005c) points out that in observing that many Black male
students are not performing well academically, teachers often encourage or enable
their participation on sports teams, believing that their good intentions are rightly sup-
porting these students’ interests. For their part, in attempting to negotiate schooling
and societal structures which they perceive to be unsupportive and unresponsive to
their needs and interests, many Black males actively embrace their construction as ath-
letes (most often basketball players) which in turn greatly inform become their school-
ing identities (James, 2005c). Drawing upon these athletic identities often provides
Black student athletes a source of strength and purpose especially within a context
where their participation in sports seems to earn them “celebrity” status, popularity
and public recognition. It is understandable, then, that participation in school sports
would be attractive to large numbers of Black male students. But while many Black
youth, and immigrants in particular, have effectively used their participation in sports
to adjust to life in Canada and to their schooling situations (James, 2005c), their per-
ceptions about their possibilities through athletics (such as gaining athletic scholarship
to US universities) not only negatively affect their academic performance but also their
alternative occupational possibilities.
With limited finances and few recreational facilities many of these inner and outer
suburban youth rely on their schools’ recreational facilities which in most cases offer
them basketball. Also basketball facilities (as opposed to hockey) are inexpensive
recreational activities that are available in their communities. Media images also sup-
port these Black student-athletes, their coaches, teachers and sometimes their parents’
view that sports, and basketball in particular, can help them to go from poverty to
wealth. In a study of a Canadian newspaper reporting of student athletes’ sport activi-
ties, it was found that not only were Black athletes constructed as, or implied to be,
“natural” athletes and shown to be struggling academically, their participation in sports
participation was frequently constructed as a “way out” for them or a salvation from
dire educational and social circumstances (Saul, 2006; Saul & James, 2006).
 Urban Schooling in Suburban Contexts 849

Black middle school “inner-suburban” females, on the other hand, as educator Alison
Gaymes (2006) found, were not supported by their teachers and coaches in the same
way as their male counterparts because, as the girls stated, “boys are the ‘real athletes’”
(p. 13). Further, the girls with whom Ms. Gaymes worked, indicated that like the Black
males, teachers did not encourage them in their academic work either.8 As a result, they
put their energies unto maintaining their “rude” stereotypical image which gave them,
in a perverse way, the respect they gained from teachers and peers. So as Ms. Gaymes
writes: “Even though violating the rules of the school meant being sent to the office, a
phone call home, or even a suspension, these girls felt it was worth it to achieve the
respect and power where it mattered” (p. 13).
The racialization processes that construct Black students as academic underachiev-
ers, troublemakers and athletes also operate in the labeling of South Asians (Handa,
2003; Varghese, 2006) and Asian students as “model minority” students (Lee, 2003;
Pon, 2000). One student, Deena writes:

As an Asian, my body and skin colour are understood in a very specific way in
Canadian society, I am considered a “model minority,” which is considered a
“positive stereotype.” We are supposed to be “good citizens,” submissive and
respectful to authority. Other “positive stereotypes” are that Asian people do well
in school, are hardworking and intelligent. I have always been expected to excel
in my academic work, and I have deeply disappointed my teachers when I do not,
especially when I am dismal at math. (James, 2003)

Stereotypes such as these speak to the pervasiveness of racialized assumptions that

many minority students must negotiate within their schooling contexts. In this regard,
Lee (2003), in speaking about similar occurrences in the United States, tells us that the
effects of these stereotypes on Asian students can have a “tremendous impact on these
adolescents’ self-concept, academic choices, and relationships with others in the school
environment” (p. 42). Accordingly, while on the surface seemingly positive and flatter-
ing, Lee identifies two important effects that stereotypes such as these have on racial
minority students. “First,” she states, “the stereotype denies the fact that some Asian
Americans continue to struggle against structural and other barriers. Second, it has been
used as a political weapon against other marginalized groups of colour” (Lee, 2003,
p. 45). In other words, the flawed notion that Asian students achieve educational success
solely through hard work and individual merit often serves to obscure the fact that struc-
tural barriers affect all students’ performance, achievements and engagements with
school. As a result of this obscuring, many students – such as the Black males described
earlier in relation to negative stereotypes, for example – suffer from the added percep-
tion that their struggles in school are solely a consequence of their own inadequacies.
Evidently, all racial minority students negotiate a schooling system that is supported
and maintained by various educational and teaching practices that operate to margin-
alize and racialize them in varying ways. In the Canadian context specifically, a major
obstacle to the students’ combating their racialization and marginalization stems from
the fact that educators are failing to draw upon the many resources related to the social
and cultural capital that these students bring to their schooling context. We have found
850 James and Saul

that gender stereotypes inform how males and females are treated. Indeed, in many
ways gender is embedded in the institutional structures and arrangements of schools
and as such function to racialize and marginalize students.9 Furthermore, schooling
identities, can, and often do, become internalized and performed by students in prob-
lematic ways as a response to externally imposed raced, classed and gendered under-
standings placed upon them (Allen, 1996; Davis, 2001; Ferguson, 2000; Henry, 2005;
Suarez-Orozco & Qin-Hilliard, 2004).

Similarities and Differences Between “Inner” and “Outer”

Suburban Schooling
Typically, teachers who work in inner-suburban schools are “outsiders” traveling from
middle class suburban areas of the city. In some cases, teachers might live in or near to
the outer-suburban communities. They bring with them to schools sets of taken-for-
granted assumptions about the residents of the inner-suburban areas that come largely
from their own family experiences, popular culture, mass media, and a poverty-phobic
education (James-Wilson, 1999). Some are fearful of the community because of real and
perceived gang activity, street crime, and violence. As such, many teachers in this con-
text leave their school buildings while it is still light outside, thus unable to participate in
after-school activities that are often crucial to students’ academic success and overall
connection to the school. And the fear and assumptions of teachers are not helped by the
fact that the doors of the school buildings where they work are locked (except for the
main entrance to the school) during school hours; and in a few cases surveillance cam-
eras operate to monitor the school corridors. Uncritical about their fears and the prob-
lematic schooling milieu of their inner-suburban students, teachers (Kincheloe, 2004)
routinely teach with little understanding of how to deal with their students.
For example, in a workshop one of us (James) conducted with some middle-school
(grades 6–8) teachers in an inner-suburban neighborhood of Toronto, many expressed
major concerns about the “anger” of their students. One teacher stated: “I see a lot of
anger. I see it in a variety of students. I do not know where it comes from.” It is indeed
possible that the students’ anger is related to, as Fine and Burns (2005) found in their
study of students in California, their recognition of their material, cultural and social
restrictions, “biased curricula and lack of consistent supportive relations with teachers”
(p. 119). The middle-school teachers were also concerned about the students’ “lack of
discipline” – including “ways of dressing.” They hypothesized that the students’ poor
behavior was related to cultural norms – that is, the students were accustomed to
authoritarian disciplinary practices at home by their parents, many of whom were of
Caribbean backgrounds. On this basis, they believed that the disciplinary problems
might be best addressed if teachers were more authoritarian and “less liberal” (see
Delpit, 1995). What emerges in the teachers’ discussion of their efforts to maintain disci-
pline in the school was their conviction that the behavior of the students was basically about
the students and their lack of parenting. Essentially, what the teachers wanted was to have
the students submit to their control rather than giving attention to the systemic factors –
such as school expectations, curriculum content, and pedagogical approaches – that might
 Urban Schooling in Suburban Contexts 851

be contributing to the students’ behaviors in the first place.10 And despite the fact that
many of the teachers at the school shared the same cultural heritage as the students, it
was clear to many of them that they were not able “to affect the lives of the students
[they] teach” and address the “low expectations of students” on the basis of shared her-
itage. Seemingly, class differences or their “outsider” position played a more salient
role in teacher-student relationships. Quite telling is the idea, as expressed by one
teacher that “Black students identify Black teachers with the establishment. They don’t
think that we inhabit their world or that we can relate to them. They perceive us as
maintaining the system.”
While class differences between teachers and students might be more evident in
inner-suburban schools, in outer-suburban schools it is usually less clear. In fact, the
ambiguity of the class position of students in the outer-suburbs is even less clear to the
teachers, who themselves might be from similar suburban neighborhoods, and to an
extent are trying to maintain their class interests. This ambiguity in students’ social sta-
tus causes teachers at an outer-suburban school much consternation – something
expressed by Lisa Varghese (2006) in her reporting of incidents at her school involv-
ing South Asian students. Ms. Varghese, a South Asian Canadian, tells of a number of
incidents at her school which puzzled her and other teachers. While she could identify
with many of the students’ cultural experiences and dilemmas related to growing up in
the suburbs (since, like them, she grew up in the suburbs with immigrant parents), she
could not relate, however, to what she identified as the “resistant, angry, abusive, tru-
ant, deviant and gang-related behaviours” that the students (mostly males) displayed in
school. She said that some of their behaviors made her feel “ashamed, angry and, at
times even brought her to tears.” Varghese reveals that while she could understand
these behaviors being displayed by students living in “urban, low income areas” where
the economic and social problems they experience “pressure them into making poor
choices,” she did not understand similar behavior being displayed by the youth in the
suburban schools where she was teaching. She writes: “… deviant behaviour among
South Asian youth, living in the outer suburbs of the Greater Toronto Area, is a fairly new
phenomenon (or is it?). And most people do not know the reason why” (p. 7). Is it that
the “outer-suburban” teachers and others do not know the reasons for the troublemaking
behaviours of their students, or that they simply do not want to believe that, as Varghese
puts it, “this fairly new phenomenon” has also migrated to the “outer suburbs?” Clearly,
Varghese and her colleagues, and many others like them, have not taken the time to know
their students and the social, cultural and economic conditions under which they live.
They seem to take for granted that the suburban existence of their students represents
financial stability as well as social and cultural integration (if not assimilation); and in so
doing teachers are failing to meet the needs, interests and aspirations – educational,
cultural and otherwise – of their students (see also Desai & Subramanian, 2000).
This failure of outer-suburban teachers to give attention to the cultural diversity of
their student population is reflected, not only in the teacher population, but also in the
curriculum which seems to be based on the teachers’ assumptions about the “sameness”
of the students – the idea that once they live in the suburbs their families have either inte-
grated or wish to integrate culturally into the society. This assumption would explain
Michelle’s schooling experience. Michelle, a Black student, began her education in an
852 James and Saul

inner-suburban school but was transferred to an outer-suburban school when her fam-
ily moved to the outer suburbs. In recalling her experiences in her new outer-suburban
school, Michelle states:

Just about everyone and everything at school was representative of all the
things … . I was not. All my teachers, whom I liked very much, were European
and/or Anglo-Saxon; all the people in the story books I enjoyed reading were
European and/or Anglo-Saxon; all the pictures hung around the school were of
people who were of European and/or Anglo-Saxon descent … . The dominant cul-
ture that was taught and displayed in my school played an increasingly significant
role in the formation of my identity. Tell me, what person in their right mind would
not want also to be white? After all, whites seemed to be like the most important
people in the universe. I realize now that … [these] relationships … undoubtedly
caused me to question who I was, as I was not satisfied with just being me. (James,
2003, p. 80)

Michelle’s experience indicates that unlike their inner-suburban counterparts who

were at least trying to work with curriculum materials that were reflective of their stu-
dents’ cultural diversity, outer-suburban teachers had yet to do the same. It is under-
standable, therefore, that Michelle’s needs and interests would be ignored, and her
racialized experiences as a Black female student overlooked (see Henry, 2005). So, to
the extent that Michelle’s parents might have moved to an outer-suburban community
with the expectation and hope of securing “good” educational opportunities for her,
this was not realized. What students like Michelle experienced, were traditional
schooling and educational models that make little or no efforts to cater to their specific
needs. Michelle articulates this well in saying:

Every day in school I listened to the lessons. I believed what the teachers taught,
and I abided by their rules. I was a “good” student. Unconsciously, I was proud to
have assimilated so successfully as it made “them” happy, and it also made me
acceptable. It did not bother me that my culture(s) was not represented in the
school curriculum … . In fact, I was never taught to think critically about my
“place” in school. I was learning to be content with being a part of the “norm.”
(James, 2003, p. 81)

Michelle’s comments reflect the fact that students react to their schooling situation
which fails to recognize their “cultural selves” or “differences” in complicated ways.
Reflecting on her schooling experience as a university student, Michelle indicates that
she complied with the expectations of her school – she “assimilated” – and was able to
obtain an education even at the expense of her culture.11 Also Michelle seems to be
suggesting that she exercised agency – making use of acquired cultural capital meas-
ures of discipline, obedience and compliance to negotiate her schooling.
The notion of exercising agency and making use of their cultural capital to negoti-
ate schooling structures is also captured in the stories of Black male student athletes.
For instance, committed to the idea that it is through basketball they would be able to
acquire postsecondary education (by wining a scholarship to attend a US college), a
 Urban Schooling in Suburban Contexts 853

number of male student athletes, many of them Black, would enroll in schools on the
basis of the reputation of the basketball team, the opportunities that they would get to
play on the team, and the contacts that the school has with US college scouts. To this
end, they would choose to attend high schools that are outside their boundaries or
transfer to schools whenever necessary; and in so doing endure long commutes. When
we compare how these practices might serve the interests of student athletes attending
inner- and outer-suburban schools, we see some important differences. Student athletes
attending inner-suburban schools in Toronto – with their ready access to transportation as
well as access to city schools with basketball teams with established winning reputations
and connections to US colleges – have advantages over their outer-suburban counter-
parts. Research has shown that some student athletes living in outer-suburban commu-
nities have chosen to attend school within Toronto, and many others wish they could
(James, 2005c). So for outer-suburban student-athletes, lack of proximity to city centers
coupled with inaccessible transportation services inevitably works to operate against
them. Conversely, student athletes in inner-suburban schools with similar aspirations
can capitalize on the relative ease of commuting to schools in relative proximity to
each other in attempting to realize their aspirations and make the most of their student-
athlete informed experiences. While the concerns of student-athletes might appear
trivial – after all, an outside observer might suggest, and perhaps correctly so, that stu-
dent-athletes can be better served by placing academic considerations ahead (or at
least equal with) their basketball ambitions – it is imperative to consider that their use
of basketball represents their attempts to navigate a schooling environment which
operates to racialize and marginalize them, and in the process restrict their educational
aspirations.
In thinking through the similarities and differences of the schooling experiences faced
by students in both inner- and outer-suburban communities, then, we observe that their
struggles seem to mirror each other due to the marginalizing schooling conditions they
encounter; yet each context presents specific sets of challenges in relation to the ways in
which the students’ ambitions are mediated by their spatial locations. Contributing to the
challenges of students in outer-suburban areas is their lack of the necessary middle class
income; hence problems of access to a variety of essential public facilities can become
exceedingly difficult. For example, for students without cars or other modes of trans-
portation, access to libraries and recreational facilities in residential communities where
public transportation is sparse and costly can frequently become a challenge. Similarly,
the agency and flexibility that might be exercised in choosing one’s school – an under-
taking valued by many city or inner-suburban students in attempting to best meet their
educational needs – is in effect removed from consideration for most students living in
sparse outer-suburbs. Considerations such as these should not be understated as they can
enable a variety of adverse educational outcomes for large groups of students.

Conclusion
As educators confront the realities of working in today’s suburban areas, it is necessary
to reassess and revise the taken-for-granted assumptions about the areas and the students
who live there. We have identified two kinds of suburban areas – the inner-suburbs and
854 James and Saul

outer-suburbs that result from today’s “urbanization”12 – where we will find large num-
bers of students with immigrant parents whose “drive” and ambitions help to structure
their belief that it is through education that their children will “make it” in the society.
So, socialized in this belief and related social and cultural capital, students participate
in school with the expectation that regardless of their background and where they live,
schools will provide them opportunities by which they can freely prove their merit and
in turn realize their own and their parents’ ambitions (Henze, 2005, p. 257). But as
Fine and Burns (2005) point out, in the process of reproducing race and class inequity,
schools actively stream “poor, working class, immigrant youth and youth of color,
away from academic excellence and democratic participation and towards educational
failure and civic alienation” (p. 116). Within this context, then, regardless of the
schools they attend – whether inner-suburban or outer-suburban schools – students
will have similar struggles in their attempt to negotiate their schooling and realize their
educational and career ambitions.
But while there are similarities in the experiences and struggles of students who
attend schools in inner-suburban and outer-suburban neighborhoods, there are also
differences. Schools in inner-suburbs to which teachers commute from their middle-
class suburban homes tend to be plagued by preconceived images and notions of stu-
dents as likely to perform poorly academically due to lack of interest in school and
because of their poverty and immigrant background. And while it is in the inner-
suburban schools that we see teachers attempting to give attention to the multicultural
character of the student population, they do so within a context where the curriculum
is still premised on middle-class European values, ideas and pedagogy, consequently
students remain estranged from the curriculum and schooling. In outer-suburban
schools, the classed-based assumptions of students frequently result in the failure of
educators to give attention to the particular situation of students and their related
needs, issues and concerns, not only as racialized minorities and children of immi-
grants, but children living in family situation in which finances are limited.
It is imperative that all teachers – especially those working in neighborhoods with
which they are unfamiliar – to get to know their students and the neighborhoods in
which they live in order to build the necessary teacher/student relationships. In this
regard, having an awareness of the social, cultural, economic and political contexts of
the suburban neighborhoods wherein students reside, will provide teachers valuable
insights into the lives of their students, which teachers can in turn incorporate into
their curriculum content, pedagogical approaches, and schooling programs. In an
urban education course I (James) teach, I require teacher-candidates to visit the
neighborhoods of the schools before beginning their practice teaching. The assign-
ment involves teacher-candidates walking around the students’ neighborhoods, hav-
ing conversations with people they meet, observing the racial and ethnic mix of the
neighborhoods, noting the types of housing, recreational facilities and businesses as
well as access to transportation. The idea here is for teachers to see students in their
geographic settings and to experience, in whatever little way they can, the community
life of the students so that they may be better informed to teach their students. We
suggest community visits can be a way for teachers to begin to address their limited
information and preconceived notions of their students and their communities, for
 Urban Schooling in Suburban Contexts 855

what goes on inside the school building and classrooms is influenced by what is out-
side. Indeed, the communities in which students live not only help in the forming of
their identities, but also help to shape the identity and reputation of the school – an
identity and reputation in which teachers are implicated because of the fact that they
work in that school.

Notes
1. For example, The Dreamkeepers: Successful teachers of African American children by Gloria Ladson-
Billings (1994) was a very popular book used by teachers in the Toronto area; so too was a journal arti-
cle, “The silent dialogue: Power and pedagogy in educating other people’s children” by Lisa Delpit
(1988).
2. The Canadian Census of 2001 indicates that some 43% of the population were immigrants, and in
2004, only 20% of the immigrants to Canada came from Europe, while the others came from China,
India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Korea, Iran, Africa and the Caribbean. Allan Gregg (2006) reports that
nearly 50% of the immigrants from the first six listed countries. Gregg also mentions that “second-
generation immigrants represent only 14 percent of Canada’s current visible-minority population. But
today, two-thirds of all native-born visible minorities in Canada are under sixteen years old. Their
numbers are destined to swell … .” (p. 47).
3. Logan (2003) suggests that there is a growing change in this pattern of residency, noting that “there is
strong evidence that immigrants are now major contributors to suburbanization” (p. 8).
4. Until the mid-1960s, Canada’s immigration policies restricted the entry of racial minority people into
the country, but the 1967 immigration policy introduced a point system by which independent immi-
grants on the basis of, among other requirements, their education, professional qualification, language
(English and/or French) and suitability would qualify for permanent residency in Canada (James, 2003).
5. The term ethnoburbia refers to the high concentration of a particular ethnic or racial group in a geo-
graphic area. The term was first coined in the 1990s by Arizona State University geography professor
Wei Li with reference to the Chinatowns of Los Angeles (DeWolf, 2004).
6. The evidence is that immigrants tend to have higher levels of education that Canadian-born residents
(Ornstein, 2006).
7. In the case of South Asians, for example, parents’ insistence on high aspirations and achievements, is
related to, among other things, maintaining “family honour” (Handa, 2003).
8. Those girls who did well academically were seen as anomalies. Hence, from their perspective, appear-
ing to be smart was not an advantage (Gaymes, 2006).
9. In telling of the gendered character of the struggles that Black girls experience in their bid to “partic-
ipate fully” in school, Henry (2005) references the experiences of two 12-year-old Black female stu-
dents in an urban Chicago school (both immigrated there from the Caribbean with their parents at age
five years. She observed that the students’ struggle to participate was related to schooling structure
which gave little to attention to their cultural differences and needs.
10. It is quite possible that these Toronto teachers, like those of whom Foster, Lewis, and Onafowora
(2005) write, are displaying their “weak sense of teacher agency” and their desperate search for ways
in which they might mitigate their own problems and those of students (p. 31).
11. It is worth noting that often parents, particularly immigrant parents, because of their unfamiliarity with
the education system fail to give consideration to the assimilative nature of the educational system,
sometimes at the expense of their children’s educational performance and outcome.
12. We suggest that the “urbanization” of the suburbs is a worldwide phenomenon which is evident in
many North American and European cities where immigrants are settling low-cost suburban areas
where poverty, unemployment, and lack of educational and occupational opportunities tend to plague
their lives. It is in these suburbs where the alienation and lack of a sense of belonging contribute to
such incidents as the recent riots in Paris, France, the bombings in London, England, and less heard
about incidents in cities in Sweden, Germany and other countries (see Gregg, 2006).
856 James and Saul

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45

URBAN SCHOOL REFORM: TO WHAT END?

James H. Lytle
University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

This chapter chronicles urban school reform in the United States from the 1950s to the
present and argues that:
● For the past 50 years urban schools have been in a continuous process of reform.
● The reforms have addressed almost every imaginable dimension of urban school-
ing, from district organization to classroom practice to the racial and ethnic com-
position of student populations and school faculties.
● Since the early 1980s education reform, including improving urban schools, has
been at the top of the national and state political agenda; the rationale for reform
has been maintaining the preeminence of the United States in the world economy.
● The result is that the reform agenda is increasingly directed from outside urban dis-
tricts – by mayors, state legislatures and departments of education, and the federal
government.
● An area of continuing contention is whether the mandated reforms have been
adequately funded given often ambitious goals and objectives.
● Increasingly federal and state policies have focused on the work of teachers in class-
rooms, constraining professional autonomy and prescribing standards, curriculum,
assessments, and pedagogy.
● Increasingly urban school reforms have been evaluated in terms of student out-
comes, but improvement as measured by standardized test scores and high school
completion rates has been limited.
This essay begins with a brief historical review of reforms over a period of six decades,
then considers these reforms from four perspectives – organization, instruction, human
resource development, and locus of authority, and finally considers several recurrent
and emergent issues of reform.

859
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 859–882.
© 2007 Springer.
860 Lytle

Reform Chronology
The United States Constitution does not make mention of education. With the exception
of the Morrill Act of 1862 which provided land grants to colleges to subsidize their
growth, the federal government had taken no active role in educational policy up through
the 1950s. State governments were presumed to have responsibility for the oversight of
public schools, although most urban school systems operated as semi-autonomous enti-
ties (see Tyack, 1974 for a complete discussion.). The shift toward federal involvement in
urban schools can be traced to the U.S. Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education
decision in 1954 when separate schools for Negro students were held to be unequal.
Three years later the then President Eisenhower was ordering the National Guard to pro-
vide safe passage for black students attempting to integrate schools in Little Rock,
Arkansas. The following year the Russians sent a rocket to the moon heightening cold
war tensions, and the national interest began to be defined by the quality of its schools
and particularly mathematics and science programs. At the same time racial tensions
were beginning to rise in northern cities where blacks had immigrated from the south to
be part of the World War II industrial expansion. The collapse of many of the heavy
industries following the war meant rapidly rising unemployment for black men, and a
shift to a welfare economy in inner cities (Wilson, 1987, 1996).
The 1960s were a tumultuous decade in American history, marked by the Cuban
missile crisis, the assassinations of President Kennedy, his brother Robert, Martin
Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, and by Viet Nam protests and urban “race riots” (see
Lytle, 2005). In the midst of the tumult President Lyndon Johnson, himself a former
segregationist, oversaw the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of
1965 (ESEA), one of his “Great Society” programs. The primary purpose of ESEA
was to address long-standing equity and student achievement issues linked to segrega-
tion, whether de facto or de jure. ESEA marked the first Congressional intervention in
schooling since the Morrill Act, and set the stage for the increasing role of the federal
government in urban school reform. The Act had a broad scope, providing funding for
educational research, experimental programs, programs for children who did not speak
English, and “compensatory” programs for students in high poverty schools who were
not learning basic skills (Tyack, 1974, p. 281).
Ironically, as the federal government was looking to public schools to eradicate
long-standing disparities, sociologist James Coleman et al. (1966) published a massive
study of school-effects, Equality of Educational Opportunity, which made the argument
that schools had a very limited role in student performance, and that family background
was a much more powerful determinant of school success than school programs or char-
acteristics. In many respects this argument remains unresolved – whether schooling can
overcome the effects of poverty, discrimination, and family instability.
By the late 1960s urban school districts had begun to implement components of
ESEA, from remedial reading to alternative school programs, but these programs
could be considered palliatives for the reluctance of cities and states to embrace deseg-
regation as the preferred reform option.
In terms of national educational policy, the most significant federal action of the
1970s was the passage by Congress of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
 Urban School Reform: To What End? 861

(PL 94–172) in 1974. In IDEA the equity concepts of ESEA were extended to handi-
capped students and those with special needs. Now urban schools were required to
provide federally mandated services to both underachieving poor and minority stu-
dents, including those who did not speak English and those with special needs. The
reform challenge for urban schools and districts was to identify students entitled to
these services, provide appropriate programs for them, evaluate the efficacy of those
programs, and comply with all federal laws and regulations in the process. Because of
constant litigation and federal and state audits, emphasis was more often on compli-
ance than on quality programming (Lytle, 1988).
Emergent research on instructional effectiveness and the characteristics of effective
schools (see Edmonds, 1979) began to shape the discourse about school reform, posit-
ing that reform should be done within the context of research findings likely to lead to
improved student outcomes.
In an effort to address the desegregation mandates of the Supreme Court and a series
of related, local cases, urban districts began to implement bussing programs and mag-
net schools intended to increase diversity in school enrollments. But the race rioting
and protests of the late 1960s and early 1970s, coupled with federal highway programs
and housing incentives, provoked and enabled “white flight” – the withdrawal and
departure of white and middle-class families from urban school districts with precipi-
tous and corresponding enrollment declines. As an example, the Philadelphia Public
Schools went from an enrollment of 305,000 in the early 1970s to 185,000 by the mid-
1980s. The related budget reductions and teacher lay-offs, reassignments, and strikes
created continuing district turmoil, undermining reform. By the end of the 1970s the
public and policy makers had given up on urban schools. Part of President Reagan’s
platform for the 1980 election was the elimination of the U.S. Office of Education.
That all changed with the publication of A Nation at Risk (National Commission on
Excellence in Education, 1983). Terrell Bell, President Reagan’s Secretary of Education,
had convened a committee of notable civic and corporate leaders to advise the President
on the appropriate role for the federal government in national education policy. The
unanticipated conclusion was that the deterioration of its public schools put the nation at
grave risk of long-term economic decline, especially as other nations were investing in
education as the means to improve their competitiveness in the international economy. In
many respects urban school reform today is shaped more by the themes of A Nation at
Risk than by the equity issues of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Nation
spawned a host of reports and policy recommendations for improving the country’s
urban schools (see Lytle, 1992).
The emergent reform agenda for the late 1980s and the 1990s had two competing
strands. One pressed the implementation of educational research, arguing that research
on effective schools and effective instruction provided a substantive base for improv-
ing urban schools. The U.S. Department of Education’s What Works publication (1986)
exemplifies this strand.
The other built from the democratic notion that those best qualified to drive urban
school improvement were those closest to schools and classrooms – parents, teachers,
principals, and concerned community members. Federal, state, and local legislation
supported the creation of “local school councils” or “school management teams,” often
862 Lytle

with the authority to hire principals, manage the school budget, and set program direc-
tion. The Chicago Public Schools provide the clearest example of this approach (see
Catalyst, 1997).
The re-authorization of ESEA in 1988 marked a significant shift in federal urban
school reform policy. Schools with high concentrations of poor students could now use
federal funds for “Schoolwide Projects,” which meant that the funds could be used to
support the improvement work of the school as a whole, rather than being targeted to low
performing students through “pull-out programs.” Funding was also provided for “com-
prehensive school reform,” meaning research-based programs like Success for All,
School Development or Accelerated Schools. These programs had their genesis at major
research universities and purported to provide organizational, governance, and instruc-
tional strategies which would assure improved student achievement. In some cases the
strategies included “school-linked services” – making the school the site of health and
social service provision for a community. Another emphasis was on school-to-career
programs, as opposed to vocational education programs, intended to help students in
urban schools connect to the opportunity structure of higher education and employment.
An important marker for subsequent school reform was the National Council of
Teachers of Mathematics publication in 1989 of it national standards (NCTM, 1989).
The authors were a group of K-12 mathematics educators and university professors of
mathematics who were responding to the challenge of A Nation at Risk by specifying
what students needed to know and be able to do at each grade level of mathematics
instruction, K-12. As policy makers embraced the new standards, other national cur-
riculum organizations quickly followed with comparable versions. State departments
of education, wishing to demonstrate their commitment to high standards, adopted
and/or adapted these curriculum standards as state policy (generally accessible on state
department of education web sites). And many urban districts responded by develop-
ing their own versions of these standards in the name of curriculum reform. Then states
and districts initiated testing and assessment programs built from the standards. The
rhetoric of the 1990s shifted the discourse for urban school reform to “all children
achieving at high levels,” with high levels defined as demonstrating proficiency on tests
corresponding to national standards in specific curriculum domains, but particularly
reading/literacy and mathematics.
One outcome of this shifting emphasis on standards and assessment was the devel-
oping evidence that many urban schools and districts seemed incapable of improve-
ment. In response state governments initiated “take-overs” of urban districts (e.g., New
Jersey and the cities of Newark, Patterson, and Jersey City), and mayors acted to seize
control of their city’s districts and install leadership and policies they considered more
likely to lead to improved performance and public perception (e.g., Richard Daley in
Chicago), (Wong & Shen, 2003).
Another outcome in many states was charter school legislation authorizing the cre-
ation of autonomous schools whose operating authority came directly from the state,
rather than local districts. Although charter school regulations vary widely from state to
state, the general principle is that the schools receive financial support equivalent to pub-
lic schools in their communities and must participate in the same state testing systems as
all other public schools. Symbolically, charter schools represent growing dissatisfaction
with urban schools and districts; in many states the greatest interest in charter schools
 Urban School Reform: To What End? 863

has been in inner cities where parents and entrepreneurs have embraced the opportu-
nity to avoid their local public schools. Charters have also lead to the collapse of
parochial schools in inner cities because they are tuition free. The federal government
and many states have been aggressive in trying to support charter school development
through subsidies and other incentives (see National Alliance for Public Charter
Schools web site).
A third outcome of the emphasis on standards was clarification of the meaning of
equity, both in terms of opportunity to learn and in terms of equal outcomes. Although
equity law suits have been put forward in many states based on the argument that states
have a state constitutional obligation to provide a free and appropriate education to all
children, the most notable success of these suits has been in New Jersey where the state
supreme court in a series of decisions (Erlichson & Goertz, 2001) has mandated both
parity funding for urban districts and program supports (e.g., pre-school for all three
and four year olds).
Although No Child Left Behind (NCLB), authorized by Congress in 2000, now dom-
inates policy discussions, in a number of ways the reforms of the 1990s presaged NCLB.
The emphasis on standards, high stakes assessment, sanctions and interventions for poor
performance, state-take over, competition, required use of research-based strategies and
methods – all were part of the urban school reform agenda prior to NCLB.
Complying with NCLB is now the priority and preoccupation of both state depart-
ments of education and urban districts. The legislation is due for review and reautho-
rization in 2007, but the prediction is that despite resistance and complaints from states,
professional associations, and urban districts, the reauthorized NCLB will differ little
from the current version, excepting some flexibility in meeting the Adequate Yearly
Progress standards. Members of Congress look at the substantial increase in funding
provided to urban schools (and public schools generally) during the past 20 years, then
look at National Assessment of Educational Progress, SAT scores, and TIMMs results
and see little significant gain in student achievement over the same period. The educa-
tional community calls for smaller classes, more professional development, and more
research as the necessary response. The Congress has seen little persuasive evidence
that these “professional” reform policies will have the intended effect; their response is
radical. In their view the entire K-12 public system needs redesign, and the best way to
encourage redesign and innovation is to put public education in the market. That will
lead to real reform (see DeBray, McDermott, & Wohlstetter, 2005).
NCLB by design encourages private sector participation in the education services
delivery system. In fact an intentional element of NCLB is the introduction of market
forces in public education – through vouchers and choice programs, privatization,
and competition.
But independent of NCLB, technology and the market are rapidly changing the
ways in which education is provided. The most obvious example might be virtual high
schools operated by districts, states and private, for-profit providers. As the Internet
expands information access, makes possible video conferencing, and as instructional
software improves, the definition of what constitutes “school” has already begun
to shift.
For the urban poor, safety is a continuing preoccupation. For that reason alternatives
to “unsafe” neighborhood schools, whether charter schools, small high schools, the
864 Lytle

Internet, or bussing, are likely to shape the urban school reform agenda for the foreseeable
future. That is to say there is a market for safety, but quality will remain secondary to
safety and survival.
As a number of scholars have argued (Murphy, 1999, 2000) markets do not ensure
equity without significant controls. As market forces are introduced into urban public
education, the likelihood is that the same increase in disparity which has happened
with family incomes over the past 30 years will also happen with access to quality
education. Demographic studies of urban districts indicate that they are at least as
segregated now as they were in the 1950s (Hardy, 2004; Orfield, 1994; Orfield &
Yun, 1999). School district boundaries and real estate markets already separate fami-
lies by race, ethnicity and income; in some respects access to quality education has
been controlled by market forces for decades. But that gap is likely to increase, not
decrease, as the K-12 education services market matures. Reform does not necessarily
equate to improved opportunity or services.

Urban Education Reform (Policy) Chronology, 1950s–2000s

1. 1950s
a. Brown v. Board of Education
b. Sputnik
2. 1960s
a. Desegregation
b. Elementary and Secondary Education Act
c. Equality of Educational Opportunity (the “Coleman Report”)
d. Compensatory Education
3. 1970s
a. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
b. Effectiveness
c. [Changing Demographics – enrollment declines; white flight; Hispanic influx]
d. Alternative Programs
e. Culturally appropriate pedagogy
4. 1980s
a. Nation at Risk
b. What Works – research-based
c. School-Based Management – school-linked services
d. ESEA – Schoolwide Projects
5. 1990s
a. Comprehensive School Reform – whole school reform
b. Charter Schools
c. Standards
 Urban School Reform: To What End? 865

d. School-to-Career
e. State/Mayoral Take-over
f. Equity (Abbott)
6. 2000s
a. No Child Left Behind
b. National/state performance standards and sanctions
c. Increased standardized testing
d. Teacher and Principal licensure
e. Leadership – shortages, development, centrality
f. Markets – choice, charters, vouchers, privatization; Edison, Philadelphia
g. Systemic Reform
h. Internet – virtual schools
i. Instructional Management Systems
j. Re-segregation; courts end desegregation
k. High School – small schools, foundations, USDOE

Reform Strategies
As this brief review and chronology of makes clear, there have been a plethora of
attempts at urban school reform. Given the diversity of these reforms and the set of
assumptions underlying them, it may be helpful to consider them in categories –
reforms which focus on schools as organizations, those based on human resource
development, those which address classroom instruction, and those which modify gov-
ernance or locus of authority arrangements.

Reforming Schools and Districts as Organizations

Schools are complex organizations with long-standing conventions regarding their
organization, staffing, client populations, service areas, and so forth. In this section
school reform means changing enrollment patterns or the ways in which schools are
organized in terms of size or grades.

Early childhood, pre-school, head start

The most effective of these reforms has been providing schooling for young children,
aged three to five. Pre-school and Early Childhood programs like Head Start have been
among the most carefully evaluated of all reforms. Cohorts of children who have had
the benefit of these programs have been tracked into their adult lives. The accumulated
evidence demonstrates that these children are less likely to be placed in special educa-
tion classes, have fewer discipline problems, are less likely to be retained in grade, are
more likely to complete high school, and are more likely to have productive adult lives
than children with comparable demographic characteristics who have not had the
benefit of such programs (Schweinhart, Barnes, & Weikart, 2005). Despite the
866 Lytle

demonstrable success and cost-effectiveness of pre-school in improving life chances

for children in urban areas, federal and state governments have been reluctant to com-
mit to providing them.

Desegregation – by race, ethnicity, economic circumstance

A direct outcome of the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 was a series of
attempts to integrate African-American students in schools that had been predominantly or
completely white. Many of these attempts were bitterly opposed by white communities and
required military and police intervention to force compliance. Bussing African-American
students from their neighborhoods to white schools and neighborhoods was the most
common approach; rarely were white students bussed to schools that had been pre-
dominantly black. Although the prevailing assumption was that the South would be the
most difficult region in which to integrate schools, many Northeastern cities proved to
be at least as opposed to integration (Orfield, 1994; Orfield & Yun, 1999).
Serious efforts to desegregate schools did not begin until the late 1970s, 20 years after
the Brown decision. As white families left cities and moved to the suburbs, often to avoid
desegregation, the challenge of balancing white and black student enrollments in urban
schools became increasingly problematic. By 2000 most urban districts were at least as
segregated as they had been before the Brown decision, and as a result federal and state
courts began to remove desegregation orders.
There have been many attempts to evaluate the educational benefits of desegrega-
tion; generally the findings have been that African-American students benefit and
white students maintain their previous levels of performance. One of the complicating
factors in this research has been the relationship of the differing socioeconomic char-
acteristics of the black and white students as predictors to their school performance.
Increasing Hispanic and Asian student enrollments have also pressed the definition of
desegregation since in many instances neither group is counted in the calculation of
whether a school is desegregated.

Magnet schools and alternative schools

Partly as a response to court mandates for desegregation, and encouraged by federal
funding for alternatives to traditional schools, in the late 1960s and early 1970s urban
districts developed an array of magnet and alternative schools. The rationale was that
attractive school programs, for example a performing arts magnet, would encourage
applications from a diverse group of students leading to voluntary rather than coercive
desegregation. Some cities, most notably Kansas City, Missouri, spent billions of dol-
lars constructing magnet schools, only to find that the white students had left town or
weren’t interested when the buildings were complete. Although many of the alternative
schools of the 1970s and 1980s were relatively successful in improving student per-
formance, their dependence on external funding meant that as budget crises developed
and funding dwindled, they atrophied and disappeared.

High school reform

Because high schools in many ways define the success of urban districts – through grad-
uation and dropout rates, SAT and state proficiency test scores, transition to adulthood,
 Urban School Reform: To What End? 867

violence and discipline problems – they have been a continuing target for reform. During
the late 1980s and early 1990s the predominant strategies were breaking large compre-
hensive high schools, often with 3,000 or more students, into “small learning communi-
ties” (SLCs) and encouraging “school-to-career” programs rather than vocational
schools. In many instances the two strategies were combined into career-oriented small
learning communities, for example, Health Professions or Law & Justice. Generally
SLCs were self-contained with 250–400 students in grades 9–12 or 10–12 with a con-
sistent core faculty so that teachers worked with the same students over a 3–4 year
period. Moving from a rigid subject department and grade structure to an SLC organiza-
tion proved to be complex because teachers had so little experience in collaborating
across subjects and making students rather than courses their primary concern. When
done with planning adequate time and support, SLCs proved to be successful in reduc-
ing dropout and discipline problems and increasing graduate access to college and
careers (Fine & Somerville, 1998).
Recently this approach has been given heightened emphasis as the preferred reform
strategy of the New York City schools and the Gates Foundation (Robelen, 2006). In
2005 the Bush administration and the US Department of Education joined the call
making smaller high schools the starting place for high school reform. New York City
has been the lead urban district on converting large high schools to sets of smaller sep-
arate schools occupying the same building, each with its own distinct faculty and
administration. A building manager oversees custodial, security, and food services.

Systemic reform
One outcome of the continuing experience with urban school reform is the recognition
that reform needs to be approached systemically. Schools can not be reformed if the
districts in which they operate are not party to the reforms, and if state policies do not
support the reforms (Fullan, 2004). The Annenberg Foundation’s enormous investment
($500,000,000) in urban school reform from 1994 to 2002 (see Annenberg Institute for
School Reform web site) produced relatively little long-term effect given the invest-
ment, but it did demonstrate the importance of a systemic approach to reform. And the
District 2 experience in New York during the superintendency of Anthony Alvarado
made a compelling argument for tying together curriculum, assessment, professional
development, and leadership development (Elmore, 2000, 2005).
Researchers studying urban schools regularly identify successes – schools that over-
come the commonalities of poverty, unemployment, violence, poor housing, and
health care. The effective schools movement was built around locating these outliers,
then determining what made them successful (Edmonds, 1979, 1982). Predictably the
characteristics include strong principal leadership, business-like and supportive school
climates, a focus on basic skills and the teaching/learning connection, frequent form-
ative assessments, a shared sense of purpose, continuing investment in professional
development and adult learning, and parent involvement. What has become apparent
in studying effective schools is how fragile they are; how often success depends on
stability and continuity of leadership.
Further, recent scholarship (Annenberg Institute for School Reform, 1997; Barber &
Fullan, 2005; Elmore, 2000, 2005; Honig & Hatch, 2004) suggests that sustained
868 Lytle

reform requires tri-level coherence – that LEA central office capacity and state/federal
government support and policy coherence are as much determinants of school improve-
ment as individual school efforts.
In my work as an urban school district superintendent and in my discussions with
superintendent colleagues from across the United States, I have had the opportunity to
consider how central offices figure in school reform. The most important (and perhaps
least examined) factor is the local board of education and how it functions. The board
has authority over almost every aspect of district operations, ranging from the hiring of
the superintendent to teacher contract approval, textbook purchasing, and school atten-
dance boundary designation. To the degree the board chooses, these decisions are dele-
gated to administration and board approval becomes a formality. Thus a crucial
consideration relative to the prospects for meaningful school reform is a board’s deter-
mination of how it will exercise its authority. When a board puts the emphasis on policy
performance review, then the district has latitude for reform. When the board chooses to
micro-manage, then meaningful and sustained reform is likely to be impossible (which
is why mayoral and state takeovers and NCLB intervention provisions have emerged).

Professional/Human Resource Development Strategies

A second approach to urban school reform has been to improve employee quality and
efficacy through pre-service training, recruitment, selection and professional develop-
ment programs. Colleges and universities, teacher associations led by the National
Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, and more recently
state legislatures, school boards, and the Congress have all supported increased qual-
ifications for teacher candidates and for practicing teachers. Employment standards
for administrators and for paraprofessionals have also increased. States have used
licensure, certification, and re-certification as policy levers for improving employee
qualifications. Teacher workforce development is generally seen as key to improving
student achievement, and the strategies from pre-service training through compensa-
tion incentives and professional development are extensive and complex (Smylie,
Miretsky, & Konkol, 2004).

Teacher unionization/professionalization
Urban teachers unions have often been associated with blocking reform and with being
more concerned with protecting members than serving students. But it is important to
keep in mind that such basic “working conditions” as class size are usually not directly
addressed in state or local policy, except for special populations (e.g., severely handi-
capped students). As a result, some of the most basic teacher concerns for conditions
that support their work have been incorporated into teacher contracts and agreed to by
local boards of education. Salaries, compensation incentives, class size, teaching
loads, subject assignments, duty assignments, length of the instructional day, alloca-
tions for books and supplies, and transfer and seniority rules are common features of
teacher contracts, and are incorporated in contracts because historically teachers
 Urban School Reform: To What End? 869

believed that administrators behaved in arbitrary and capricious ways in managing

these basic components of their working conditions (Bascia, 2004).
Urban schools are perceived as challenging places to work, so recruiting and retain-
ing talented teachers is considered an imperative for improving urban schools. Union
leaders in large cities including Chicago and New York, and smaller cities like Toledo
and Rochester, argue that they have taken leadership roles in urban school reform
(Lynch, 2004). In their view their contributions range from mentoring and internship
programs (Toledo) to schoolwide reform (the Chancellor’s District in New York), from
lobbying state legislatures and the Congress for support for urban schools and for
teacher participation in school governance to professionalizing teaching through sup-
port for the highly qualified teacher provisions in No Child Left Behind and the creation
of the National Teaching Standards Board.
Another dimension of emergent teacher professionalism is the movement for teachers
to lead reform (Darling-Hammond & McLaughlin, 1995; Little, 1993) and to contribute
to the knowledge base for teaching and schooling (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993).

National board certification

The creation of the National Board of Teaching Standards in the mid-1990s (Bunday &
Kelly, 1996) was a direct outgrowth of a long-standing campaign by the late Albert
Shanker, President of the American Federation of Teachers, to professionalize the role
of teachers. For the first time national standards for highly effective teachers were
developed; experienced teachers could apply form Board Certification by submitting
a complex portfolio including videotaped lessons for peer review. There is emerging
evidence that states which have strongly supported teacher board certification (i.e.,
North Carolina) have had sustained records of improved student achievement, but
research on causal links is still formative (Bond, Smith, Baker, & Hattie, 2000;
Vandervoort, Amrein-Beardsley, & Berliner, 2004). Although in some instances urban
districts may have encouraged teachers to seek board certification and provided
incentives to do so, few urban district have made teacher board certification a cen-
terpiece of their policies for improving student achievement.

Highly qualified teachers

The No Child Left Behind legislation deals with the teacher quality issue by requiring
states to establish standards for “highly qualified teachers.” As an example, in order to
be highly qualified a middle grade (6–8) mathematics teacher might need to have state
certification, college credits in mathematics courses, and a passing score on a national
teacher subject knowledge exam (usually from the Praxis series) as a qualification for
teaching (see Cowan & Manasevit, 2002). The new requirement is intended to ensure
that teachers have both the pedagogical and subject expertise to instruct students in
ways that address state curriculum standards and assessments. Schools and districts
must make public the degree to which their teachers meet the Highly Qualified stan-
dard. Behind these provisions of NCLB is the recognition that urban districts have
often made extensive use of substitute teachers and assigned teachers to grades or
subjects for which they were not certified.
870 Lytle

Leadership development
Although there has been continuing national debate on leadership shortages at the
principal and superintendent level (Knapp, 2003; Portin, 2000, 2003), there has been
relatively little government or foundation support for addressing this challenge –
which is ironic because leadership is so clearly associated with school reform and
improvement. Both the Wallace Foundation (2003) and the Broad Foundation (2003) have
taken leadership roles in urban administrator development, with Broad giving primary
attention to the superintendency and principalship and Wallace pressing on leadership
which can link federal and state policies to classroom practice (Adams & Copland,
2005). Through its grant programs Wallace has been able to encourage states to mod-
ify their administrator licensure requirements so that more attention is given to teach-
ing and learning in leadership development programs (see the Broad Foundation and
Wallace Foundation websites for a list of their programs and publications).
To address the perceived leadership shortage, a number of cities have switched from
hiring professional educators as superintendents and have instead hired Chief
Executive Officers (CEOs) from outside the educator ranks. Within the last five years
retired Army generals (Seattle & Washington, DC), former governors (Los Angeles),
corporate executives (New York City), city government executives (Chicago &
Philadelphia), and federal attorneys (San Diego) have served as CEOs. The argument
for this solution is that those trained for the superintendency do not have the political
skill and experience or the financial expertise to lead these extremely complex sys-
tems. Often the CEO hires a Chief Academic Officer (CAO) to deal with the educa-
tional aspects of district leadership (American School Board Journal, 2004; Mathews,
2001; National School Board Association, 2001).
An emergent approach to reform has been through leadership development programs
conducted outside the traditional university graduate preparation and licensure programs,
with support from foundations (most notably Wallace) and the federal government (see
for example, New Leaders for New Schools and the NYC Leadership Academy). At one
level these programs are intended to respond to a shortage of qualified principal and
superintendent candidates for urban schools. At another, the programs respond to a grow-
ing recognition that traditional college and university licensure programs do not provide
adequate preparation for the challenges of providing instructional leadership that con-
nects to improved student achievement. Licensure programs generally over-emphasize
the operational and managerial aspects of school leadership and do not give sufficient
attention to recent developments in learning, teaching, and curriculum or in effective
leadership behavior, so candidates enter the field under-prepared for the most significant
component of their jobs. Districts have responded to these challenges in a variety of
ways. As an example, New York City’s Leadership Academy is a creation of the district
but operates as an independent entity intended to address principal shortages and prepa-
ration problems. Candidates are carefully selected, then participate in a year-long series
of courses and internships, much in the manner of corporate executive training programs,
designed to prepare them for success upon placement.
A similar pattern has emerged for urban teacher recruitment and training. Although
many university-based teacher training programs have a strong urban emphasis and
well-researched programs (Alkins, Banks-Santilli, Elliott, Guttenberg, & Kamii, 2006;
 Urban School Reform: To What End? 871

Lara & Mitchell, 1986), the continuing shortage of qualified applicants has provided
an opportunity for “non-traditional” programs to emerge, most notably Teach for
America. TFA recruits prospective teachers for urban districts from highly selective
colleges, then contracts with urban districts to provide candidates for “hard-to-fill”
positions, for example middle schools. The candidates attend summer intensive train-
ing programs and go directly to full-time assignments beginning with school opening.
TFA maintains that its teachers perform at least as well as traditional candidates.

Trust as a core resource for improvement

One of the most compelling arguments for investing in leadership development as a
strategy for urban school improvement comes from the extensive research conducted by
Tony Bryk and his colleagues on Chicago school reform (Bryk & Schneider, 2002).
After identifying a set of schools with long-term records of student achievement
exceeding prediction equations, the researchers did on-site investigations to determine
what the explanatory conditions were. Foremost was “relational trust” – characterized
by respect, competence, personal regard for others and integrity. In a set of cases, prin-
cipals are described who have been able to create schools where teachers, staff, stu-
dents, and parents have relational trust for each other. This trust facilitates willingness
to try new tasks associated with reform and public problem solving, and provides social
control and belief in the organization’s mission (pp. 116–117). Leadership development
programs like the NYC Leadership Academy are trying to translate these research find-
ings into specific leadership behaviors which can be taught.

Modifying Classroom Instruction

A plethora of urban education reforms, often with strong proponents, have been devel-
oped over the past 40 years to change the way urban (read minority poor) students are
taught in classrooms. Many of these reforms have been the subject of extensive
research, contentious debate, books and journal articles, ideological controversy, polit-
ical support or opposition, substantial investment, and/or corporate or university spon-
sorship. In a brief chapter there is only room to suggest the range of reforms and to
provide references that might lead to further investigation.

The premise as difference

To begin, the earliest of these reforms was embedded in the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act of 1965. The premise was that “disadvantaged” students needed instruc-
tion which would compensate for the deficiencies in their families and communities.
The initial solution was to provide “pull-out” programs for low performing K-12
students in reading and mathematics in small classes with expert teachers. Although
this model is still in use in some schools, the accumulated evidence is that it has
limited benefit over time.
A related solution was incorporated in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
(PL 94–172) in 1974. IDEA expanded the definition of special needs to include children
with “learning disabilities” and other “mild” handicaps and promised additional federal
872 Lytle

funding to support programs for special needs students. The result was a rapid increase
in special education enrollments nationally, and the emergence of a pattern of over-
representation of African-American males in special education classes (Harry &
Klinger, 2005; Russo & Talbert-Johnson, 1997). The premise of IDEA was that through
careful diagnosis and prescription of student deficiencies, followed by instruction from
teachers with specialized training and expertise, continuing assessment, and reformula-
tion of the prescriptions, the deficiencies could be remediated. Although evidence
suggests that this process has worked well for children with severe handicaps, there is
little evidence more than 40 years later that special education has improved the aca-
demic achievement of minority poor students with “mild” handicaps who have been
identified as needing these services (Weikart, 1998).
The inability to speak or read English has also been treated as a special need.
Immigrant students and children whose parents do not speak English at home qualify
for programs for “speakers of other languages” or in some states bi-lingual programs.
These programs have been controversial when students are instructed in their native
languages rather than English, even when evidence suggests that this may be the most
effective way to teach them basic skills (Gándara & Merino, 1993; Macedo, 2000).
A particularly contentious territory has centered around the question whether the spoken
language of African-American students is a dialect sufficiently different from standard
English that it justifies a distinct pedagogy (Labov, 1972).
A number of African-American scholars have argued that the experience of slavery
eradicated many of the positive attributes of African culture, and therefore public
schools have a responsibility for teaching African-American (and other) students about
their cultural histories (Asante, 1991/1992). Success in school is considered as contin-
gent on developing a strong sense of self-regard which emerges from understanding
one’s cultural roots. Related arguments are made for the need for distinct pedagogies
designed to address the unique characteristics and needs of African-American stu-
dents (Ladson-Billings, 1995, 1997). Strong arguments are also made for ensuring that
African-American students are taught by African-American teachers who are sensitive
to the challenges they face (Foster, 1998). Hispanic and Native American educators
have built parallel cases for culturally appropriate pedagogies for their communities.

The premise as research-based pedagogy

Beginning with Edmonds’ (1979) work on effective schools in the late 1970s, there has
been a continuing line of research which takes a set of schools, for example, all New
York City elementary schools, and identifies those schools whose students perform
better by certain criteria, usually standardized tests, than would be predicted based on
the demographic characteristics of their students. These schools then become cases
that are carefully examined to determine their distinguishing dimensions. Typically
these dimensions include: strong principal leadership; safe, orderly, trusting, and busi-
ness-like environment; consistent focus on basic skills; regular assessment of student
performance; stable and qualified teaching workforce; parent involvement; small
classes in early grades; and a host of other variables identified in various studies
(Clark, Lotto, & Astuto, 1984; Goodlad, 1983). The question continues to be how these
conditions can be put in place in schools where they do not exist.
 Urban School Reform: To What End? 873

Beginning in the mid-1980s and in response to this question, researchers and program
developers, primarily university-based and often with federal government support, began
creating “comprehensive” or “whole school” reform models as intervention strategies
emerging from the effective schools research. Although there are more than 30 distinct mod-
els that have been subject to longitudinal evaluation, the best known include Success for All
(Slavin, 2004), School Development (Comer, 2005), and Accelerated Schools (Levin,
1997). Some of the models centered on such strategies as curriculum articulation (Modern
Red Schoolhouse), pacing (Accelerated Schools), or thematic curriculum units (CoNect).
Others built from such approaches as increasing parent engagement with schools (School
Development) or personalization of the relationships between teachers and students (First
Things First). Most claimed to be dealing with the whole of schools, including curriculum,
teaching methods, school climate, and governance. Although the efficacy of these models
has been heatedly debated (Borman, Hewes, Overman, & Brown, 2003; Lytle, 2002;
Pogrow, 1998) and only one, America’s Choice (Supovitz, Poglinco, & Snyder, 2001) has
been able to demonstrate consistent success through rigorous evaluation, they still continue
to be the intervention of choice in low-performing urban schools.
A related but distinct intervention has been a focus on early literacy, beginning in
pre-school where possible, and continuing through third grade. The premise is that if
children can’t read by age eight/third grade, then the probability of their future success
in school rapidly diminishes, and the probability of their referral to special education
and other support services increases. Success for All is built from this premise and
there are now a host of commercial reading programs (e.g., Read 180, Open Court)
that claim to be effective in early grades. The attendant problem is that follow-up stud-
ies indicate that by eighth grade/age 14 many of these same students are reading well
below grade level (Pogrow, 1998).

The premise as technology

From the 1970s instructional computer technology has been considered as a teaching
tool or supplement to conventional instruction that will provide an efficient and effec-
tive intervention or resource for urban students. Investment in instructional technology
has been enormous so that urban schools can now be expected to have computer labs,
computers in classrooms, Internet access, libraries of instructional software, and com-
puter teachers. But the evidence to date is that the investment has generated only mar-
ginal returns (Becker, 2000; Doherty & Orlofsky, 2001; Sandham, 2001). Because
computers and technology have become so central to daily life, the issue for parents
less whether the technology is improving their children’s academic performance and
more that their children are familiar with the technology.

The premise as preparation for economic self-sufficiency and college access

A primary goal of high school reform efforts has been to reduce the number of dropouts
and increase the number of graduates going on to college and careers (Bailey, 1991; US
Department of Labor, 1991). One approach has been to form corporate partnerships
directly with high schools to provide internships at the employers’ worksites (Liebowitz
& DeSalvatore, 2000). Another has been to form community college and high school
874 Lytle

partnerships (Early/Youth College) that permit students to take college courses for credit
beginning in upper grades. And another has been to provide intensive tutoring and sup-
port programs for students with college potential beginning in eighth or ninth grade (e.g.,
Upward Bound). There has also been an effort to increase the number of Advanced
Placement courses offered at urban high schools. And some districts have had success in
reconnecting out-of-school-youth with schools through innovative programs designed to
be responsive to the lives of their students (Martin & Halperin, 2006).

The premise of standards and assessment

Earlier in this chapter I spoke about the emergence of the standards movement begin-
ning in 1998 and the subsequent growth in the use of standardized tests and other
assessments to determine whether students were meeting the standards. The literature
on standards is voluminous, relating to general and generic issues, specific subjects,
evaluation, testing and assessment, the translation of standards to classroom practice
(Black & Wiliam, 1998, 2004; Schmoker & Marzano, 1999; The Aspen Institute, 2004).
The adoption of NCLB heightened this emphasis on standards and testing, and
increased emphasis on reading and mathematics proficiency as the indicators of student
success. The cost, especially in urban schools where students are least likely to meet the
proficiency standards, has been reduced attention to the arts, history, science, and for-
eign languages (DeBray et al., 2005). Interestingly, NCLB avoids intrusion in the cur-
riculum and standards issues by focusing on organizational and employee qualification
matters and, and by requiring that states determine their testing programs and profi-
ciency standards for Adequate Yearly Progress subject to federal review and approval.

The prospect of instructional management systems and formative assessment

Student information management systems are a relatively recent development intended
to help teachers provide timely and targeted instruction which takes advantage of the
increased capacity, decreased cost, and connectivity of computer systems to provide
teachers ready access to student information. Data elements include the obvious, simple
descriptive information and performance histories, and the less obvious, electronic port-
folios and program participation records. Test publishing companies are now beginning
to market their extensive inventories of test items for online access by teachers who can
use them to construct formative and summative assessment keyed to state curriculum
standards. As teachers become more sophisticated at reviewing and discussing student
work, reviewing student histories, and developing valid and reliable assessments, the
premise is that more intentional instruction should result in improved student achieve-
ment (Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshal, & Wiliam, 2004a, 2004b; Black & Wiliam, 2004).

Modifying District and/or School Governance, Oversight and the

Locus of Authority
No child left behind
At this point in American urban educational history it is impossible to consider strate-
gies for reform independent of NCLB since so much of what is taking place in the
name of reform is designed to comply with or meet NCLB requirements.
 Urban School Reform: To What End? 875

No Child Left Behind includes an accountability framework requiring that all chil-
dren regardless of disability, language spoken at home, ethnicity, or family economic
status perform at proficient levels by 2014. In the discussion that follows it is important
to keep in mind that there is no evidence in research that this goal can be accomplished;
there is no extant knowledge base in research or practice that demonstrates that univer-
sal proficiency is possible. Nor is there accumulated research which demonstrates that
any of the sanctions imposed by NCLB, either singly or in combination, leads to sus-
tained improvement in student achievement or school performance. This despite nearly
hysteric insistence by the Bush administration that interventions be “scientifically
research based.”
From its inception state departments of education have been responsible for over-
seeing NCLB implementation and have had to develop compliance implementation
plans for review and approval by the U.S. Department of Education. Although this
process often took 2–3 years and states were still scrambling to develop curriculum
standards and related assessments four and five years after the legislation was
passed, local districts and schools were immediately accountable for meeting
Adequate Yearly Progress performance standards. From 2001 forward students
were being assessed with newly developed tests on content they may not have been
taught because performance criteria and measures were being created at the same
time the students were in class. Regardless, the sanctions imposed by NCLB went
into effect as scheduled in the legislation if schools or districts did not meet per-
formance standards. Again, one needs to keep in mind that these sanctions equate
to the school reforms mandated by NCLB as mechanisms for improving student
achievement and school performance (see Cowan & Manasevit, 2002 for a detailed
explication).
First, a brief list of those sanctions and the effective dates; then a more complete
explanation of each sanction and the actions it requires.
● Offer students public school choice (2003)
● Offer Supplemental Educational Service (2003–2004)
● Implement Corrective Action (2004–2005)
● Replace school staff (2005–2006)
● Institute new curriculum (2005–2006)
● Decrease school management authority (2005–2006)
● Extend school year or day (2005–2006)
● Bring in outside experts (2005–2006)
● Restructure (2005–2006)
If these actions do not produce the intended results:
● Continue to offer choice and supplemental programs (2007 ff.)
● Convert to charter schools (2007 ff.)
● Make significant staff changes (2007 ff.)
● Turn school (or district) over to state agency or private firm (2007 ff.)
Note that there are no explicit incentives – other than to avoid corrective action or
take-over.
876 Lytle

A more detailed explication of these reforms helps clarify how they are operationalized:

● Offer students public school choice (Spring, 2003) – Local districts are required to
notify parents of students attending low performing schools (those not meeting
Adequate Yearly Progress [AYP] standards for two years or more) of their chil-
dren’s right to attend other schools in the district that do meet the standards. Ten
percent of the district’s federal Title I grant must be designated to pay for bussing
for students whose parents choose this option. Nationally, this choice option has
proved unpopular, with few parents choosing to move their children from neigh-
borhood schools (Davis, 2006).
● Offer Supplemental Educational Service (2003–2004) – Local districts are also
required to notify parents of students attending low performing schools (those not
meeting AYP standards for two years or more) of their children’s right to receive
after-school tutorial services from approved providers. An approved provider must
be registered with the state department of education and offer a “scientifically
research based” program designed to help students meet state proficiency stan-
dards. Although high performing schools in local districts may register as
providers, low performing schools may not offer tutorial programs paid for with
Title I dollars. In practice Supplemental Educational Service (SES) programs are
intended to provide an opportunity for private, for-profit companies to gain a
foothold in the K-12 public school market. Local districts are required to give
vouchers to eligible parents who request them; the parents may use the voucher
with any approved vendor (Typically a voucher would be worth $2,000). By statute
15% of a district’s Title I grant must be designated for SES programs; parents are
given vouchers on request until the allocated funds have been exhausted. The local
district has no control over the providers and may not evaluate their programs or
services. Independent of any program quality issues, in creating SES programs the
Congress has established and legitimized a national voucher-like program which
could conceivably be expanded to include the total tuition cost of school.
● Implement Corrective Action (2004–2005) – In order to determine what corrective
actions are necessary to ensure that low performing schools meet state NCLB
standards, state departments of education organize consulting teams of experi-
enced educators to make school visits and then issue corrective action reports out-
lining the steps necessary to improve student achievement. The school then has
two years to implement the recommendations with support from the district/LEA.
● Replace school staff (2005–2006) – If in the view of the state department of edu-
cation or the district central office the principal or certain teachers are inhibiting
a school’s progress, they can be replaced (meaning removed, but not necessarily
dismissed).
● Institute new curriculum (2005–2006) – If in the view of the state department of edu-
cation or the district central office the literacy or mathematics curriculum of a low
performing school (or district) is not research based and is not producing adequate
yearly progress, then the curriculum can be replaced for any or all grades, K-12.
● Decrease school management authority (2005–2006) – If in the view of the state
department of education, the local board of education, or the district central office
 Urban School Reform: To What End? 877

school leadership of a low performing school is not exercising professional judg-

ment likely to lead to improved student achievement, then the district office may
assume direct management responsibility.
● Extend school year or day (2005–2006) – Districts are encouraged to extend the
day or year to provide increased instructional time, but no federal funding is pro-
vided should there be additional cost.
● Bring in outside experts (2005–2006) – Districts and schools are encouraged to use
“outside” experts to assist in designing and implementing more effective programs
and services. Evidence that such help has been utilized would support any claim
that the district or school was making an earnest effort to improve performance.
● Restructure (2005–2006) – The definition of restructure is deliberately ambiguous,
but might include changes in grade organization, new scheduling arrangements
(e.g., block scheduling), or redesigned compensation systems (e.g., merit pay).
NCLB provides for additional reforms/sanctions which would go into effect in the
2007–2008 school year if the actions listed above had not produced the intended
results. These include: continuing to offer choice and supplemental programs, con-
verting to charter schools, making significant staff changes (reconstitution), and/or
turning a school (or district) over to a state agency or private firm.

Governance arrangements
In the 1960s and 1970s and into the 1980s American urban education reform was driven
by the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision requiring racial desegregation, and
by grassroots community activism and protest. The emergent “theory” of urban school
reform was that communities should be given greater control over their schools. Local
control would create a sense of ownership and encourage parents to become more
involved in their children’s schooling (David, 1989). New York City schools were sub-
divided into local districts with independent boards of education and the Chicago
schools were organized with local governance boards that had direct control over
budgets and staff selection (Cuban, 1990 ). When evidence began to accumulate that
decentralization was not a sufficient solution, the movement to re-centralization began,
accompanied by the injection of urban mayors into the governance of their cities’
schools (e.g., New York, Chicago, San Diego) (Kirst & Buckley, 2000; Wong & Shen,
2003). At one level mayors have argued that the survival and success of their cities is
dependent on the success of their public school systems, and therefore the schools must
be a part of their urban reform strategies. At another, the increasing involvement of state
and federal governments in urban public schools and districts has politicized public
schooling in ways that require the influence represented by mayors (United States
Conference of Mayors, 2006).

Urban schools and districts in the marketplace

During the past several decades it has not been unusual for urban school districts to con-
tract with for-profit corporations for food services, transportation, school design and
construction, and custodial and maintenance services, but with the passage of No Child
Left Behind in 2000, the pressure for centralization and corporatization has increased.
878 Lytle

Textbooks and standardized tests have been routinely purchased from corporations,
but corporate presence and influence have now moved into areas traditionally reserved
to local education authorities. One example is that several large urban districts, includ-
ing Chicago and Philadelphia, have contracted with Sylvan Learning Corporation to
write and implement their core curriculum. Another is that after-school programs, and
especially tutoring services (funded through NCLB/Title I), are being provided by
for-profit entities (Viadero, 2006).
The most extreme example of a “mixed-market” approach to reform is in Philadelphia
where the State of Pennsylvania has taken over the district and installed Paul Vallas, for-
mer superintendent in Chicago, as the Chief Executive Officer. Vallas has pursued an
aggressive “mixed market” strategy for reform by bringing in for-profit and not-for-profit
corporations and area universities to directly manage schools, and has simultaneously
encouraged charter school development (Useem, 2005). At one time the Philadelphia
School District included over 265 schools; now there are fewer than 175 in the District and
the total number of publicly funded schools has increased to over 300, while enrollment
has remained relatively constant. Now when a school does not meet federal and state per-
formance standards, its management control is turned over to another operator. To deal
with school safety and discipline issues the district has contracted a for-profit corporation
that operates schools to which more than 3,000 “disruptive” students have been assigned.
The Philadelphia School District might be compared to a large corporate entity where
low-performing units are spun-off, consultants and management companies are continu-
ally being retained to provide specific services, venture capital is invested in start-ups,
and the central office is responsible for corporate policy, investment strategy, and quality
control. If units perform poorly, their management company is dismissed and the school
is turned over to another operator. The premise is that competition among production
units, that is, schools, will improve corporate performance, but this assumption does not
serve well for those students who are caught in a succession of low-performing schools.
Evidence to date (Useem, 2005) is that the set of Philadelphia schools being operated by
providers or as charters have not performed as well as those schools still within the dis-
trict structure. This evidence not withstanding, the NCLB policy intervention timetable
promulgates a set of take-over, intervention and market strategies very much like those
being employed in Philadelphia.

Choice and vouchers as features of the market

As indicated above, NCLB legitimates parent choice of schools as federal policy.
Although this provision of the legislation has had relatively little impact to date, it is the
policy rather than the practice which may have the most long-term consequences. After
prolonged litigation, federal courts in both Milwaukee (WI) and Cleveland (OH) have
authorized the use of vouchers as an option for parents dissatisfied with their public
schools; the vouchers can be used for tuition at private and parochial schools which
accept them (Wong & Walberg, 2006). A similar voucher provision specific to the
Washington, DC Public Schools was written into the NCLB legislation (Robelen, 2004).
The problem with the weakness in the market approaches is that investment in
capacity building at either the school or district level is limited because it is costly and
takes time. Market approaches also assume informed consumers, and that has been a con-
sistent problem with urban school reform – that often parents do not have the information
 Urban School Reform: To What End? 879

or resources to use the market effectively. Those who have studied urban school reform
conclude that the locus of sustained improvement is in classrooms, not in management
structures or markets and competition (Murphy, 1999, 2000).

In Conclusion
I am old enough that I have lived through the period about which I write. I was in high
school when the Brown v. Board of Education decision was rendered in 1954. My first
teaching job was at a segregated inner city high school in a northeastern state in
1963–1964. For almost 40 years, since 1970, I have been an administrator and “reformer”
in two northeastern “rust belt” urban school districts, one of them among the country’s
largest, the other a relatively small one. In various ways I have been directly involved with
the implementation of many of the major national and state policy initiatives during this
era. I have also read and written and argued and taught about them as an academic and
researcher. I would like to think that my work has improved the life chances for many of
the students for whom I have been directly or indirectly responsible.
Yet the disparities between the haves and the have-nots in income, employment
opportunity, housing, health care, safety, transportation access, and quality schooling
which concerned me in the 1950s and 1960s seem to have worsened in the new mil-
lennium. A policy and research review like this is supposed to be apolitical. But in my
view it would be an injustice to those who attend urban schools to make the case that
the string of education initiatives undertaken on their behalf since the 1950s has in fact
improved their life chances.
Public investment in education is relatively cheap when compared to addressing
unemployment, health care, housing, safety, and the complex of circumstances that
confront the urban poor. As Americans we can claim that we are improving opportu-
nity for the urban poor through “improved” urban schools, but when we disassociate
students’ performance in school from their living conditions, then we act in the face of
a wealth of evidence that demonstrates the close relationship between family income
and school performance. To put it the other way around, increased policy and account-
ability pressures do not address the societal reasons for the continuing poor academic
performance of most students attending urban public schools.

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46

SUCCESS STORIES IN URBAN EDUCATION:

A CRITICAL LOOK AT THE ETHIC OF CARE IN
PROGRAMS, PROJECTS, AND STRATEGIES THAT
WORK FROM THE CLASSROOM TO COMMUNITY

Tryphenia B. Peele-Eady*, Na’ilah Suad Nasir†, and

Valerie Ooka Pang‡
*
University of New Mexico, U.S.A.;
†
Stanford University, U.S.A.;
‡
San Diego State University, U.S.A.

Introduction
Although ambiguously complex and broad in scope, urban education is of central
concern to educational researchers, practitioners, and reformists alike. As urban
school students increasingly rank among the lowest in overall academic performance,
it is not surprising that researchers from various fields (i.e., economists, sociologists,
psychologists, and educational anthropologists) have long studied programs and prac-
tices in urban contexts to better understand and improve overall outcomes for urban
youth (Darling-Hammond, 1997; Estrada et al., 2000; Gay, 2000; McLaughlin, Irby, &
Langman, 1994; Quinn, 1997). As a result, many studies have contributed to discus-
sions about what efforts work most effectively in urban contexts and more important,
how educators can implement these efforts effectively into schools and classroom
instruction at every grade level (Eccles & Gootman, 2002; Ferguson, 2002; Foster,
Lewis, & Onafowora, 2005; Mehan, Villanueva, Hubbard, & Lintz, 1996).
In this chapter we discuss models of effective instruction for students in urban con-
texts, drawing on characteristics that underlie successful instruction. Specifically, we
highlight the ways that such programs embody an “ethic of care,” (Noddings, 1984)
and thus provide students with positive opportunities, viable human and material
resources to succeed, and a safe place to learn.

A Word on the Urban in Urban Education

In this volume, Foster (2007) and Leonardo and Hunter (2007) provide an extensive
discussion on the various definitions and “dialectics” of the term urban. What we learn
883
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 883–904.
© 2007 Springer.
884 Peele-Eady, Nasir, and Pang

is that despite its complexity (see Chapters 40 and 41 of this volume), urban education
is inextricably linked to factors that negatively characterize urban areas in general.
These factors namely include oppressed non-White people living in poor economic,
social, and political conditions. Thus, as generally understood, the concept of urban
schooling concerns mostly students of color whose schools are deprived of the necessary
material (i.e., supplies, funding, and technologies) and human resources (i.e., adult sup-
port, role-models, and community influence) to be effective. Like Leonardo and Hunter
(2007), other scholars (Noguera, 2003) have characterized the urban in urban education
as being less about geographic areas inside central cities and more about the social,
cultural, and political constructs used to describe certain people and places. Noguera
(2003) for example, pointedly affirms that “when media reports describe a neighbor-
hood or group of residents as ‘urban,’ we can almost always be sure that those being
described are relatively poor and in many cases non-White,” (p. 23). Thus, “urban,” as
it relates to schooling, has evolved as a racially charged, socioeconomic concept.
It comes as no surprise then, that negative perceptions of urban areas have fueled
negative attitudes towards children of color, children of low socio-economic status,
and children who under-perform academically in urban schools. Although stereotypes
and racist perspectives fuel negative attitudes towards urban youth and their neighbor-
hoods, many urban schools on the other hand, do face serious challenges that nega-
tively affect how children learn.

The Ills of Urban Schools

Many researchers agree that urban student populations face unique challenges and do
not have the same resources as other school populations (Mendenhall, 2004; Noguera,
2003; Spencer, 2006). Poverty and other social forces that affect quality of life plague
urban schools and youth growing up in urban areas. Research shows that urban students
are largely poor and minority (Leonardo & Hunter, 2007)1 and the schools serving these
students are often less equipped financially to fully support positive teaching and learn-
ing experiences (Kozol, 2005; Payne & Kaba, 2001). It is also the case that low-income
urban areas are more likely to have less experienced teachers than the more well off
neighborhoods (Mehan et al., 1996). Moreover, reports from the Education Trust
(2004a, 2004b) for instance, showed 17-year-old African American and Latino students
performing at the same math and reading levels as 13-year-old White students. Without
a doubt, the achievement gaps between White students and African American and
Latino students especially in urban schools are steadily increasing (Haycock, 2006;
Thernstrom & Thernstrom, 2003).
Many factors account for the shortcomings of urban schools. Payne and Kaba (2001)
for example, note that factors like distrust, mutual low expectations among students and
teachers, and reluctance to confront certain issues head-on, tend to prevail in many urban
schools, causing them to lack the supportive belief system and infrastructure to be effec-
tive learning institutions. Often tensions among administrators, teachers, students, and
parents run rampant with regard to issues of race and ethnicity as does skepticism among
teachers about students’ learning capabilities and overall interest in education (Lewis,
2003; Pollock, 2005). While it is the case that students of color often do not perform well
 Success Stories in Urban Education 885

academically in urban schools, urban schoolteachers often hesitate to accept responsibil-

ity and accountability for students’ academic performance. Beyond that, effective disci-
plinary practices tend to be absent and support for the implementation of effective
programming is lacking. In general, research has revealed that urban schools serving
underprivileged students tend to receive inequitable funding, utilize less effective methods
of instruction with students, and have scarce facilities in comparison to their suburban
counterparts (Darling-Hammond, 1997; Kozol, 2005; Oakes, 2004). As noted by Mehan
et al. (1996), “The real source of inequality lies in the socioeconomic conditions and the
culture of the wider society, not in school” (p. 18). While we acknowledge constraints in
urban school districts as extant and complex, we also argue that how teachers view students
and the personal commitment teachers make to students’ education is important as well.
Despite being plagued by a myriad of social, political, economical, and organiza-
tional challenges however, some urban schools are successful. In the next section, we
describe what we mean by “successful,” and we discuss some of the in-school and non-
school instructional efforts that contribute to the academic success of many urban
students. We argue that successful urban instructional settings have two important char-
acteristics: (1) they are organized to be culturally and personally relevant to students’ life
experiences and center on relationships with caring adults; and (2) they are undergirded
by a caring ideology that purposefully supports students’empowerment and view of them-
selves as capable, valuable, and contributing members of the learning environment. We
see these characteristics as stemming from what other researchers have termed “the ethic
of care” (Irvine, 2002; Liston, 2004; Liston & Garrison, 2004; McAllister & Irvine, 2002;
Noblit, Rogers, & McCadden, 1995; Noddings, 1984, 1992; Pang, 2006).

The Ethic of Care

The child who is educated [in the school] is a member of society and must be
instructed and cared for as such a member. The moral responsibility of the school,
and of those who conduct it, is to society. The school is fundamentally an institu-
tion erected by society to do a certain specific work–to exercise a certain specific
function in maintaining the life and advancing the welfare of society. The educa-
tional system which does not recognize this fact as entailing upon it an ethical
responsibility is derelict and a defaulter. It is not doing what it is called into exis-
tence to do, and what it pretends to do. Hence the necessity of discussing the
entire structure and the specific workings of the school system from the stand-
point of its moral position and moral function to society.
–John Dewey2

As suggested in the above quote from John Dewey on the ethical principles underlying
education, there is and must be an indubitable connection between caring for students
and educating them effectively – this is the essence of effective education. Our laws,
policies, politics, and methods for achieving social justice flow directly from what we
care about and our commitment to a socially just society (Liston & Garrison, 2004;
Noddings, 1984; Pang, 2005). Hence when they care about students, teachers are more
likely to find ways to ensure students’ academic success while treating them equitably.
886 Peele-Eady, Nasir, and Pang

We believe the ethic of care is a central element of teaching and learning processes in
all settings, including schools, non-school settings, and after-school programs. As many
scholars have noted (Noblit et al., 1995; Noddings, 1984, 1992; Rogers & Freiberg, 1994),
a caring learning environment is an equitable one built on trusting relationships between
teachers and students. Consequently, having trusting relationships with their teachers pro-
motes students’ positive intellectual, social, and moral development.
As a framework, the ethic of care offers educators a view of schooling in relation to
core national values, including social justice, democracy, community, humanity, and
moral courage (Hursh & Ross, 2000; Noddings, 1984, 1992; Nussbaum, 1997; Pang,
2005; Pruyn, 2000; Walker, 1996; Vinson, 1998). These values not only affirm a belief
in human dignity and commitment to care for each other, but also situate schooling as
a dignified experience to which every child is entitled.
By stressing the importance of relationships and feelings of connectedness among
students, teachers, and all members of the educational community, a caring ideology is
critical in urban schools, which as we have seen, are often marked by low teacher
expectations, low-level curriculum, deficit policies, and minimal financial resources
(Foster et al., 2005; Haberman, 1995; Irvine, 2002; Lipman, 1998; Liston & Garrison,
2004; Mehan et al., 1996; Oakes, 1990; Payne & Kaba, 2001; Skral, Scheurich, &
Johnson, 2000). Given these realities, the schooling experiences of many students
from underrepresented groups do not reflect equity and equality (Estrada et al., 2000;
Kozol, 2005).
As a philosophical orientation, the ethic of care upholds the importance of creating
and nurturing a learning environment that promotes equitable education and respect for
and among all members of the school community (Skral et al., 2000). Caring educators
then, are educators who debunk the deficit theory3 (Pang, 2005). Rather than viewing
students of color as ethnically or linguistically deficient, caring teachers practice equi-
table pedagogy, maintaining high expectations for their students and for themselves.
To that end, caring teachers will view students’ academic performance and overall
success from a results-driven point of view (Skral et al., 2000) and measure account-
ability on the equity of student performance rather than shifting focus (and blame)
to various school-district inputs such as small school configurations or preoccupa-
tion with textbook adoptions. Caring teachers will also establish meaningful relation-
ships with students and through these relationships mediate meaningful instructional
practices.
Relationships with students comprise a core aspect of a caring learning environment.
Researchers have long explored how caring relationships between students and teachers
function in learning, particularly in the academic achievement of students of color
(Ferguson, 2002; McNeely, Nonnemaker, & Blum, 2002). This line of inquiry has
drawn attention to personalized, individual mentoring and tutoring, long-term scholas-
tic support, and small collaborative learning communities (Jurich & Estes, 2000).
Students of caring teachers “… believe that adults in the school care about their learn-
ing and about them as individuals” (Blum, 2005, p. 16). Research studies such as
McNeely et al. (2002) revealed that students feel connected when schools provide:
“(1) high academic standards coupled with strong teacher support; (2) an environment in
which adult and student relationships are positive and respectful; and (3) a physically and
 Success Stories in Urban Education 887

emotionally safe school environment” (Blum, 2005, p. 17). A caring learning environ-
ment is not one that simplifies instruction and reduces curriculum for underachieving
students. To the contrary, rigorous curriculum, high expectations for student achieve-
ment, and institutional support are essential elements of a caring learning environment.
Although he focused on suburban areas, Ferguson (2002) had this to say following
his survey of 95 schools in 15 school districts:

Perhaps the most interesting finding here is the distinctive importance of teacher
encouragement as a reported source of motivation for nonwhite students, espe-
cially African-American students, and the fact that this difference is truly a racial
one, mostly unrelated to measures of socioeconomic status. The special impor-
tance of encouragement highlights the likely importance of strong teacher-student
relationships in affecting achievement, especially for African-American and
Hispanic [sic] students. It also highlights the importance of trying to understand
racial and ethnic differences in how students experience the social environments of
schools and classrooms. (Ferguson, 2002, pp. 25–26)

In Ferguson’s (2002) study, content, pedagogy, and relationships were three critical
elements in student achievement. His findings show that students worked hard in
school because their teachers encouraged them. And what is more, students worked
hard to please and impress their parents as well4 (Ferguson, 2002). Indeed, rigorous
content, equitable pedagogy, and trusting relationships with their teachers and parents
enabled students to reach their academic goals.
In the next part of this chapter we highlight four school-based reform efforts for
urban students that reflect an ethic of care. One program, the Algebra Project, has been
successful at helping middle and high school students achieve in math by making alge-
bra a part of their everyday life experiences (Moses, 1994; Watson, 1996). Two pro-
grams, Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) and Upward Bound (UB),
have been successful at reducing dropout rates among high school students, increasing
the number of students from low-income families who take advanced or college
preparatory courses, and increasing the number of students who enroll in colleges and
universities (Mehan et al., 1996; Slavin & Fashola, 1998). Lastly, the Faculty Student
Mentor Program (FSMP) is a university-based program that has been successful at
helping students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds succeed in col-
lege once they get there.

Success Stories in School Settings

In this section we discuss the positive opportunities that these four in-school programs
provide. By positive opportunities, we mean the support that comes to students by way
of the social structure. We believe that programs work when they provide students with
opportunities to interact in an academic environment with peers who look, think, and
act like them or live in the same neighborhoods and share like experiences. We also
believe that successful programs have organizational structures that are organized to
888 Peele-Eady, Nasir, and Pang

scaffold students’ successful participation in learning activities and provide students

with the resources, trusting relationships, and advocacy they and their parents need to
navigate through school politics and other institutional constraints. Lastly, we contend
that successful programs provide students with a space that is both academically
(having high academic standards and expectations with the help, tutoring, mentoring,
and advocating that students need) and socially safe (providing the physical and
emotional protection that students need) in the struggle for equitable education.

The Algebra Project

The Algebra Project as conceived by its founder, Robert Moses, was developed in
1982 to help underrepresented youth achieve mathematics literacy (Moses, 1994).
Stemming from Moses’s active involvement in the Civil Rights Movement of the
1950s and 1960s, the mission of the Algebra Project is to prepare students for suc-
cessful citizenship by helping them succeed at college-preparatory mathematics
(Moses, 1994; Moses & Cobb, 2001). In essence Moses viewed algebra as a gate-
keeper to equality in education for underrepresented youth and envisioned the Algebra
Project as students’ “passport” to opportunities in education, employment, leadership,
and full self-development (Moses, 1994).
Although it started as a local program, the Algebra Project has gained national
recognition throughout various parts of the United States. Currently, the Project serves
over 45,000 middle-school students from traditionally underrepresented and under-
served backgrounds in 100 plus urban schools throughout the West Coast, Midwest,
Northeast, and the rural South (Watson, 1996). Although expressly focused on the
teaching of algebra, major thrusts of the Project espouse an ethic of care that includes
social equality, culturally relevant instruction, and the creation of supportive learning
communities (Moses & Cobb, 2001).
The Algebra Project draws on everyday materials and experiences (such as using
gumdrops and toothpicks to configure and solve algebraic equations) to teach mathe-
matics. Reports from teachers and national evaluations of the Algebra Project show that
it has had a favorable effect on students’ attitudes towards math, their motivation for
learning, and their abilities to articulate and teach mathematical ideas to each other
(Watson, 1996). These descriptions suggest that the success of the Algebra Project,
although a curriculum-based program, has a lot to do with its basic ideology, one focused
on developing students’ attitudes toward learning and the caring relationships that stu-
dents build with their teachers, peers, and other members of the learning community.
Unlike other programs that are based on specific curricula, the Algebra Project
includes after-school math workshops, which extend the school day (Watson, 1996) and
widen students’ range of mathematical experiences. These workshops are also designed
to help parents learn the same skills that their children are learning. This in turn creates
a reciprocal learning network among students and their parents and teachers.
The instructional component of the Algebra Project utilizes culturally and personally
relevant instruction. Specifically, instructional practices draw on students’ everyday life
experiences to create learning environments that engage students in knowledge construc-
tion while also helping them see algebra as authentically significant in their lives. Whether
 Success Stories in Urban Education 889

creating mathematical experiences out of subway rides on “the E-train in Chicago” or also
helping them see with “gumdrops in Mississippi” (Watson, 1996) the Algebra Project is
organized to scaffold students’ successful mathematics learning within a safe, familial space.
Drawing on its foundation in civil rights and social justice, the Algebra Project utilizes
many principles of the ethic of care, particularly in the way of providing students with the
supportive network they need to succeed. Teachers and parents of students participating
in the Algebra Project not only commit to the belief that every student can be successful
in mathematics, and algebra in particular, but they work together to ensure this vision.

AVID
Similar to the Algebra Project, the Advancement Via Individual Determination program
(AVID), which began in San Diego, California in 1980 following a court-ordered
desegregation of the San Diego Unified School District, provides underachieving stu-
dents in grades six through twelve with the opportunity to take college preparatory
classes and increase their chances of enrolling in college. Specifically, AVID, as devel-
oped and envisioned by its founder, Mary Catherine Swanson, places low-achieving
students from low-income backgrounds or underrepresented groups into rigorous col-
lege preparatory classes with students from high-income backgrounds (Mehan et al.,
1996). This design not only provides students with the opportunities to mix with others
who have common goals and shared interests, but also with a safe space to interact with
peers whose goals, backgrounds, and interests are potentially different.
AVID is a school-based detracking effort that provides students with the academic,
social, and emotional support they need to be successful in school. A significant com-
ponent of this support happens through the work of the AVID coordinators, who serve
as mentors and academic coaches to students. Working as part of an interdisciplinary
team consisting of the principal, counselor, and instructional leaders in English, for-
eign language, history, science, and mathematics, AVID coordinators provide students
with a strong network of support as they make the shift between high school and col-
lege. For instance, AVID students are encouraged to take prep courses (in middle
school) and move into honors/advanced placement courses in high school.5 Through
AVID, underachieving students learn to excel academically and view school success
and a college education as a realistic and highly attainable goal.
Towards this end, AVID provides students with institutional, social and emotional
support systems. Similar to the Algebra Project, interactions among AVID team mem-
bers and students underscore care ideology by offering support and guidance that
exceed boundaries typical of the traditional school day. Aside from encouraging stu-
dents to enroll in accelerated courses, AVID coordinators assist students with an array
of college preparatory tasks, such as writing essays for college applications and com-
pleting admissions and scholarship paperwork as needed. AVID team members
demonstrate a devoted fidelity to their work with students (Guthrie & Guthrie, 2000),
working with them outside of designated classroom time, during lunch, recess, and
elective periods, and even on weekends (Mehan et al., 1996). Thus, AVID coordinators
and team members are advocates for students, investing in their future successes and
making the hidden dimensions of school life explicit and accessible.
890 Peele-Eady, Nasir, and Pang

Research shows that the work of AVID has been to good effect (Mehan et al., 1996).
In their two and a half-year study of AVID in eight schools in California, Mehan et al.
(1996) observed AVID classes, interviewed AVID students and teachers, and compared
college enrollment rates of AVID students with local and national college enrollment
rates. Their data showed that AVID students excel in college prep courses and enroll in
college in numbers that exceed local and national averages. What is more, the longer stu-
dents are enrolled in AVID, the better the college enrollment record. Other researchers
have reported similar findings (Guthrie & Guthrie, 2000; Slavin & Fashola, 1998).
Students in AVID succeed in part because classrooms are organized to make teach-
ing and learning experiences personally and culturally relevant to students’ lives.
AVID provides students with opportunities to work collaboratively in small groups
and time to interact with peers in academically and socially safe settings. The instruc-
tional program in AVID consists of note-taking, test-taking, and study strategies as
well as academic coaching, mentoring, tutoring, and assistance with homework. This
program design presents AVID students with a safe space to learn and excel in school
and provides students with the knowledge and skills they need to benefit from the
resources that AVID makes available to them.
“Most [AVID parents have little] direct experience with higher education them-
selves, which means they have not accrued the “cultural capital” (Bourdieu, 1986) to
spend on their children’s future (Mehan et al., 1996, p. 169). In the study conducted by
Mehan and his colleagues, AVID parents supported their children by employing inter-
mediaries as needed and enrolling children in support programs. Their findings
revealed that although often lacking the necessary social and cultural capital them-
selves, AVID parents are committed to their children’s education and have high aspira-
tions for them. In its work with students and parents, AVID focuses on providing
students with the academic and social resources they need to support their college
trajectories. In this way, AVID students acquire academic knowledge and social and
cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986) through the support network of relationships with
AVID coordinators, teachers, tutors, peers, and parents.

Upward Bound
Upward Bound (UB) is another program aimed at increasing students’ chances for
attending and completing college. The program began in 1967 and was designed to
prepare underrepresented high school students in particular.6 Many of the students
participating in UB are from low-income families and are the first in their immediate
families to attend a college or university. Today, approximately 44,000 students partic-
ipate in nearly 600 Upward Bound programs throughout the United States.7
Similar to the kinds of support services that AVID provides to youth, UB provides
students with academic counseling and advice about college as well as tutoring serv-
ices and assistance with college and financial aid applications. Upward Bound stu-
dents receive tutoring in subjects like math, science, foreign language, English,
writing, and study skills (Slavin & Fashola, 1998). Beyond that, Upward Bound
provides additional support to students by having them participate in an intensive
residential stay on the campus of a local university. This aspect of the Upward Bound
 Success Stories in Urban Education 891

program is meant to connect students psychologically to college life and as with AVID,
help students view going to college as a realistic and attainable goal (Slavin & Fashola,
1998). In addition to institutional support, students participating in UB receive social and
emotional support, through counseling, regular meetings with program staff during the
academic year, and participation in cultural enrichment programs. Although it shares
many similarities with AVID, Upward Bound is the oldest and largest program of its kind.
Research data has revealed several positive outcomes for UB students (Myers & Schrim,
1999). For instance, Myers and Schrim (1999) showed that UB participants are more likely
to earn more college credits, receive higher levels of financial aid, and participate in more
college activities than youth who do not participate in the UB program. Second, UB stu-
dents who are at risk for academic failure in their first year of high school benefit more
than those students who are at less risk for failure in their first year.8 These findings sug-
gest that Upward Bound has been a successful form of early intervention in the prevention
of academic failure among students at the start of their high school education.
In addition to improving academic achievement among students, Upward Bound
has been especially successful in reducing dropout rates and increasing college atten-
dance rates among students from ethnically and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
Major thrusts of the UB program involve providing students with the academic skills
they need to excel in college preparatory classes as well as the resources and support
networks they need to stay on course.
Upward Bound staff demonstrate the dedication and commitment espoused by the
ethic of care by providing support to students outside the boundaries of classroom
hours, meeting students after school and even on weekends, demonstrating commit-
ment to and genuine interest in the students’ futures.
AVID, Upward Bound, and the Algebra Project are programs that center on positive
expectations and affirmative opportunities for students. As such, these programs suc-
cessfully provide underrepresented youth with multiple opportunities to interact socially
with peers in academic settings and around academic content. By providing students
with viable and caring human resources and the material resources they need, that is,
information, assistance, mentoring, tutoring, and small-group collaborative interactions,
these programs make academic achievement and college enrollment (and completion)
attainable goals for students who might not have otherwise had these opportunities.

Faculty Student Mentorship Program

Although they may be well-prepared for college through the support of programs like
the Algebra Project, AVID and Upward Bound, once students get to college, they need
similar kinds of support. The California State University system for example, is work-
ing to ensure that students from all communities, including those from urban cities,
graduate with an undergraduate degree. The 22-campus system has implemented a
variety of programs that are designed to support the retention and graduation of stu-
dents. One of those programs is the Faculty Student Mentor Program (FSMP) in the
College of Education at San Diego State University (SDSU).
The College of Education Faculty/Student Mentorship Program (FSMP) is a
unique retention and graduation program whose goal is to enhance the academic
892 Peele-Eady, Nasir, and Pang

performance of underrepresented and at risk first year and transfer students of color
to ensure that they gain admittance to SDSU’s Teacher Credential program.9 Most of
the participants, also referred to as protégés or mentees, are first-generation college
students who come from low-income backgrounds.10 Students in the FSMP program
receive guidance regarding their course loads, schedules, and requirements needed
for admissions into the College of Education’s post baccalaureate teacher credential
program. Workshops and systematic individual tutoring are available for students
enrolled in the FSMP for areas such as writing, linguistics, biology, math, and com-
puter science.
Student mentors in the FSMP11 program develop long-term supportive relationships
important in the academic success of underserved students. In addition student mentors
provide mentees with critical information about campus services and how to access
them. Mentors not only help new students acclimate to the challenges of university life,
but they also advise and teach them about the campus-wide FSMP network that
includes Liberal Studies advisors, single subject discipline advisors, financial aid offi-
cers, and mental health professionals. In other words, students develop social networks
to address their individual needs.
The mission of the FSMP is unique as an undergraduate program in that it creates a
cohesive learning community among liberal studies and single subject majors that
enhances students’ identification with the College of Education as a professional school
and simultaneously prepares them to complete successfully a multitude of prerequisites
for teacher education. FSMP program participants develop positive, supportive rela-
tionships with fellow students, faculty, and staff, and thus feel more connected to and
identified with the university community at large.12
Mentors in the FSMP demonstrate caring commitment to students in a variety of
ways, but mostly in the number of hours they dedicate to providing protégés with the
support they need to be academically and socially successful. Each mentor spends an
average of 25 hours per month meeting with protégés face-to-face, conferring with them
by telephone and electronic mail, tutoring them, and organizing workshops around top-
ics like writing, note taking, and seeking financial aid opportunities.
In the 2004–2005 academic year, FSMP mentors compiled two lists of College of
Education-specific competencies that protégés should accomplish while in the pro-
gram. These lists were important benchmarks for protégés because they gave protégés
in-depth understanding of institutional expectations and norms. The first list was to
ensure that the FSMP was serving protégés adequately. The second list was used to
ensure that protégés were completing the requirements needed for admissions into the
SDSU teaching credential program. The average FSMP student completed, 85% of the
College of Education competencies. Students who were closer to graduating completed
87% of the teaching credential preparation competencies during the 2004–2005 school
year. The FSMP was successful at assisting students with fulfilling the requirements they
needed for maintaining satisfactory academic progress.
In-school programs like the Algebra Project, AVID, and Upward Bound and support
programs like FSMP on college campuses, provide youth with safe spaces and support
networks to develop positive relationships with other members of the learning commu-
nity and grow personally as well as academically. These programs also provide students
 Success Stories in Urban Education 893

with the encouragement they need to meet their full potential. Other research has focused
on the important learning (both with respect to curriculum-relevant and practice relevant
content) that occurs in non-school practices (Gonzalez & Moll, 2005; Masingila, 1994;
Saxe, 1991, 1999), and has alluded to how the organization of these instructional settings
supports effective learning, and the important role of relationships in that organization.
In the next sections we discuss non-school and community-based programs and
activities. We highlight three efforts for urban students that reflect an ethic of care:
high school league basketball, the Boys and Girls Club after school programs, and reli-
gious-based community settings. We believe these spaces offer a different set of issues
to consider that are potentially useful and fresh for designers of programs for urban
students and for practitioners who work in urban communities.

Success Stories in Non-School Settings

While we typically think about learning in relation to school-based programs and activi-
ties, non-school activities can also be rich sites for learning that incorporate the kinds of
caring practices we highlight in this chapter. We have emphasized the impact of caring
relationships and social networks in advancing students academically and equipping
them with the knowledge and skills they need to reach their full potentials. However,
often overlooked, the time students spend in non-school instructional settings can also be
important for helping students learn and realize their identities as successful learners.
Non-school settings are developmental contexts in which students can gain important
competencies and develop in positive and adaptive ways (Cole, 1996; Eccles &
Gootman, 2002; Heath & McLaughlin, 1993; Hirsch, 2005; Mahoney, Larson, Eccles, &
Lord, 2005). We consider non-school activities as both informal and community-based
practices, including games such as chess or dominoes (Nasir, 2000), money exchange
practices, such as buying items at local stores (Taylor, 2004), participation in church or
religious-based activities (Donahue & Benson, 1995; King & Furrow, 2004; Peele-Eady,
2005) and organized activities for youth in communities and during the after-school
hours, for instance, arts- or music-based programs (Ball & Heath, 1993; Lawrence-
Lightfoot & Davis, 1997; O’Neill, 2005), sports (Nasir, 2000, 2002; Heath, 1991;
Scanlan, Babkes, & Scanlan, 2005), tutoring, mentoring (Hirsch, 2005), vocational edu-
cation (Rose, 2004), and technology clubs (Kim, 2004; Nicolopoulou & Cole, 1993).
Researchers have argued that time spent in unstructured community activities can
be instrumental to supplement and extend schooling experiences (Eccles, 2005). This
is important, given the large proportion of waking hours that students spend in non-
school activities. And while urban students participate in after-school and community
activities at lower rates than students of higher socioeconomic status (SES), and white
students (Larson, Richards, Sims, & Dworkin, 2001), it is estimated that 60% of low-
SES eighth- graders participated in an activity outside of school (Quinn, 1997).
Further, school-age children in the United States spend approximately half of their
waking hours in leisure activities (Larson & Verma, 1999). These high rates of partici-
pation have caused researchers and policy makers to pay closer attention to the content
and effect of these after-school and non-school programs and activities (Hirsch, 2005;
894 Peele-Eady, Nasir, and Pang

Ritter, Zief, & Lauver, 2003). Moreover, studies show that youth are most vulnerable to
behaviors that could negatively impact academic, social, and behavioral well-being
during the hours immediately after school (Ritter et al., 2003) making after-school and
non-school programs and activities especially important in shaping positive student
development. Further, students often find success in non-school activities, even when
they perform poorly in school (Nasir, 2000; Saxe, 1991).
Following, we consider successful13 non-school learning settings for urban students.
We pay particular attention to the ways in which these settings provide urban youth
with caring learning spaces. Research on successful settings for learning and develop-
ment outside of school have highlighted how these programs attend to the psycho-
social dimensions of learning and development (Nasir, Warren, Roseberry, & Lee,
2006). And while programs can vary extensively in terms of content and organization,
(Halpern, cited in Hirsch, 2005), there are some important features that seem to hold
stable. A committee of scholars appointed by the National Research Council and the
Institute of Medicine (Eccles & Gootman, 2002) conducted a review of research on
community-based youth programs and argued that eight features of social contexts
support positive youth development. They are: physical and psychological safety,
appropriate structure, supportive relationships, opportunities for belonging, positive
social norms, support for efficacy and mattering, opportunity for skill building, and
integration of family, school, and community efforts (Eccles & Gootman, 2002).
In this section, we focus on three examples of non-school learning practices. As we
do so, we highlight how these settings are organized in ways that support multiple
aspects of caring, including (1) being personally and culturally relevant and support-
ing intimate and abiding relationships with adults and peers; and (2) being guided by
and communicating a caring ideology that supports students’ conceptions of them-
selves as capable and valuable. The resources youth are offered and the expectations
staff have of youth closely support a care ideology.

High School League Basketball

Basketball is a popular activity and is played both recreationally (on playgrounds and
in local gyms) and in leagues (based in schools, sports centers, or community centers).
Our focus is competitive league basketball at the high school level.
Participation in basketball is underscored by an ideology that encourages players to
work hard, put forth their best effort, and play together as a team. Coaches regularly
talk to players during practice about “playing their personal best” and about looking
out for their teammates’ best interest – on the court and off. The basketball ideology
also supports the idea of leadership, and encourages students to make decisions in line
with being a leader.
The organizational structures of high school league basketball provides players with
both material and human resources that present players with the access, knowledge,
and skills they need to be successful. As a sport, basketball is structured such that par-
ticipation is highly active, and players have multiple opportunities to make important
game decisions, such as, when to take a shot, when to pass the ball, and when to call a
 Success Stories in Urban Education 895

time-out. Although these might call for spur of the moment thinking, players are not
left to make these important decisions alone. Indeed players have support and guid-
ance; the coach and teammates are available for consultation and provide unsolicited
advice as well as ongoing evaluation and feedback as the game or practice unfolds.
The structure of practice sessions also supports the learning of necessary skills.
Practices move from routine drills on basic skills (like dribbling or shooting), to com-
binations of skills (like a running pass), to full plays (like a box defense or fast break
offense), to full-court scrimmage games. Thus, players have multiple opportunities to
practice and master the same skills, while learning to use them authentically to matter
in a game context. Often, practices are split by position (i.e., forwards, point guards,
off guards) such that for the most part, everybody is learning the same information, but
learning this in ways that meet individual needs and maximize individual potential. We
view this support as a form of learning – that is, a caring environment is one that sup-
ports the full learning and development of its members.
A significant component of playing basketball on a team is the relationships that
players build with their coaches and teammates. These relationships provide a safe
space within which to learn, lend themselves to the development of strong identities as
learners of the sport, and help players master what they need to know to be competent
members of the basketball community.
Relationships, both with coaches and teammates are crucial to the success of the
team (which also depends on the learning of each team member). Thus, relationship
building is often an explicit goal of coaches in basketball (Nasir, 2000, 2002) as well
as in other sports such as in high school track (see Nasir, Cooks, & Coffey, 2004).
Relationship building is facilitated by regular long hours together in daily practices
and weekly games, with occasional road trips, and a common sense of purpose among
members of the community. This common sense of purpose is explicitly advocated by
coaches, who remind players during practice that their ability to play “as a team” is
directly related to their chances for success at winning games. Players often come to
rely on coaches not only for technical support with basketball and scholarly support
with academics, but also with negotiating important personal issues, including prob-
lems with girlfriends or boyfriends and parents (Nasir, 2000). At many schools, bas-
ketball team members form an exclusive social group on the broader campus, thus
becoming not only team members, but close friends as well.
Learning to work as a team is an important part of becoming more expert players (Nasir
& Hand, in press). Further, feeling one’s self to be a member of the basketball community
(both locally and more broadly) supports the learning of the mathematics of basketball –
calculating their own and other players’ game statistics, such as average points scored per
game, and percentage of shots made from the free-throw line (Nasir, 2000, 2002). This is
especially significant when these same students perform poorly in math classes at school.
In general, sports offer students opportunities to participate authentically and to feel
that their membership adds significantly to the team endeavor (Nasir & Hand, in
press). This in turn, creates a strong sense of personal relevance for youth. Players
report that basketball provides them with a context where they can “be themselves,” by
which they mean they have a role on the team, such as “keeping the other players calm”
or “motivating teammates” or “leading by example” that they feel allows them to bring
896 Peele-Eady, Nasir, and Pang

some of their personality and unique self-ness to the practice. Players argue and demon-
strate that having dual, blended identities (as player and as individual) enhances both
engagement and commitment to the game.

Boys and Girls Club

The Boys and Girls clubs are community-based, drop-in youth centers that provide
urban youth with informal activities and play spaces and equipment including basket-
ball courts, volleyball courts, pin ball machines, and pool tables as well as a range of
other sports and arts and crafts activities. These clubs also offer programming and
other classes – for instance, Hirsch (2005) describes two life-skills courses where stu-
dents meet with mentors to discuss important life and developmental issues.
The ethic of care ideology undergirding interactions at the boys and girls clubs cen-
ters around safety and warmth. One of the most important features of successful out-of-
school and community-based programs is that they provide psychological and physical
safety – this may be especially important for urban students, who may face challenging
and unsafe conditions in their neighborhood environments. Youth who participated at
the Boys and Girls Clubs in Hirsch’s (2005) study came to refer to the clubs as their
“second home,” signaling the sense of safety and belonging that they felt there. One
student in Hisrch’s study wrote that the club was “a quiet place to do work, … bond with
friends, … get away from peer/family pressure, … confide in adults, [and a] safe space
to get off the streets” (p. 41). Many other participants shared this sentiment, and Hirsch
writes, “even as adult researchers, we often felt the warmth and hominess that emanated
from the space” (p. 41). These components of students’ experiences at the Boys and
Girls Club create opportunities for self-efficacy and feeling that one matters.
This sense of safety and warmth is vital to providing a context where youth can learn
and grow. It gives youth a space where it is all right to try new things, and perhaps even
to fail at first. The ideology of safety and warmth also aligns with developmental
resources for youth, including mentors that challenge their existing (less positive)
practices and belief systems, and encourage youth to consider alternative (more posi-
tive) practices and beliefs (Hirsch, 2005).
As Hirsch describes them, the strengths of the Boys and Girls Clubs programs were
primarily social and centered around relationship building both with adult mentors and
peers. These clubs provided a space for young adolescents to play and have fun. Hirsch
cautions us not to downplay the developmental importance of providing youth with
such a space for fun, arguing that in the lives of many urban students, it was the one
place where they could truly be free to be just children. The clubs were also a place to
be with friends. In fact, many of the attendees of the clubs reported that many of their
closest friends were other adolescents whom they met through the clubs, and that the
after-school time was one of the few times that they had to be with their friends. Again,
Hirsch highlights the developmental importance of learning to maintain and negotiate
friendships, and shows how the Boys and Girls Clubs play an important role in this area.
The mentoring that the students received as a part of their attendance underscored
this feeling of home. While some of this mentoring was explicit and took place in the
context of formal programs or classes, much of it occurred on the fly, informally,
 Success Stories in Urban Education 897

during the ongoing interaction and friendships between youth and caring adults at the
Boys and Girls Clubs. These relationships provided youth with protective spaces to
talk about sensitive personal issues, and get an adult’s perspective on issues they might
be facing. Among other things, Hirsch (2005) argues that these mentoring relation-
ships support youths’ abilities to learn how to manage conflicts and to code switch (use
African American vernacular, but also use formal English when appropriate), as many
of the mentors modeled such code switching.

Religious-Based Settings
Other community-based instructional settings include such places as Sunday schools, reli-
gious-based schools, and other contexts based on a spiritual or moral ideology. In her
study of African American children in Sunday school at a Black Missionary Baptist
Church in an urban California community, Peele-Eady (2005) showed how adult mem-
bers of the church organized activities and interacted with children in ways that positioned
them as capable, competent, and contributing members of the group (Peele-Eady, 2005).
This fundamental view of children and their position in the church community had
important implications for the ways that adults interacted with children across church
contexts. Essentially, adults interacted with children in ways that promoted group sol-
idarity and connectedness. That children worked closely and cooperatively with adults
in virtually all aspects of the organization, demonstrated the trust and value that adults
had for the children and their contributions.
Sunday school teachers often asked students to relate what they were learning to
events in their everyday experiences, viewing students’ narratives positively and as
useful offerings to discussions. Incidentally, even when the students’ responses were
less centrally relevant to the discussion at hand, teachers found ways to frame students’
contributions as noteworthy and appreciated.
Like the Boys and Girls Clubs, Sunday schools are built on the ethic of care and con-
stitute a mutual commitment and respect between teachers and students. Peele-Eady
(2005) demonstrated how caring Sunday school teachers provided children with ample
scaffolded opportunities to be successful at learning. Specifically, she showed that
adults created teaching and learning conditions that nurtured the children’s successful
participation, by deliberately designing activities that focused on success rather than
on failure in performing membership practices.
In sum, relationships in Sunday school church settings were set within a broader web
of other relationships – that is, the children in the setting connected not only as Sunday
school class members, but also as members of the larger church and religious commu-
nity. Their parents, too, were linked by community membership, friendship, and some-
times kinship. These relationships at the community level found their way into the
Sunday school classrooms as students referred to other church members as “brother” or
“sister.” Nasir’s (2004) study of teaching and learning in an African-American Muslim
school showed similar findings with respect to the complex web of relationships that
links students in religious school contexts.
While we recognize that the after-school and out-of-school programs that we have
discussed here are not necessarily replicable in school settings, we argue that there is
898 Peele-Eady, Nasir, and Pang

much to be gained from them. A look at the nature of teaching and learning outside of
schools and in community settings offers a more expansive view of what might be pos-
sible and about what kinds of organizational structures and relationships might support
both learning of content and other aspects of development, such as identity and self-
esteem. The non-school settings that we have highlighted focus as much on developing
youth as people and good citizens as they do in developing them as learners in a partic-
ular domain. This, we view as an important component of caring – and schools might
greatly benefit from this holistic perspective on student learning and development.

Conclusion
Most of the programs we have highlighted in this chapter – in one way or another – focus
on developmental aspects of youths’ lived experiences in addition to their academic per-
formance. We have given less attention to issues of subject-based content with the excep-
tion of the Algebra Project, though clearly the learning and mastery of content are
critical to maximizing school success and human potential. Although we have focused
heavily on how an ethic of care underlies the successful programs that we have discussed,
we do recognize however, that there are limits to the usefulness of the ethic of care frame.
Specifically, we want to address two important cautions to applying care theory in our
analysis of successful programs for urban students. First, some scholars (Applebaum,
1998; Thompson, 1998) for example, critique care theory as an oppressive belief system
because it situates women rather than men as the major nurturers in society. Other schol-
ars (Applebaum, 1998) view the ethic of care as merely a female virtue and not so much
the critical center of relationships. To the contrary however, the ethic of care is not gender-
specific since caring can come from women as well as men. Nor does the ethic of care
refer to the domination of men over women (Applebaum, 1998; Noddings, 1984;
Thompson, 1998). This is especially important to consider when the majority of our
teacher population is comprised of women. In addition, the ethic of care is not about dom-
ination. By that we mean a person who cares (i.e., the carer) does not do so in a way that
results in the domination of the other’s needs over one’s own. Instead, care theory purports
reciprocity in relationships (Noddings, 1984). Thus the cared-for responds to the carer,
who through caring is able to evaluate her or his effectiveness with the cared-for.
Also, capriciously assuming that caring is a natural, human thing to do is problem-
atic at best. The historical treatment of people from underrepresented groups and com-
munities has clearly demonstrated that caring for others who are seen as different is far
from automatic or natural (Pang, 2005; Thompson, 1998). Therefore, it is important to
examine care theory in conjunction with tensions of race, culture, power, and oppres-
sion, and this is especially critical when discussing equity in urban schools. Goldstein
and Freedman (2003) found for example, that even in situations where the intended
goal of teaching pre-service teachers how to care for their students, the teachers’ judg-
mental and negative perceptions of students of color and their parents increased rather
than decreased (Goldstein & Freedman, 2003). Care theory espouses the belief that to
teach effectively, educators must first reflect on their own biases, prejudices, and
assimilationist viewpoints and then explore how these viewpoints can be potential
obstacles to providing students with equity in education.
 Success Stories in Urban Education 899

Other examples in the literature document how the prejudicial attitudes that teachers
and administrators sometimes hold about certain students and their families not only
affect beliefs about teaching those students (Pang & Sablan, 1998), but also act as boul-
ders to change and reform (Lipman, 1998). For example, in their study of pre-service
teachers, Pang and Park (2003) found that 51.5% of pre-service teachers they studied
demonstrated that they were unaware of or unwilling to examine their stereotypical beliefs
about children of color and their parents. Further, when asked to account for poor student
achievement, the teachers in Pang and Park’s (2003) study faulted the students and their
families rather than placing responsibility with the schools or the practices and policies of
teachers and administrators.
Honesty and truth on the part of the educational community is crucial in the serv-
ice of urban youth. In schools, colleges, or community contexts, “[g]ood teaching
cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity
of the teacher” (Palmer, 1998, p. 10). More to the point, teachers and other adults
involved in the learning community whose pedagogy is guided by the ethic of care,
make a personal, moral, and ethical commitment to the work they do with and for
their students.
We think there is much purchase in our focus on the ways that successful programs
and activities influence how urban students see themselves in the world, and the ways
that caring and relationships are central to that endeavor. We find this attention to posi-
tioning students with respect to communities that support their positive development
and future trajectories of success especially important given the prevalence of common
stereotypes and assumptions about urban students and their life pathways.
It is our hope that more learning settings to which urban students are exposed can
incorporate the kinds of caring practices and ideologies that we have seen in these pro-
grams and activities. In so doing, they will be moving toward equity in education and
will counteract in a small way, the ways that our society maintains stratification by race
and class for student learning and developmental outcomes.

Notes
1. U.S. poverty statistics for the year 2000 showed that people (the majority of whom were African
American and Latino) living inside central cities experienced a poverty rate of 16.1%.
2. Dewey (1916) as cited in: Archambault (1964).
3. The deficit theory is a model founded upon the belief that students from culturally and linguistically dif-
ferent backgrounds are intellectually inferior and cultural differences are seen as cultural deficiencies.
4. The ethnic breakdown of participants in the study was 64% Asian, 63% mixed-race, 62% Latino, 62%
African American, and 62% White.
5. http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/lret/avid/?loc=what_is_avid
6. http://www.library.cmu.edu/Research/Archives/UnivArchives/Cmap …
7. http://www.childtrends.org/Lifecourse/programs/UpwardBound.html
8. http://www.childtrends.org/Lifecourse/programs/UpwardBound.html
9. FSMP- http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/dept/sdsutrio/fsmp/otherfsmp.html#education
10. FSMP serves a diverse group of protégés. During the 2004–2005 school year, the FSMP served 68%
Hispanics, 12% Asian, 0.1% African American, and 29% White. 20% of the protégés served in
the 2004–2005 school year were transfer students, 45% were freshmen, and 30% were others. In the
2004–2005 school year, 35% of the FSMP protégés were English language learners. In the
2005–2006 academic year, the FSMP served 50 protégés during the fall semester and 40 protégés during
900 Peele-Eady, Nasir, and Pang

the spring semester. Additionally, 15 students who did not participate formally as protégés in the FSMP,
participated in its sponsored events and requested occasional assistance from FSMP mentors and staff.
11. FSMP-College of Education Faculty/Student Mentor Program.
12. http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~mentor/OurMission.htm
13. Our criteria for considering non-school programs as successful had less to do with external evaluations of
learning, and more to do with whether or not students in the program learned to become competent, par-
ticipating community members such that the nature of their participation shifted to become more expert
over time. By successful, we also mean that programs support a wide-range of developmental needs and
competencies. There is also a well-established corpus of research (Mahoney, Larson, Eccles, & Lord,
2005) to confirm that successful out-of-school programs contribute to increased educational attainment
and achievement reduce problem behaviors, and heighten psychosocial competencies.

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47

REBUILDING SCHOOLS, RESTORING

COMMUNITIES: A VISION OF URBAN
EDUCATIONAL EVALUATION

Rodney K. Hopson*, Jennifer C. Greene†, Katrina L. Bledsoe‡,

Trinidad M. Villegas†, and Tanya A. Brown§
*
Duquesne University, U.S.A./Cambridge University, U.K.;
†
University of Illinois – Urbana Champaign, U.S.A.;
‡
The College of New Jersey, U.S.A.;
§
Duquesne University, U.S.A.

Evaluators are inextricably imbued with value commitments, constrained by the

context of the study, the politics of the setting, and the politics of the government.
Evaluators are fully “situated” in the deepest sense: valued-imbued [sic], value-laden,
and value-based. (House, 2004, p. 7)

In this quote from a keynote address at the 2004 conference of the European
Evaluation Society, Ernie House underscores a critical dimension of contemporary
evaluation of social and educational programs and policies. Evaluation does not exist
in some vacuum, unencumbered by or unresponsive to the social, political, and moral
character of the larger social and political order or to the particular socio-political
dynamics of the study setting. Rather, evaluators are fully situated in the context of
study and thus in the politics, cultures, and social interactions of the setting in which
their study occurs. Evaluators are also imbued with value commitments that shape the
driving logic or theory of their study methodology and results. Evaluation exists within
social structures and systems, inextricably tied to particular social and institutional
structures and practices. In short, evaluation is fundamentally constituted by and helps
to reconstitute the contexts in which it is conducted. Nowhere is this more evident than
in educational settings, especially urban settings where diverse (and sometimes diverg-
ing) and varied agendas can provide dynamic yet challenging contexts.
So what are the key characteristics and dynamics of current urban education settings in
North America, particularly the United States? What challenges are facing urban schools
today, and what creative ideas, assets, and innovations are being offered to balance these
challenges? Current trends in urban education systems and communities feature the key
themes of accountability, empowerment, and civic engagement. A vision for evaluation in
905
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 905–926.
© 2007 Springer.
906 Hopson, Greene, Bledsoe, Villegas, and Brown

urban educational settings should be neither ideologically – nor methodologically –

centric but rather positioned to intersect and engage these themes within the complex con-
temporary patterns of political, economic, and cultural urban life. The failure to consider
major trends in the ways urban education and communities settings in North America are
structured and differentiated makes for uni-dimensional and narrow conceptions and
applications of urban educational evaluation.
Our vision of evaluation for urban education contexts is indeed multi-dimensional
and expansive. Such a vision is respectful of the complexity and heterogeneity of urban
settings in North America, and it offers multiple spaces for reconstituting this complex-
ity in more democratic ways. Our vision of urban educational evaluation, that is, aims
both to respect the multiplicity and diversity of life experiences and values that com-
prise urban communities, as well as to encourage and promote meaningful engagement
with experiences, activities, and policies that serve democratic values of voice and
empowerment, justice and equity. The vision is thus ideological – but so are all concep-
tions of evaluation (Greene, 1997). Yet, it is driven not by its ideological character but
rather by its commitment to respectfully engage with the complex contours and dynam-
ics of educational interactions and activities within urban school communities.
So, to understand our vision for evaluation in the dynamic urban educational set-
tings of North America inevitably means understanding how evaluation is framed
alongside notions of democracy, social change, and social justice within our contem-
porary society. Additionally, this vision is shaped by our interdisciplinary interests in
educational, public health, and social policy and prevention efforts among all commu-
nities, especially those of color who tend to be most often marginalized, are immigrant,
and may also be bilingual or multilingual. The chapter begins with insights from
selected theoretical underpinnings that help us make sense of evaluation in urban edu-
cational settings. The chapter then considers major trends in urban education as it
simultaneously problematizes how urban education is defined and perceived in North
America with primary attention on the U.S. Snapshots of the unique experiences of
evaluation in urban educational contexts and settings of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and
Illinois are presented, followed by an elaboration of our vision for urban educational
evaluation. Overall, the chapter strives to advance a character of urban education and
a vision for urban education through evaluation that values and privileges the creation
of more equitable educational relationships and spaces.

Framing the Language of Evaluation, Urban Education,

and Social Politics in Twenty-first Century America
Embedded in our framework of evaluation in urban education settings are insights into
how the language of evaluation and the language of urban education are framed by our
larger social and educational milieu. The language and subsequent practice of evaluation
(e.g., assessment, accreditation, or audit) is not immune from the dominant discourse
being used to frame social issues and programs in the U.S. Language matters in evalua-
tion, not solely by its lexicon but through how it is used in unique settings and contexts.
Michael Patton’s analysis how and why language matters in evaluation suggests that “this
 A Vision of Urban Educational Evaluation 907

evaluation Tower of Babel is a function of the fact that different people and organizations
throughout the world use these core words in different ways within their own planning
and evaluation frameworks” (2000, p. 8). Within urban education and social programs in
the U.S. today, two dominant ideological perspectives in public discourse are prevalent
and drive the way issues are conceptualized, addressed, and funded.
George Lakoff’s (2004) cognitive science and linguistic treatment suggests that the
public discourse around social and educational programs favors a conservative agenda
manifest in the domestic and foreign policies of the current Bush administration.
Lakoff argues that two worldviews, the nurturant parent and the strict father morality,
drive the way political and social strategies are carried out and positions are drawn in
contested issues related to the environment, education, and economy. Both worldviews
operate with assumptions and cultural stereotypes, distinct ways of constructing
rewards and sanctions, and in pursuit of unique interests. The nurturant parent world-
view is gender-neutral and characteristic of a caring and empathetic moral responsi-
bility. Where the strict father morality projects obedience and self-reliance, nurturant
values emphasize fairness, cooperation, and honesty. The nurturant parent takes care
of and protects the children and seeks a happy and fulfilled life for them and others.
The strict father morality worldview, which takes its name from the head of the house-
hold, depicts a strong and strict father who prospers by pursuing his own self-interest
in the land of opportunity where he can protect and support his family in a dangerous
and difficult world. He tells his children what to do and teaches his children right from
wrong. For instance, it is wrong to give people things they do not earn, and some peo-
ple, by virtue of their discipline, are deservingly rich and wealthy The poor remain
poor not only because they lack the discipline to prosper; they deserve to be poor.1 One
notices in the examples Lakoff presents an understanding of the dominant frames and
values that are in competition in contemporary America and how binary oppositions
dominate the discourse (Apple, 2004). The way these binary oppositions work is as fol-
lows, according to Maggie MacLure (2003): “One ‘side’ achieves definition – comes to
meaning – through its difference with respect to a (constructed) ‘other’ which is always
lacking, lesser or derivative in some respect” (p. 10). This binary is the Either-Or
tendency echoed by Flesso and Ketelle in their chapter that follows later in this section
of the handbook. Taking a page from John Dewey, Flesso and Ketelle argue that the
inherently causal reasoning about urban school reform are insufficient explanations to
fix the conditions of our schools in the U.S. and Canada.
Donald Schön (1982) sees metaphor as “central to the task of accounting for our
perspectives on the world: how we think about things, make sense of reality, and set
the problems we later try to solve” (p. 254). Following Schon, we can use Lakoff’s
parental metaphors to better understand how the conceptual framing of contemporary
urban education reveals competing issues, trends, and changes reflective of the larger
social and cultural orders in respective nation states. Current education trends in many
parts of the world – encouraged and influenced by conservative and right wing govern-
ments in Britain and the United States, the International Monetary Fund and the World
Bank over the last 20 years – feature restructured and deregulated state educational sys-
tems that not only foster decentralized educational bureaucracies but devolved manage-
ment and administrative systems of schooling (Whitty, 2000). Patrick Harrigan’s (1986)
908 Hopson, Greene, Bledsoe, Villegas, and Brown

comparative perspective on trends in the history of Canadian education reveals the

influence of the 1970s as a pivotal point in shaping the historiography of education in
the country. Influenced by the cusp of educational thought in the U.S. and Europe,
specifically France, Harrigan writes how “bureaucracy, social control, and class were
the watchwords” (p. 75), indicative of the relationship among elites, higher education,
and the social structure of North American society.
If we take Lakoff’s argument further, we note how metaphors are inherent in the
strict father policies and programs in urban America despite the use of language that
appeals to nurturant values. The Orwellian language, that is, language that means
the opposite of what it purports to say, is evident in the U.S. No Child Left Behind
(NCLB) Act, for instance, which is a core part of a larger conservative and moral
authority strategy.
Under NCLB, signed in January 2002 as a reauthorization of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act (ESEA), states are required to test children during different
stages of their elementary, middle, and high school years. Mandating state-created
standardized tests to assess reading and math proficiency, the Act requires qualified
teachers to teach every child and school districts to show adequate progress or develop
an improvement plan if adequate progress in student achievement is not met. The slip-
pery slope nature of NCLB fails to emphasize a number of ill effects of the Act and the
vicious cycle of failure and punishments. When students fail, schools metaphorically
fail and are punished for failing with reduced resources, parental flight, and ultimately
take-over by the state or the private sector. Less funding and a failing school report
card could even signal the ultimate closure and elimination of many public schools,
especially “under-performing” schools in urban centers. Of direct importance for
urban schools, each subgroup of children – designated by race and ethnicity, gender,
English language fluency, social class, and disability status – must make adequate
annual progress or the whole school fails.
Although the NCLB Act theoretically encourages excellence in school perform-
ance, it problematically does not consider particular contextual characteristics or
social structures that make it difficult if not impossible for some schools to achieve the
standards set by the dominant educational system. Moreover, “excellence” in this sys-
tem is defined in terms that signal a meritocracy in play – those schools that work hard
and achieve the standards will receive rewards, and those that do not put in the work
necessary to meet the standards will receive punishments. This merit-based thinking
underlying the NCLB ignores differences in schools’ starting points arising from his-
torical and now systemic injustices and inequities. This meritocracy in education helps
to create an underclass in society, as lately demonstrated by the number of students
leaving high school without having passed so-called exit exams. The diploma is still
considered the most highly valued pedigree indicating adherence to the meritocracy.
Of course, if one does not have a diploma, but instead an equivalency document, this
is an indication that students are not worthy of the riches afforded to those who adhere
to the traditional educational paradigm.
If educational standards for excellence are based upon a meritocracy, the rhetoric
and logic behind evaluation and assessment of educational standards will also be based
upon a meritocracy. Those strategies that are more paternalistic (e.g., the experimental
 A Vision of Urban Educational Evaluation 909

and quasi-experimental designs) will be valued more in terms of their ability to pro-
vide so-called “objective” information. Conversely, those strategies that seem to allow
for fluidity of reason (participatory approaches that are inclusive or democratic) would
be less valued because they are open to interpretation and may provide a conflict with
what is considered a standard of excellence.
Jeannie Oakes and Martin Lipton (2003) further discuss how metaphors and myths
shape American schooling and reiterate how basic ideologies that help support the
commitment to schooling and social reality of education in this country have often par-
adoxical and Orwellian implications. According to Oakes and Lipton, the myth of
merit stems from the meritocratic nature of our American society and contends “any
child can grow up to be President,” and the myth of progress implies that generations
inevitably make significant advances. As schools inherit factory models of production
and standardized methods of making them more efficient, they reify the factory
metaphor and embrace the market metaphor, which suggests that schools are primarily
arenas for competition in a more global and international environment. This same
American belief that purports that success in school and life follows from individual
ability and aspiration also associates “inner-city crisis, family breakdown, and welfare
receipt with individual shortcoming” (Wilson, 1997, p. 294). Children grow up to be
President only when they follow a moral authority that rewards individual responsibil-
ity and discipline. The value of meritocracy is also being encouraged in the classroom:
for every child who performs according to the metaphoric standard of excellence,
which is most often operationalized as standardized test scores, teachers and schools
receive merit pay. This is especially disconcerting – schools in low socioeconomic set-
tings are likely to be even bigger losers under NCLB, due to inadequate funding and
resources in the first place.
The understandings and discourse surrounding twenty-first century urban schools
and the settings in which they are located are profoundly shaped by contemporary ide-
ologies, worldviews, and metaphors that continue to “blame the victim” for structural
inequities and then punish her when she once again fails to meet standards set by
someone else. The challenge for a vision of evaluation in the urban involves reframing
these discourses to ones of restoration, vitality, and creativity, as well as reclaiming
values of inclusion and justice. Schön’s revelation “that the essential difficulties in
social policy have more to do with problem setting than with problem solving, more to
do with ways in which we frame the purposes to be achieved than with the selection of
optimal means or achieving them” (1982, p. 255) is as valuable now as then.

Characteristics and Dynamics of Urban Education

in North America – Focus on the U.S.
This section briefly describes the character of urban education today in North
America, with a particular focus on the challenges facing urban schools and the cre-
ative ideas and innovations being offered to offset and balance these challenges. In
describing this character, the section initially defines the urban and ultimately links a
vision of urban educational evaluation toward progressive restoration of city school
910 Hopson, Greene, Bledsoe, Villegas, and Brown

systems, educational programs, and the learners and youth who matriculate and
participate therein.
There has never been anything particularly easy about defining the urban. What is
defined as urban varies considerably and is the source of much discussion. Not to be
considered monolithic, urban has several definitions depending upon approaches and
particular issues of emphasis. Murray Thomas (1994) provides six definitional options
that range from the universality of the meanings of such words as urban and rural to
the specificity of Census Bureau definitions precise in their delineation of population,
geographic, and employment factors.
Urban education is just as complex in its definitions and categorizations. Joe
Kincheloe (2004) recognizes that blurred boundaries exist among urban, suburban,
and rural schooling and that disparaging assumptions about urban schooling are rein-
forced by the use of this term as “a signifier for poverty, nonwhite violence, narcotics,
bad neighborhoods, an absence of family values, crumbling housing, and failing
schools” (p. 2). What happens then are oversimplifications that feed what Gerald
Grace (1994) describes as either the language of crisis or the language of improvement
in urban education. The language of crisis is associated with “failing students, failing
schools, and failing communities, and its implicit or explicit prediction of social and
political order” (p. 46). The language of improvement emphasizes “effective schools
and schools leaders, progressive intervention programs and school reforms, influential
community-business alliances, and powerful urban coalitions” (ibid.). We resonate
with Grace’s criticisms of definitions of urban education that advance narrow and sim-
plistic causes of the urban schooling crisis. Like Grace, we believe that the current cri-
sis in urban education is rooted in structural inequities that require powerful social,
political, and educational actions.
The current depiction of urban education in advanced industrialized countries, such
as the U.S. at the cusp of the twenty-first century frequently portrays a system in chaos
and explains this as an inner city crisis, attributable to a plethora of human, educa-
tional, and fiscal shortages, declines, and failures. Those Americans identified in the
late-1980s as the “truly disadvantaged” (Wilson, 1987) – situated in the middle of
decaying cities, constituted by a heavily concentrated number of poor, people of color,
and victims of unemployment, drugs, crime, and other social maladies – are no better
in the first decade of the twenty-first century.
There are as obvious signs that the condition of Canada’s metropolitan and urban
cities, though unique to the U.S. in their own right, parallels the situation in American
urban areas. That is, the role of race and structural patterns reveal rapid urbanization,
massive industrialization, and immigration in Canada (Hajnal, 1995; Mercer, 1995).
The immigration scene has contributed to a radical change in the urban social, educa-
tional, and economic life of Canada. According to John Mercer (1995), two striking
features have made contemporary immigration over the latter part of the twentieth cen-
tury unique. One feature is the economic transformation within the employment sector
and specifically the predominant, diverse service-related jobs. The second feature is the
change in the nature and identity of the immigrant, from one uniquely Eurocentric in
perspective to the shift to a more racially and ethnically diverse. “Visible minorities,” a
new group of immigrants not being identified as white, are mostly from Asia. One-fifth
 A Vision of Urban Educational Evaluation 911

of Canadian immigrants are from Africa, the Caribbean, Central and South America.
Nelly Stromquist (1994) documented trends and issues affecting urban education in
advanced industrial countries in the late-1980s and early-1990s, noting the continual
increase and constant flux of Latinos from North and Central America, Black
Americans, and Africans, a significant number of them poor and challenged by educa-
tional settings that did not recognize nor address their linguistic, cultural, and psycho-
logical needs.
At this time – the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century – urban edu-
cation is understood as a complex and multifaceted phenomenon with distinguishing
but not easily identifiable features. Kincheloe (2004), for instance, notes that urban
schools in the U.S. operate in high population density areas, marked by profound eco-
nomic disparity and with higher proportions of students of ethnic, linguistic, racial,
and religious diversity than are found in other regions. Additionally, urban schools typ-
ically experience challenges concerning basic resources, often the cause of what
Kincheloe calls “factionalized infighting on school boards.” (p. 6). Due to higher stu-
dent, teacher, and administrator mobility and ineffective business operations strained
by the persistent lack of basic resources to operate schools, transport children to
schools, and political favor, urban schools tend to be undermined, underimagined, and
clouded by a dearth of hope, resistance, and possibility.
Yet urban schools are not characterized only by the challenges that beset them.
Restoring city school systems require a critical rethinking and reframing. Imagining
the possibility of urban schools for social change involves framing notions and
descriptions of resilience to describe the perseverance of poor urban students and their
communities. This means reframing the ways people view the urban, developing new
forms of consciousness that help students and their communities invent new ways of
looking at their lives, and generating approaches that help them succeed amidst the
sterile typologies of urban school reform (Mirón & St. John, 2003b). What critical
educators and teachers, like Kincheloe, have done in these urban spaces is invent
restorative methods, pedagogies, and strategies for the students and teachers who
occupy these schools and for the parents and community members who reside in their
neighborhoods. To create a vision for urban educational evaluation, the same would
need to occur for evaluators whose focus is on urban schools and urban settings.
Michele Foster’s (1995) discussion of excellent African American teachers and her
focus on culturally relevant pedagogy suggests how and why incorporating culturally
compatible communicative patterns and recognizing familial cultural patterns are
helpful aids. To address the oft-cited cultural mismatch, conflict, and discontinuity
hypotheses that exist in urban schooling (e.g., Ogbu, 1982; Trumbull, Rothstein-Fisch, &
Greenfield, 2000), Foster contends that cultural solidarity and connectedness are impor-
tant beliefs and practices that resonate among effective African-American teachers who
develop strong intergenerational attachments to the Black community through caring
relationships, use fictive kin relationships to promote parental social roles, and simul-
taneously command respect and require students to meet high academic and behav-
ioral standards.
The emphasis on reframing teaching and learning in urban school contexts intersects
with the role innovations educational researchers, scholars, and practitioners have made
912 Hopson, Greene, Bledsoe, Villegas, and Brown

in learning styles research. Jackie Jordan Irvine (1995) counters the tendency to overlook
variables, such as cultural forms, behaviors, a group’s history, language, values, norms,
rituals, and symbols. She argues instead that effective teachers of urban students do not
only attend to individual students’ learning styles, but they are also both self-reflective
and critical of “their own actions, instructional goals, methods, and materials as they
relate to their students’ cultural experiences and preferred learning environment”
(p. 494). This work of Irvine’s extends others’ work that identifies unique learning pat-
terns among various ethnic and cultural groups (Gay, 1988; Pewewardy, 1999) and helps
safeguard the mislabeling, misplacement, misassessment, and mistreatment of these
children in urban schooling settings (Ladson-Billings, 1994; Solano-Flores & Nelson-
Barber, 2001) or the misappropriation of theoretical and conceptual models that purport
to explain academic achievement and failure of urban children of color in terms discon-
nected with the rhythms and meanings of daily urban life (Gordon, Miller, & Rollock,
1990; Leacock, 1977; Slaughter-Defoe, Nakagawa, Takanishi, & Johnson, 1990).
Inherent in this discussion of reframing innovations and strategies in the urban are
inevitable discussions of how particular forms of knowledge are privileged over local
and cultural forms. Few scholars review how dominant cultural productions manifest
in the study of education and reify themselves in classroom practices. Hilliard (1977),
for one, suggests that beneath a discussion that addresses pervasive educational issues
in urban settings is a need to more critically illuminate hidden problems and question
fundamental assumptions in the field. He contends, “instead of confining our analyses
of classroom processes to student behavior alone … we must look for evidence of con-
scious or unconscious reinforcement of patterns of domination within the educational
institution as a whole” (p. 120). In simple terms, envisioning urban education consid-
ers wider processes of stratification, power, and globalization, even as it honors the
local, cultural contexts of resilience and hope that pervade these places.

Evaluation in Urban Educational and Community Settings:

Lessons and Experiences from the Field
This section provides experiences and insights learned from urban educational evalu-
ation in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Illinois. In providing these lessons learned, the
section reinforces the major commitments inherent in doing urban educational evalu-
ation and the challenges that beset in these efforts.

Situating community engagement and social capital in Pittsburgh, PA: Making spaces
for dialogue The realities of increasing diversity, cleavages among the increasing
wealthy and increasing poor, and environmental shifts and changes over the last 20
plus years have had important personal and social implications for our global citizenry,
especially in the United States. Amidst the rapidly changing social context and social
fabric of our global communities, some question whether our communities are becom-
ing more isolated and divided over these same social and political realities. Robert
Putnam’s seminal study in the U.S. (2000) attests to the declining civic engagement
and social cohesion over the last third of the twentieth century. Characterizing the
 A Vision of Urban Educational Evaluation 913

diminution of social capital in community life from the 1960s, Putnam describes how
Americans began to “join less, trust less, give less, vote less, and schmooze less,” with
evidence from trends in civic engagement (e.g., membership records of diverse com-
munity and educational organizations, national and social surveys, and measures of
collective participation). The Greater Pittsburgh region in southwestern Pennsylvania
is not unlike the communities in the country who are feeling the effects of socioeco-
nomic shifts at neighborhood, town or city, and regional levels. The decreasing social
capital in the U.S. is reflected in the regional realities and socioeconomic changes due
to declining steel and industry markets and economic interest in the region.
Current trends and patterns at the statewide and federal levels in the U.S. call for
increased attention to knowing whether services and programs offered are both effec-
tive and having intended impact. Philanthropic, civic, religious, non-profit, educa-
tional, and other organizations and agencies must all find themselves addressing
questions about evaluation, accountability, and worth in programs and services they
provide. In particular, efforts in southwestern Pennsylvania as indicated by the recent
regional sustainability indicators report signal need to have a better picture of the long-
term goals for the region and corresponding measures of success, all the while build-
ing levels of civic action (Sustainable Pittsburgh, 2002).
The main purpose of the evaluation study was to assess the character and impact of
a social program that attempted to evoke a heightened concern for community involve-
ment and development through weekly gatherings over dinner. Guiding questions of
the evaluation study included: (1) What happens in dialogue that connects one person
with another and evokes concern for him/her and the broader social context?, and
(2) How do practices of ethical reflection and “shared looking” in a diverse setting
make a difference? The evaluation used an ethnographic methodology.

Introduction to Dialogue for Civic Action (DCA)

The social program, Dialogue for Civic Action (DCA),2 is a 7 week long program that
brings together 4–10 individuals per conversation from differing race, gender, ethnic,
religious, occupational, and educational backgrounds for weekly conversations. The
conversations feature poems, music, photographs, art and ordinary human voices as
focal points for connection, self-reflection, and the practice of a new civic language.
The series of seven sessions begins with hopes, moves on to the challenges of diver-
sity, economic disparity, the environment and materialism, and concludes with com-
munities of challenge and support. Leading up to their final sessions, participants are
invited to make specific commitments to the common good and to support each
others’ commitments over time (St. John, 2004).
Since its inception over 2 years, DCA has conducted 12 rounds of Dialogues, each
with its own group identity and dynamic, connected through the weekly sessions located
at the Urban House in the northside of Pittsburgh. Now at the end of its second year, over
100 people of varied ethnic and social groups have participated, with each participant
averaging 5.6-sessions per 7-session round. Upon completion of their 7-session round,
participants have the opportunity to participate in “Continued Dialogues,” a similar
follow-up round with experienced participants.
914 Hopson, Greene, Bledsoe, Villegas, and Brown

Of the total number of DCA participants, the majority have been white, one-quarter
have been African-American, 5% have been of Middle Eastern origin, and an additional
3% have been of Asian or Latino background. Slightly over half of the DCA partici-
pants (52%) have been female. Incomes have ranged from under $15,000 to over
$75,000, with the bulk in the middle income range, half (50%) from two-income house-
holds. Most of the participants possess college degrees and some have done post-graduate
work, though less than 10% have had only modest formal education. There has been one
participant with a mental handicap.

Evaluation, dialogue, and conversations that matter

By nearly all accounts, the DCA program promotes civic action and engagement
according to the ethnographic evaluative inquiry employed in the study. Based upon
participant observations, it is evident that the program offers a space for participants to
explore their concerns about social issues and concurrently mobilize toward engaging
in civic action. Mobilization toward further civic action was evidenced in participants’
discussion and recognition of their own existing resources and the value of being in the
company of others who they considered to share similar investments with respect to
social action. In situ interviews revealed how the program impacted the participants’
personal histories and informed their future directions.
The preliminary ethnographic findings from the focus groups, participant-
observations, and telephone interviews suggest that DCA retains participants who, for
the most part are already involved in similar social initiatives or activities, feel down-
trodden by existing work in the civic arena, are familiar with the setting or the facilita-
tor, or curious about the use of art for motivating civic engagement. Participants’
reactions to the program ranged from resistance, to commitment to civic change, to
increased engagement and commitment to issues surrounding social equality. Parti-
cipants noted a difficulty in specifying identifiable change as a result of the conversa-
tions, but noted subtle differences in the manner in which they presently engage the
issues discussed in DCA.
Of the specified core practices of DCA – diverse groups, mutual learning, facilitated
discussion, sustained meetings, and engaged reflection via art media – participants
reported as most significant the diversity of participants in the group and the perspec-
tives emerging from the art media. These were experienced as allowing for deeper rela-
tionships with fellow participants and novel engagement with the issues discussed in
the program. Participants further noted that more open-ended discussion may have
aided to further build relationships and explore multiple issues pertaining to civic
engagement.
And the challenges that surfaced in the evaluation? What sounds like a model
program for a form of, what Putnam refers to as, “bridging” social capital is clearly
not. It is not entirely clear that the tension of a reinforced homogeneity or like-mind-
edness among participants who have completed the CCW program does not exclude
those who do not complete. To Baron et al. this is Putnam’s classic tension between
“bridging” and “bonding” forms of social capital, but it is still uncertain why some
participants complete and continue, while others complete and do not continue, and
 A Vision of Urban Educational Evaluation 915

why still others do not complete the program at all. The findings illustrate most clearly
that there is a group of participants who complete a social program designed to encour-
age investment in civic engagement and action but questions remain why those who do
not complete the program and what this reveals about their own social action, civic
engagement, or social exclusion.

Characteristics of evaluation used in study of CCW

Evaluation methodology in the CCW study was reframed in order to better capture
the nuances occurring in the program processes. In particular, the evaluation team
attempted to effectively study how the program was sensitive to interpersonal dynam-
ics and communicative processes, and whether such practices lead to commitment to
civic engagement. This evaluation framework is founded on an intersection of theories
within evaluation research, community psychology, and critical theory, which draw
attention to the significance of investigating multiple dynamics within the evaluation
field and the relative effects evaluation findings have on more vulnerable stakeholders
and the community at large. Using the evaluation framework, four dimensions of
analysis were identified: evaluation approach, program impact, evaluation use, and
evaluator roles.
● Evaluation approach. Contributions from democratic and culturally responsive eval-
uation approaches specify how evaluations are politically located within a socio-
cultural context, thus influenced by power dynamics and value systems (Greene,
Millett, & Hopson, 2004; Hopson, 2001; SenGupta, Hopson, & Thompson-
Robinson, 2004). Both approaches make explicit the importance of including all
significant stakeholders in the evaluation process, and the use of engaged, reflex-
ive practices, which are directed toward further social and ethical learning and
action. To address these concerns, the evaluation team made explicit the theoreti-
cal assumptions embedded in the program’s mission in order to understand which
populations and civic issues the program intended to address and deliberately
built an approach that was responsive to the program goals. The evaluation team
first reviewed the program’s mission in order to understand how CCW differed
from other community initiatives, and what elements distinguished it as a “com-
plex, embedded, learning system.”
● Evaluation impact. The evaluation team’s approach was informed by Isaac
Prilleltensky’s study of community systems and Paulo Friere’s theory of libratory
change. According to Prilleltensky, social change impacts power dynamics on
individual, relational, and collective levels by calling attention to ongoing oppres-
sive socio-political practices, and then engaging in sustained action to change it
(1997). Friere’s theory of libratory change highlights the dehumanizing social
contexts in which we exist and manner in which we may engage one another. He
argues for providing a space for a person to work toward acknowledging the social
situation in which they exist and working toward libratory change.
The evaluation team was concerned with the relational and collective levels of
impact that the program had on the community agencies with which it collabo-
rated. The evaluative assumptions included that the community agencies would
916 Hopson, Greene, Bledsoe, Villegas, and Brown

(1) have the ability to develop new communities of conversation participants in

different contexts and structures, and (2) provide an opportunity for the program
staff at the collaborating agency to identify “lessons learned” for implications to
the broader community. The evaluation team constructed two interview guides:
one for key contacts in the community agencies and another for members in the
agencies who participated in CCW.
● Evaluation use. The evaluation team met with the Program Director and Advisory
Board to share developments in the evaluation process in order to continually
re-assess the relevance and applicability of the evaluation methods, and potential
uses of the evaluation findings. The approach was informed by Patton’s theory of
Utilization-Focused Evaluation, which specifies the significance of identifying
the intended users of the evaluation findings and then involving them in the
process so that appropriate evaluation methods are employed and that what is
learned from evaluation findings is applied effectively (1997).
Over the course of the evaluation, the Program Director’s role as CCW meeting
facilitator became more salient. Since he facilitated all of the program meetings,
he had a direct impact on participant involvement in the program. So, the evalua-
tion team regarded his role as another distinct evaluation participant. Evaluators
held regular debriefing meetings with the Program Director following each par-
ticipant-observation of program meetings. The evaluation team also met with him
periodically to report findings. In this way, the evaluation methods evolved to be
responsive to the needs of the CCW leadership; this meeting process allowed for
periodic review of the relevance of the evaluation approaches.
● Evaluator roles. Early on in the evaluation process, the team noticed that the coor-
dination of the evaluation activities was beginning to mimic the conversational
process of the CCW meetings. The team critiqued the original evaluation model
as not adequately addressing the program’s key goals. Over the course of the eval-
uation, the team met regularly to continually reassess the evaluation model, dis-
cuss and interpret findings, and to consider how CCW’s processes were affecting
multiple levels of stakeholders. As the evaluation continued, the team began to
reflect on its role as evaluators – how research practices had been shifted in order
to respond to the nuances of the program design and key stakeholders.
The evaluation approach morphed into a reflexive analysis, which informed
data analysis. Reflexivity involves efforts to account for the evaluators’ impact on
the evaluation. Evaluators’ reactions to program processes inform data analysis
and alterations in evaluation activities (Mathison, 2005). Discussion of evaluation
findings, our reactions to the data, interventions and suppositions regarding pro-
gram processes not only tracked the effect of our involvement, it informed how we
were impacted by the process, a key element to the study. Proceedings from eval-
uation team meetings were recorded and referenced over the course of the evalu-
ation process.

Understanding community voice in Trenton, New Jersey: Giving voice to the voiceless
One of the issues facing inner city urban schools is being understood as a unique entity
that cannot be evaluated based upon an external standard that is largely unapplicable
 A Vision of Urban Educational Evaluation 917

due to context and environmental factors. Given this challenge, traditional methods are
not likely to develop a meaningful understanding of the context in which urban schools
operate. Instead, the use of methods that allow the collection of appropriate informa-
tion but also provide an opportunity to “give voice,” as Mertens (2005) would say, to
those who otherwise would not be heard, might result in more informative and “truth-
ful” data. For example, work to prevent obesity among ethnic communities in Trenton,
NJ has been conducted with urban youth. The project is focused on developing
culturally appropriate strategies to help address the issue of health and nutrition within
a cultural setting most familiar to the students and their families that would not only be
used by youth but also be sanctioned and supported by the surrounding community.
When the evaluation was initiated by the school, it was originally conceptualized
based upon a traditional scientific methodology. However, it became clear to the team
that there seemed to be a disconnect between the cultural value and understanding of
obesity of the school officials (all White), and the student body which they hoped to
affect (predominately Black and Latino). Thus, the team set out to meet with students
via interviews and focus groups to gain and understanding of their understanding and
interpretation of health, obesity, and nutritional well-being within their respective
communities. These conversations have helped to shape much of the evaluation, as
well as the development of the programming. Specifically the use of unstructured
interviews has been useful in ascertaining the kinds of stressors students in a socio-
economically challenged urban area face, as well as ascertaining the types of program
to which strategies they will respond.
One of the outcomes of an inclusive evaluation has been more community and
organization buy-in. For instance, parents have become engaged in better understanding
the intersect between culture, health, and nutrition. Indeed, some now provide more
information on their student nutritional eating habits.
Although some traditional evaluative methods, such as behavioral measures (e.g.,
how often they eat certain foods), and physical measures, (such as body weight) have
yielded interesting data, the team found it relatively incomplete. This was partially due
to the fact that students did not always want to cooperate with many of the physical
measures, and surveys that were supposed to be culturally validated were some-
times considered insulting and biased [one student noted that measures used were
“mono-cultural”].
The team began to consider the evaluation as a holistic endeavor, one that consid-
ered aspects such as environment and community contributions to the general milieu
of the students (and by extension their family’s) view of health and nutrition. Thus, the
use of non-traditional approaches, such as community mapping programs (e.g.,
Geographical Information Systems) allowed the team view and understand the types
of food establishments available to students, their families, and to the community at
large. By understanding their contributions to the general community nutritional
health, it is hoped that that establishments can be involved in the crusade to establish
healthy nutritional habits by accessing and advertising on a geographical system that
not only maps out where these establishments are, but also allows for posting of
community recipes, specials, etc. that are considered healthy. Thus, using a mapping
system to collect data was not only a way to assess the issues facing the community,
918 Hopson, Greene, Bledsoe, Villegas, and Brown

but it was also a way to instigate change. The use of participatory and collaborative
evaluation techniques not only has helped to understand the background of the pro-
gram, such use has provided a paticipatory outlet for community members.

Construyendo Nuevos Caminos: Building New Paths for Latino College Students in
Chicago, Illinois In the midst of a controversial national debate over immigration reform
(HR 4437)3 that could yield positive or adverse effects for an estimated 10 million illegal
immigrants, the future of a largely Latino immigrant population remains uncertain. As
issues over immigration continue to be contested, it is difficult to believe that “a national
dialogue” can take effect, as recently encouraged by President George W. Bush in his
remarks on immigration reform. Given that President Bush fully supports building at
least 700 miles of a triple-layer wall along the U.S. – Mexico border, declaring English
as the official U.S. language, and sending National Guard troops to assist the U.S. Border
Patrol prevent the influx of undocumented immigrants from Mexico, a democratic,
inclusive and reasonable dialogue sounds more like a monologue.
In spite of the posed threats to their future and the negative portrayal of mainly
Latino, specifically Mexican immigrants, immigrants have not been silent and have
taken to the streets to claim a voice that has often been silenced and neglected.
Undoubtedly, the events of May first of this year (2006) have sent out a clear and loud
message, that immigrants, particularly undocumented immigrants, are not passive,
that they are no longer willing to live in the shadows or margins of American society.
Their voice is claiming justice and rights for a better life, for better educational
opportunities, and for the opportunity to be integrated into the fabric of American
life, as people and as citizens,; rather than be seen only as a source of cheap and dis-
posable labor.
It is important to understand how these national debates on immigration play out in
the local context, specifically in the state of Illinois at an urban community college that
enrolls approximately 50% Latino students. Most of these Latino students, however,
are in the English as a Second Language (ESL) program, and few are enrolled in
college-credit programs. In counterpoint to these patterns, the Transitional Bilingual
Learning Community (TBLC) program aims to address some of the institutional,
cultural, linguistic, and structural barriers that Latino immigrants face when trying to
access higher education, particularly through the community college system. In this
program, Latino students can earn college credit while learning English.
The Transitional Bilingual Learning Community Program offers first-generation
college-aged immigrant Latino4 students who are learning English an opportunity to
earn more college credits than are usually available to them in a traditional program.
Unlike other programs (General Education Development , Adult Learning, ESL) at the
City College,5 TBLC students receive full college-credit for the majority of the courses
taken while enrolled in the TBLC program. Except in the English class, Spanish is the
primary language of instruction at the onset of the program. Spanish language instruc-
tion gradually diminishes during the second semester of this 1-year program. The goal
is for students to be able to undertake English-credit courses by the time they complete
the program. In essence, TBLC seeks to provide new venues, nuevos caminos, for
 A Vision of Urban Educational Evaluation 919

non-traditional Latino college students as they transition from high school to college
and from Spanish to English, as a way to increase Latino enrollment, retention and
transfer to 4-year institutions.

TBLC Student Demographic Characteristics

There have been 103 participants in the program, a total of four cohorts (2002–2005).
In general, these students arrived in the U.S. during their high school years, close to
completion of their academic high school requirements, but have not had enough time
to master English. Most of the TBLC applicants have been female. The majority of
students have come from Mexico, although there are a few students from other parts of
Latin America. The majority of the students have come to the U.S. within the past 4–5
years and are undocumented. A few of them hold green cards or are in the process of
becoming naturalized U.S. residents and/or citizens.

TBLC evaluation
To provide the TBLC staff and foundation funders with useful information about the
quality of the program experience and the effects of the program on the lives of
students a 3-year, culturally responsive evaluation was initiated in January 2005. This
evaluation also sought to provide some leverage for the program within the adminis-
trative structures at the City College.
In efforts to be responsive to the TBLC faculty and staff, the evaluation team met
with them to better understand their evaluation needs. Collectively, they supported the
following evaluation questions: In what ways is the TBLC program supporting the
educational efforts and experiences of Latina/o immigrant students pursuing higher
education? And what are some specific aspects and attributes of the TBLC program,
particularly in terms of cultural relevancy?
The evaluation combines a goal-oriented and a culturally-responsive approach,
whereby the context, culture, and history of the program are critically examined. In
addition to examining the ways in which student services, career guidance. and finan-
cial aid availability contribute to the educational experiences of college-aged Latino
English Learners at the Community College level, we are also attempting to under-
stand in some depth the bilingual nature of the program and its emphasis on contextual
learning in community.
The evaluation plan and measures that drove the initial phase of the evaluation were
developed with input from the TBLC faculty and staff during a meeting in December
2003. Interviews with current and former TBLC students were conducted in Spanish.
In addition to interviews, surveys were administered to participants completing the
1-year program. We also conducted classroom observations and document analysis, as
well as attended faculty team meetings and events organized by one of the Latina/o
student organizations. In particular, one of the evaluators “hung-out” with TBLC
students at the cafeteria or in nearby locations, and had lunch with some of them
during the visits.
920 Hopson, Greene, Bledsoe, Villegas, and Brown

Benefits of having a shared lived experience

For this evaluator (TMV), more than just a project, this was very personal because of her
own experiences as an undocumented immigrant. The TBLC students and the evaluator
shared a common thread, their immigrant experiences as students learning a new lan-
guage and crossing different borders on a daily basis. In this way, as Hopson suggests,
“The social location of the evaluator also can have an impact on how knowledgeable the
evaluator is about the meanings and issues of race and culture” (2003, p. 12). By social
location, Hopson refers to “An evaluator’s ‘lived experiences,’ as determined by his or
her class background, racial and ethnic identity, educational background … [which] help
to shape the assumptions and frames of reference that he or she brings to the evaluation
process” (2003).
In this light, “hanging-out” meant being present with the students, engaging with
them in conversations, listening to their daily struggles and successes as they juggled
work and academics simultaneously and navigated an often unwelcoming environ-
ment. Being aware of some of the language, socio-cultural and economic barriers that
Latino immigrant students encounter at community colleges was extremely helpful to
the evaluator in establishing rapport, understanding their worlds, and learning about
ways to continue to support their efforts. Similarly, students are learning to navigate a
new and at times complicated educational system. Typically, the majority of these stu-
dents have not mastered English as a second language; they face family obligations in
the U.S. or in their countries of origin; and they are overworked for minimum wages,
and face financial hardships and citizenship problems. Moreover, outside of the insti-
tution, students face other issues, like trying to redefine their identities in a place that
can feel unwelcoming and unreceptive to their language and culture.
In this way, as Hazel Symonette has suggested, the evaluator was able to see and
understand the significance of using “self-as-instrument by tapping into her per-
sonal experiences to critically examine her practice.” In the words of Rager (2005),
“I consider myself fortunate that I was aware at some level of the emotional and
intellectual challenges of undertaking such a study” ( p. 23). Similarly, this work was
guided by the words of Stafford Hood (2001) who suggests that “to be responsive
fundamentally means to attend substantively and politically to issues of culture and
race in evaluation practice” ( p. 2). And I would also add that for my project, issues
of language were equally important, considering the population that I work with.
Similarly, Hood also argues that “shared lived experience is key facet of effective
responsive evaluation” ( p. 2).
In this context, personal stories from the students have been filled with emotions of
passion, frustration and hope. As explained by other researchers and Rager (2005,
p. 24) “Qualitative inquiry is not a purely intellectual exercise but rather one for
which researchers enter the world of their participants and, at least for a time, see life
through their eyes.” Hence, this culturally-responsive evaluation that aimed to address
issues or culture, language, and citizenship status serve to shed light on the unique
circumstances that Latino immigrants face, particularly when xenophobic sentiment
is at its peak and threatens to eliminate the very same programs that would make it
possible for students like those enrolled in the TBLC to continue pursuing an
education.
 A Vision of Urban Educational Evaluation 921

A Vision of Evaluation in Urban Educational Settings

Properly conceived and facilitated …, evaluation becomes a process and mecha-
nism for interaction and interface among those with different perspectives and
locations in society. (Patton, 2002, p. 20)

Current evaluation practice

Like most evaluation in most other settings concerned with public policies and pro-
grams today, contemporary evaluation in urban educational settings characteristically
serves to reinforce the status quo and thereby to perpetuate damaging misunderstand-
ings about urban people and urban life. Urban educational evaluation is usually con-
ducted in service of decision makers, using structured, “objective,” and distanced
methods that emphasize achievement outcomes and that offer relatively simple (simplis-
tic) accounts of teaching and learning in urban schools. Evaluation, that is, is positioned
on the sidelines of conflict and controversy, in a “neutral” location so that it can inform
the educational decision making process without methodological bias or ideological
prejudice. While critiques of such a positioning of evaluation – in urban education and
elsewhere – are common (see Ian Stronach, Michelle Fine, Tom Schwandt, Jennifer
Greene, Stafford Hood, and others), this remains the dominant approach to evaluation in
the public sector in North America, including education.
Probably most dramatically, the demands for accountability currently imposed on
urban schools (and all other public institutions in western countries today) structure a
punitive evaluation system that leaves little space for restoration or meaningful
engagement with the creative rhythms and dynamics of urban spaces. In the U.S. this
educational accountability is promoted via the 2002 No Child Left Behind (NCLB)
federal legislation, as described above.
More broadly, the contemporary discourse of educational inquiry as objective sci-
ence is indicative of the strict father moral authority being espoused in current federal
and state education programs that proclaim “gold standards,” “best practices,” and
“guiding principles” in the name of scientifically-based education reform. So, evalua-
tion models that speak to this same conservative agenda have considerable currency in
educational settings. These models include what Daniel Stufflebeam (2001) labels as
questions- and methods-oriented evaluation approaches that address only a narrow set
of questions derived from the program’s behavioral objectives or only the accountabil-
ity requirements of a funding agent, or that employ particular designs centered only on
technical quality and methodological sophistication, often from the experimental fam-
ily. While narrow in both substance and methodology, these models of evaluation are
often approaches of choice in this era of accountability.
The tenets, assumptions, and stances of the current accountability culture, that is,
are embedded in models currently used to evaluate urban education. Ernie House calls
the authoritarian attitude that pervades the thinking about educational research and
evaluation in the Bush presidential administration “methodological fundamentalism,”
which he describes as follows:
Some government agencies demand that all evaluations must be randomized exper-
iments. Other ways of producing evidence are not scientific and not acceptable.
922 Hopson, Greene, Bledsoe, Villegas, and Brown

There is one method for discovering the truth and one method only – the random-
ized experiment. If we employ randomized experiments, they will lead us to a
Golden Age in education and social services. Such is the revelatory vision. There
are sacred figures from the past and sacred texts. Core believers are absolutely cer-
tain they are right, that randomized experiments reveal the truth. They do not listen
to critics, and they do not comprehend the arguments against the method. A man-
date for randomized trials has been written into legislation without discussion with
professional communities. Avoiding contrary ideas is part of the orientation, and of
course, the policy is enforced by government edict. (House, 2004, p. 4).

Methodological fundamentalism offers just one source of truth and is thereby congruent
with a strict father ideology. Methodological fundamentalism, that is, denies, ignores –
or perhaps even aspires to eliminate – the cultural and socio-political pluralism and
dynamic creativity that vitally define North American cities. Evaluation approaches
anchored in methodological fundamentalism thus make no sense for the urban school
systems of today. We next offer our vision of urban educational evaluation as a critically
important alternative.

An alternative vision of urban educational evaluation

Our vision of urban educational evaluation builds on Jennifer Greene’s (2005) atten-
tion to political positioning of the evaluation in society and the relational positioning
of the evaluator within the inquiry. Her work eschews the possibility of a politically
neutral evaluation practice, arguing instead that all evaluations serve some interests
and not others, and that evaluators therefore need to explicitly state and defend the
political location of their evaluation study. Moreover, it is most importantly in the
social relations that evaluators establish and foster in a study (Abma, 2006) that polit-
ical commitments are enacted.
Our urban educational evaluation approach aspires to be restorative and generative,
to contribute in consequential ways to the rebuilding and revitalization of North
American urban schools. Instead of an evaluation approach that “grades” schools and
punishes those that “fail,” we envision an evaluation practice that helps schools not
only be centers of educational excellence but also resume their role as the heartbeat of
their communities, as stewards of the community’s well being, as places of opportu-
nity, hope, legitimization, and transformation. We envision an evaluation approach that
celebrates the multifaceted diversity that defines our twenty-first century cities and
that embraces the creative and generative dynamics of this diversity as enacted in
educational settings. And we envision an evaluation approach that legitimizes and hon-
ors the strengths, commitments, and resiliency of urban residents – school children,
teachers, and administrators alike – who “show up” every day for a life filled with
unpredictability, randomness, and marginalization.
How is such a vision to be enacted? We advance three key strands of evaluation
practice that address the relational positioning of the evaluator within the inquiry and
thus offer ideas for how to enact this vision. First, this approach to evaluation is cul-
turally respectful, responsive, and smart. Culture in this context refers (anthropo-
logically) to the customary ways people have of interacting with one another and
 A Vision of Urban Educational Evaluation 923

making meaning from these interactions. Culture includes social norms, family rela-
tionships, language, music, food, and much more. Any evaluation in today’s urban cen-
ters must be culturally respectful as a defining characteristic in our cities today is their
cultural diversity. Ideas for how to be culturally respectful and responsive are becom-
ing part of evaluation conversations, so we are acquiring resources for this challenge
(Hood, 2001; Symonette, 2004; Thomas, 2004; Thompson-Robinson, Hopson, &
Sengupta, 2004). Evaluators using the approach we are advancing must also be cultur-
ally smart, meaning they have the ability to make the evaluation an activity of some
salience and importance in the context at hand. This meaning of culture includes
understanding of the culture and norms of the schools participating in the evaluation.
Second, this evaluation approach is dialogic, interactive, and communicative. In this
approach, the processes of question-identification, data gathering and analysis, and
meaning making are not conducted as isolated or technical activities but rather as
opportunities for meaningful dialogue among members of the setting being evaluated.
Dialogue has considerable potential to catalyze understanding and action (see the work
of Tineke Abma, Nicholas Burbules, and others). Moreover, the infusion of dialogue
into the evaluation process highlights its communicative, relational, and values-
engaged dimensions, in addition to its technical and methodological dimensions. In
this approach, evaluation is fundamentally communicative (see the work of Chris
Kemmis & Robin McTaggart and others). Third, this evaluation approach is critical
and reflexive (see the work of Wanda Pillow and others). Many urban educational reforms
are offered or even imposed from the outside – as programs with “demonstrated”
records of success. Such a strategy rests on numerous questionable assumptions –
about pedagogy, curriculum, and development. This evaluation approach seeks to
engage such assumptions and critically examine their legitimacy. This evaluation
approach seeks to challenge mislabeling, misplacement, misassessment, and mis-
treatment of urban school children, as well as the misappropriation of theoretical and
conceptual models that purportedly explain the academic accomplishments of urban
children, or the inaccurate depiction of urban educational and community settings as
morally, civically, or socially bankrupt.

Acknowledgements
The authors have benefited from the thorough editorial comments and guidance from
Michele Foster. Additionally, Joseph Flessa, Diane Ketelle, and the handbook general
editors provided useful commentary to earlier drafts of this paper.

Notes
1. Carol Camp Yeakey, Richardson, and Brooks-Buck (2006) suggest, for instance, that our common
American cultural understanding of the poor, based on the work of Michael Katz (1989), makes distinc-
tions between an undeserving poor and a deserving poor. While this conception of the poor is rooted in
seventeenth century England according to Yeakey et al. (2006). Lakoff extends this to distinctions between
undeserving poor and deserving wealthy where this division of wealth “serves the public good, which is to
reward the disciplined and let the undisciplined be forced to learn discipline or struggle” (2004, p. 83).
924 Hopson, Greene, Bledsoe, Villegas, and Brown

2. A pseudonym.
3. House Resolution 4437 (The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act
of 2005) was passed by the United House of Representatives on December 16, 2005 by a vote of
239 to 182.
4. For purposes of this paper, Latino is defined as a person of Mexican or Latin American descent.
5. Pseudonym.

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Section 6

UNITED KINGDOM
48

URBAN EDUCATION IN THE UNITED KINGDOM:

SECTION EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION

Carol Campbell* and Geoff Whitty†

*
Formally Institute of Education, University of London, U.K.
†
Institute of Education, University of London, U.K.

For over 100 years researchers have pointed to the damaging effects on education of the
particular combinations and concentrations of social and economic disadvantage expe-
rienced in urban contexts. However, urban education studies as a specific field of
inquiry emerged in the United Kingdom (UK) during the late 1960s. It was partly influ-
enced by the developing field in the United States and the perceived “crisis” of educa-
tion in cities, but also framed to a greater degree than in the United States by critical
perspectives drawn from the emerging “new sociology of education” (Young, 1971).
The contributions to this section of the Handbook explore the perception, interpre-
tation and implications of the current urban education “crisis” and the assumptions
underlying it. They seek to engage critically and constructively with the pressing
research and policy agenda, but in a manner which questions “present crisis” and
“quick fix” solutions (Reeder, 1992). This is consistent with Grace’s (1984) “critical
scholarship” approach, involving “empirical enquiry in urban education which, at its
best, is historically and theoretically situated on the one hand and generative of critical
action on the other.” This he contrasted with other approaches that tend to “provide
only a contextual rhetoric of the urban rather than a substantive emphasis upon it” and
to produce “school-centred solutions with no sense of the structural, the political and
the historical as constraints” (Grace, 1984, p. xii).

A United Kingdom?
Discussions about UK urban education have generally been strongly influenced by
broader national policy debates and developments. Nevertheless, as Johnson’s contri-
bution in particular makes clear, there are different policy nuances in different parts of the
UK. The UK is actually the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and
each of its component countries – England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland –
has its own education system. Scotland and Northern Ireland have long had their own
929
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 929–942.
© 2007 Springer.
930 Campbell and Whitty

school systems, while England and Wales have begun to diverge significantly since a
Welsh Assembly was granted devolved powers over education in 1999. Differences
between the jurisdictions are particularly evident in matters, such as academic selec-
tion, school choice, curricula and testing.
Furthermore, in England alone, there are currently 150 separate local authorities with
responsibility for local schools. Since 1944, its educational system has been regarded
as a national service locally administered and there have often been significant differ-
ences in the funding, structure and character of schooling in different areas. However,
these differences have been much reduced by successive national governments following
the 1988 Education Reform Act, which gave greater powers to central government and
individual schools at the expense of those of local education authorities (Ball, 1990;
Whitty, 1990). In particular, local discretion over curricula, testing, and school inspec-
tion has been drastically reduced by national requirements. Meanwhile, local authority
powers over individual school budgets and management have been diminished by poli-
cies of devolution, diversity and choice, leading to the creation of quasi-markets among
local schools and the potential for the atomisation of urban education (Whitty, Power, &
Halpin, 1998). Even so, local authorities retain some key strategic responsibilities,
some of which have been strengthened under the 2006 Education and Inspections Bill.

Definitions of the “Urban” in Urban Education

It is also important to note that the concept of specifically urban education is consid-
ered by some in the UK to be problematic in both empirical and conceptual terms.
Pointing out that eight out of ten people in the UK live in urban areas and that one in
six of all schools in England are in Greater London, Johnson (2007) argues that, as the
majority of schools in the UK are urban, national education policy is effectively urban
education policy. McCulloch, on the other hand, suggests that over the past 30 years,
“urban educational reform has been absorbed and assimilated into national state policy
more than it has set out to provide a distinctive and contradictory approach.” However,
the concentration of opinion leaders in London also means that education policy is
dominated by specifically urban – or metropolitan – concerns. This may suggest that,
rather than urban education policy having been subsumed under national policy, the
reverse may have been the case.
For some commentators, whether there is a distinctively “urban” education also
depends on the definitions and conceptualisations of the “urban” on which education-
ists draw from the literature of urban studies and social policy. Definitions of the
“urban” in these fields include:

● Physical or ecological spaces (e.g., Park & Burgess, 1967);

● Arenas for bureaucratic interventions and for conflict over scarce resources, such as
authority, cultural, and material resources (e.g., Pahl, 1975; Rex & Moore, 1967);
● Arenas where the economic, social and ideological contradictions created by
conditions of capitalism become most concentrated and apparent (e.g., Castells,
1977, 1978, 1980; Harvey, 1973);
 Urban Education in the United Kingdom 931

● Areas where aggregates of individuals form “communities,” either characterized

by common interests and experiences (e.g., Keating, 1991) or by diversity and
disconnectedness (see Fantini & Weinstein, 1973).
If we take structural definitions of the urban, as in Castells’ early work on collective
consumption, then all state education is the UK is effectively urban. If we take spatial
definitions, however, there are clearly differences between education in, say, inner city
Birmingham and that in the Outer Hebrides. Furthermore, there are also some neces-
sary but problematic distinctions to be made within urban areas spatially defined. On
the one hand, the diversity of urban contexts, distinctions between inner-cities and other
urban areas, and the variety of educational experiences in cities makes broad definitions
of generic characteristics of urban education inadequate; on the other hand, many of the
features of “urban” education relate to broader educational, social and economic con-
cerns, which extend beyond the urban context (see Whitty, 1986). Conceptions of urban
spaces and connections to social and economic systems may anyway require further
consideration in light of the “rise of the network society” (Castells, 2000) in which
informationalism, globalization and networking have implications for the transforma-
tion of cities and their education systems. Such issues about the histories, definitions
and conceptualisations of “urban” and “urban education” are addressed directly in the
chapters by McCulloch and Grace.
Other chapters take a variety of different stances on definitions of the urban and on
the extent to which there are distinctly urban educational issues as opposed to generic
ones. Nevertheless, in most cases, the writers adopt the rather pragmatic definitions of
the urban favoured in UK policy discussions. Most frequently, the term urban is used
as a proxy for “inner city” education, defined either spatially or sociologically. The
sociological definition enables the term to include education in the sprawling post-
World War II housing estates that surround cities, such as Bristol, and contain levels of
social disadvantage comparable to geographically central areas, such as St. Paul’s in
that same city. Suburban education, although sometimes included in the definition, is
generally regarded as mainstream education and less likely than inner city education to
require specific interventions.
Thus the dominant notion of urban education in the UK is concerned with the com-
plexities and contradictions of experience associated with the concentration of eco-
nomic, social, racial and cultural conditions in, and surrounding, inner city schools.
This policy focus is broadly consistent with Grace’s view that “the analytical focus is
upon the city as providing the most dramatic contexts in which conflicts become visible”
(1984, p. 34).

Responses to the “Crisis” in Urban Education

This inner city focus has also been strongly associated with perceptions of a “crisis” in
urban education from the 1960s onwards (see Whitty, 1986). For example, when
launching Excellence in Cities Prime Minister Tony Blair stated:

It is clear that schools in our inner cities demand urgent attention. (DfEE, 1999)
932 Campbell and Whitty

The response to this perceived “crisis” has varied, with shifting interpretations as to
whether the issues are “problems” with urban students and their communities, the
nature of urban schooling and teaching, or wider social and economic forces which
can have a particular combination and concentration in urban contexts. Different solu-
tions have been proposed to “fix” (Hill, 1998) “failing” students, schools and/or cities
(Johnson, 1999), with recent research suggesting that urban reform initiatives them-
selves have contributed to the sense of “crisis” (Miron & St. John, 2003).
There had been some movement away from a focus on urban education in the 1980s
and 1990s as a result of a policy focus on within school factors and the potential of
school improvement strategies to remedy educational disadvantage (as discussed in
MacGilchrist’s chapter). Even for the New Labour government of the late 1990s, as
Fullick and Brighouse’s chapter suggests, the negative images of “urban problem” and
“crisis” may have been politically unpopular when the driving emphasis and language
of the government was on positive improvement. Nevertheless, as those authors
discuss, urban education is now firmly back on the agenda on the UK.
A key factor in this renewed focus in urban education has been the growing recog-
nition that, despite previous reform efforts and research evidence about the needs and
challenges of urban communities and schooling, improvement remained uneven with
many urban children still not being fully supported to achieve educational success.
Reviewing a decade since the first publication by the Office for Standards in
Education of Access and Achievement in Urban Education (Ofsted, 1993), Her
Majesty’s former Chief Inspector of Schools for England, David Bell, observed:

The report was stark in its conclusions. It painted a bleak picture of the quality of
education received by the overwhelming majority of children and young people.
Their achievement was not good enough; the cycle of under achievement in many
schools was replicated at home and in the wider community; the chain of educa-
tional provision was weak in its links across the age groups. The report concluded,
in a memorable phase, that “the rising tide of educational change is not lifting
these boats.”

Then, citing an updated version of Access and Achievement in Urban Education, drawing
upon current (2003) inspection evidence, he went on:

The evidence leads me to say that there has been improvement, but not enough.
We must look again, urgently, at how to close the gap in achievement between
youngsters in the most deprived areas and elsewhere. (Bell, 2003)

Current Issues in Urban Education

Increasingly there has been a recognition that, while urban areas should benefit from
generic policies, they also need specific interventions if they are to perform at the levels
generally expected. The interplay of “race,” ethnicity, gender and social class and the
concentration of educational, economic and social disadvantage in cities poses particular
 Urban Education in the United Kingdom 933

challenges in terms of educational attainment for individuals and standards for schools
(Lupton, 2004, 2005). Thus, in recent years, urban schools have experienced:
● National education policies intended to bring about overall reforms and improve-
ments, particularly in raising the students’ attainment on assessment results.
● Initiatives targeted at urban schooling, such as Education Action Zones and
Excellence in Cities in England.
● Strategies focused on specific cities, or parts of cities, intended to transform
educational opportunities and outcomes, for example, The London Challenge.
● Urban regeneration initiatives including an education component, for example,
New Deal for Communities.
● Attempts to co-ordinate policies across education, heath, and social welfare, as in
Sure Start and Every Child Matters.
Despite such attention, it remains evident (as indicated in David Bell’s report quoted
above) that inequalities in urban education persist. During the past decade, UK educa-
tion has undergone phenomenal reform and, indeed, improved national standards have
been achieved with more students achieving at higher attainment levels and more
schools demonstrating year-on-year improvement in educational results. Nevertheless,
the rate and level of improvement has not been equal for all student groups, as
Johnson’s and Gillborn’s chapters, in particular, demonstrate.
The New Labour government has recently admitted that its own research demon-
strates its limited impact on this achievement gap between advantaged and disadvan-
taged students. It shows that, although educational standards have risen overall during
its term of office, the relative performance of children from poor socio-economic back-
grounds has not improved (Kelly, 2005). This is despite the fact that its urban policies
had been expected to counter the social inequities that had arisen from the policies of
their Conservative predecessors. This news did not come as a complete surprise to some
academic researchers; as early as 1997 Mortimore and Whitty (1997) had warned that
research indicated how the sort of school improvement policies then being advocated by
New Labour might well have this effect, unless much stronger measures of positive dis-
crimination were introduced. The government has now accepted the need for more sup-
port to be given to individual disadvantaged students, particularly in the early years of
schooling, through intensive programs, such as early reading interventions. Whether or
not the levels of funding necessary to sustain such initiatives or drastically to reduce
class sizes for disadvantaged students will be forthcoming remains to be seen.
At the system level, some studies suggest that current educational policies, such as
those enabling parents to select schools and for schools to compete for students (par-
ticularly the more academically able, have exacerbated inequalities and resulted in
increased social polarisation and stratification of schools (Gewirtz, Ball, & Bowe,
1995). This is especially so in urban settings where parents who succeed in exercising
choice (generally “middle class” parents with more educational, social and cultural
capital) effectively exclude opportunities for choice for other (frequently less advan-
taged) parents and children, as discussed here particularly by Woods. Despite
these claims that current policies exacerbate social and academic segregration in urban
areas (House of Commons Education and Skills Committee, 2006), the government
934 Campbell and Whitty

has until recently been reluctant to make equitable admissions guidelines mandatory
or even to monitor the implementation of the present ones.
However, the concern is not just with access to urban schools, it is also about equity
of participation within urban schools. Gillborn’s chapter highlights the exclusionary
and biased processes that can occur within schools and the evidence suggesting that
the “achievement gap” between groups of students can actually increase over time,
for example, as measured at age 11 and 16.

Future Prospects
There are, nevertheless, some positive opportunities for urban education in the UK at
the present time. As Gerald Grace urges in his chapter, there is a need to develop “com-
plex hope” which recognises the structural challenges present in cities, but also the
scope for agency and collective action. There is now a government focus specifically
on London through its London Challenge (DfES, 2003), intended to transform educa-
tion in the capital city. It is not only about challenging under-achievement but also cel-
ebrating the range of opportunities, resources and rich diversity of teaching and
learning in London schools and working with local communities. There is already
some evidence of progress in London schools that is greater than elsewhere. Recent
Ofsted (2003) evidence also indicates that, compared to schools nationally, higher-
attaining urban schools are better led and managed, and more effective. Successful
urban schools can offer models of best practice in teaching and learning (Ofsted, 2000)
and play a key role in challenging the link between social disadvantage and educa-
tional under-achievement.
However, what is evident is that high-profile policies do not necessarily lead to sus-
tained progress, nor are they always equally applicable to all urban contexts. In devel-
oping the research agenda and evidence for urban education, there is a need to
recognise the complexity of urban education, with variations within and between
urban areas, and to extend debate about the reality of differential experiences for stu-
dents and schools. Context is crucially important to our understanding of the chal-
lenges facing urban schools (Lupton, 2004). As Pat Thomson and Richard Riddell
argue, many conventional approaches to reforming “urban education” are inadequate
in their understanding of the influence of urban contexts on schools. One key element
in future progress will be multi-agency work of the sort discussed in the chapter by
Tett, as a policy of “education, education, education” alone will not be sufficient to
transform urban education unless some of the wider causes of differential school and
student performance are addressed by concerted action to reduce material and social
disadvantage. This is beginning to be recognised in the so-called “children’s agenda”
that is informing policy in various ways throughout the UK.
With the resurgence in policy proposals for urban education, it is now important to
hold a wider debate involving academic researchers, policy-makers and professionals
to inform the development of new understandings in urban education in the UK and
beyond. The work presented here provides an excellent basis for that debate.
 Urban Education in the United Kingdom 935

Outline of the Chapters

In the chapter, “History of Urban Education in the United Kingdom,” Gary McCulloch
traces the development of the history of urban education in the UK, noting that this has
developed both “slowly and somewhat patchily.” McCulloch emphasises the impor-
tance of the interplay of historical, social, political and economic contextualisation and
interpretation in the study of urban education. He notes both the importance of dis-
continuities and continuities in the development of urban education as persistent issues
of social, economic and educational disadvantage continue to underpin questions
about and for urban education. McCulloch notes both limitations and challenges to the
historical and current status of urban education in the UK. He suggests that urban edu-
cational reform has been increasingly “absorbed and assimilated into national state
policy” rather than providing a “distinctive and contradictory approach.” He argues for
the importance of continuing to foster study of the history of urban education and for
this to be more closely and systematically integrated with the field of urban education.
Gerald Grace calls for further development of the study of urban education in the
UK in his chapter, “Urban Education Theory Revisited: From the Urban Question to
End of Millenium.” Grace traces his personal “struggles” to “make sense of the urban”
and those of educators and students in the UK. Like McCulloch, Grace argues for the
importance of situating urban education theory within a thorough understanding of the
complex interplay of historical, social, cultural, economic and political relations in
society. Grace comments on the range of ways of “articulating and theorising the urban
problematic” and traces some of the key theoretical developments impacting on the
study of urban education in the UK, particularly in terms of concerns about urban con-
flict, contradictions, social justice and structural change. Like McCulloch’s analysis of
the history of urban education, Grace suggests also that the theoretical development of
urban education in the UK remains relatively under-developed and requiring further
attention to contemporary conditions and the current realities of educational, social,
economic and cultural change including the role of information technologies and
social movements associated with faith communities. Grace points also to an “atom-
ization” and individualisation of urban education where individual schools and their
staff are isolated for praise or failure. Drawing on Castells’ work, Grace argues that
fundamentally urban education is inherently political. He argues for the need to
balance a form of “pessimism of the intellect” (facing theories and facts) and an
“optimism of the will” (resisting structural determinism and recognising the power of
agency) to give rise to a “complex hope” which recognises historical and structural
difficulties but seeks also to identify and pursue ways to overcome these.
In “Combating Racism in Schooling: A Critical Perspective on Contemporary
Policy and Practice,” David Gillborn focuses on race inequality and racism in urban
education. While race inequality and racism are not unique features of urban education
only, current demographic data and projections in the UK indicate a growing minority
ethnic population, particularly for the younger population, and that this population
tends to be concentrated in cities. Gillborn warns of the dangers of over-simplification
and stereotyping associated with overarching statements about the achievement of
936 Campbell and Whitty

different racial or ethnic groups, as differences between individuals within groups can
be pronounced. As Gillborn comments, “the pattern of attainment by minority ethnic
students is considerably more complex than is widely recognised.” In his chapter, dif-
ferences within and between racial, ethnic, gender and social class groups are
explored. Gillborn highlights the contradiction between a legal duty in the UK to pur-
sue race equity and the persisting and, in some cases, growing inequity in student out-
comes from schooling. While there has been substantial improvement in overall
educational achievement in the UK over the past decade, this improvement has not
been experienced uniformly by all groups of students. Of particular concern is evi-
dence suggesting that for some students there is growing inequity over their period of
schooling, that is the gap in performance is higher in the secondary/high school sector
than in the primary/elementary school sector. Gillborn investigates some of the
process and factors at play within urban schools and society at large that contribute to
processes of racism. He points to the immense importance of an increasingly sophisti-
cated understanding of both the intended and unintended acts and consequences of
racism within urban education.
The issue of overall improvement in educational standards is taken up also in the
chapter by Martin Johnson, “Reforming Urban Education Systems,” with a particular
focus on the interplay of social class, economic disadvantage and educational out-
comes. Reviewing shifts in education policy over the last couple of decades in the UK,
Johnson suggests that there have been three major phases of reform: first, the system or
national level, second, the school level and, third, the classroom level. Although these
particular levels of foci are not specifically urban, Johnson argues that as the UK pop-
ulation is predominantly based in urban areas, national education policy has in effect
been concerned with urban education. Furthermore, in terms of reforming urban
schools, the capital city of London has been particularly influential (a point noted also
by Grace and by Fullick and Brighouse). Johnson explains that recent and current edu-
cation policy in the UK has had a “consistent and simple” focus on one overriding pur-
pose, to raise levels of student attainment. Johnson explores the relative effectiveness of
strategies put in place indicating, as does Gillborn, that while attainment levels have
improved there remains considerable under-achievement. In particular, differential
effects for students in lower social class groupings persist, although the policy debate
now talks of “socio-economic status” and the power of individual school effectiveness.
Johnson questions propositions that poverty is not an excuse for educational inequality
suggesting instead the need for further attention to issues of child poverty and deep-
seated questions about the distribution of wealth and income in the UK. Rather than the
sometime individualistic focus of school improvement reforms, Johnson proposes the
need to view schools as social institutions integrally connected to community building.
For Richard Riddell, in his chapter “Urban Learning and The Need for Varied Urban
Curricula and Pedagogies,” the combination of social, material and learning disadvan-
tage are particularly important for urban schools and their students. He suggests it is
important to recognise the dramatic differences between urban schools particularly
exacerbated by parental choice policies and residential location, which may results in
an increasing stratification and polarisation of the intake of urban schools. Riddell
suggests that the outcome is the formation of a “bottom strata” of schools, particularly
 Urban Education in the United Kingdom 937

secondary schools, with the most concentrated social and material disadvantage and
with implications for the learning experiences of students. Riddell explains, “the con-
texts of schools are therefore by no means the same and in urban areas they differ
markedly from each other.” Furthermore, Riddell argues that “learning is completely
bound up with the context in which it takes place” and, therefore, differences in com-
munity contexts and student intakes to schools also affect teaching and learning
processes within classrooms and beyond. Hence, each classroom is unique in its par-
ticular socio-cultural context and it is not, therefore, possible to propose a single urban
pedagogy but rather the need for ongoing and vigilant attention to the learning needs,
stances and strategies of individual students and connections between school, home
and community learning and environments. It is in such contexts that learning disad-
vantage becomes cumulative and recycled. Such learning disadvantage is not simply
about poverty but rather about individual learners’ prior learning, experiences and
expectations for learning, connections to learning beyond school and self-confidence
as a learner. Teachers therefore need to acknowledge and strive to support connections
between students’ learning in the classroom and their learning at home and in the com-
munity. This requires attention to the capacity of urban schools and teachers to collab-
orate with parents, communities, other schools and local agencies.
Pat Thomson’s chapter, “Leading Schools in High Poverty Neighbourhoods: the
National College for School Leadership and Beyond,” explores the experiences of urban
school leaders. Thomson argues that there is an “impoverished discourse” concerning
urban schools and contexts in the UK. She argues for the need for improved research in
the area of urban leadership and in factors relating to urban schools and their commu-
nities. For example, Thomson notes a lack of evidence about school leaders connecting
with working class parents. Like Riddell, she proposes the need to consider home-
school connections and the implications for classroom pedagogies. The relationship
between school “context” and school improvement in current policy discourses and reform
strategies is problematic for Thomson. The policy language of “schools facing challeng-
ing contexts” implies to Thomson that “challenge” is perceived as external to the school
with a lack of explanation as to how contextual circumstances actually impact student
achievement. The focus on school-level improvement emphasises educational solutions,
rather than a wider consideration of the social, economic and political contextual factors
that also affect school leaders and students.
Barbara MacGilchrist provides a comprehensive overview of the development of
school improvement reforms and research in the UK in her chapter, “Urban School
Improvement.” She explains that urban school improvement is a complex issue. She
reviews research both in the UK and internationally which indicates that there are “no
quick fixes” for school improvement and that the historic link between social class,
disadvantage and educational outcomes remains a central challenge. MacGilchrist
examines the development of school effectiveness research since the 1960s, school
improvement research since the 1970s and the more recent coming together of both
approaches in policy and research in the UK. Although there has been considerable
development over this time and increasingly sophisticated approaches to understand-
ing student progress, school improvement and school effects, MacGilchrist argues that
current approaches to school improvement in urban settings need a radical rethink as
938 Campbell and Whitty

does the current definition of an effective school. Part of this rethinking involves further
examination of the balance and relationship of school effects and external/background
effects. We need to consider contextual factors both within and outside of schools, the
precarious nature of continuous and sustained improvement in disadvantaged urban
contexts, and pursue a more holistic approach to student learning and development that
combines within-school and beyond-school building blocks. MacGilchrist comments
on a range of policy initiatives in the UK that have attempted to address the twin
goals of improved educational standards and reduced socio-economic disadvantage.
However, while school improvement and effectiveness research can point to important
factors for improvement and evidence that schools make a difference and can succeed
against the odds, it is apparent also that there is no one-size fits all model for urban
schooling and that schools alone cannot be the only focus for improved outcomes for
young people.
Philip A. Woods’ chapter, “Urban Schools: Performance, Competition and Colla-
boration,” reviews the continuities and disjunctures in urban education policy over the
past 25 years. The 1980s witnessed the introduction of (quasi) market forces in educa-
tion with an emphasis on parental choice, devolved management and funding arrange-
ments, and increased school autonomy. At the same time there was also increased
central prescription and regulation through the introduction of a national curriculum
and national assessments and later a national inspection agency and framework. This
has resulted in a somewhat paradoxical development of both increased centralization
and decentralization which “collide and intermingle” in education policy and school
practice. Woods situates these developments within wide economic and social develop-
ments both within the UK and internationally that have placed increased emphasis on
private market solutions to public policy problems. These policy directions have
remained essentially intact during the twenty-first century, although there have been
changes in national political control. From 1997, the New Labour government has
sought to introduce a “third way” bringing together private, public and voluntary sectors.
In policy terms for education, there has been a continuation of policies of competition
between schools but co-existing with this has been the rise of emphasis on partnerships
and collaboration. Woods refers to the existence of “co-operation” involving multiple
initiatives and interweaving of both competition and collaboration. The chapter reviews
the evidence of changes in educational processes suggesting that both competition and
collaboration exist in practice but may be associated also with a growing social segre-
gation between schools (as also noted by Riddell). Woods notes, however, that the move
to collaboration may bring with it a concern for systemic change rather than a focus
simply on individual school improvement. Woods notes, however, that the move to col-
laboration may bring with it a concern for systemic change rather than a focus simply
on individual school improvement. He proposes that such policy developments raise
fundamental questions about the organizing principles of urban education and in partic-
ular whether this is primarily based on market or local democratic principles. He advo-
cates fostering a new public entrepreneurialism which encompasses a duality of both
democratic commitment to the public good and an individualistic dimension. Woods
closes his chapter by arguing for the need to ask fundamental educational questions
 Urban Education in the United Kingdom 939

about urban schooling, including the appropriate governance of school systems through
local democratic means and the importance of considering what constitutes valued
learning for today’s students and tomorrow’s society.
Debates and evidence about the governance of education are explored further in Caral
Campbell and Geoff Whitty’s chapter “The Governance of Urban Education in the UK:
A Public, Private or Partnership Future?” are explored further in Carol Campbell and Geoff
Whitty’s chapter. They outline approaches to conceptualising privatization in the UK by
examining definitions which emphasise sources of funding, provision and, more recently,
decision-making. However, it is important to note also the extent of blurring of conven-
tional notions of private and public sector in current policy and practice and the rise of new
partnership arrangements. Campbell and Whitty question whether private sector solutions
to perceived public sector problems are desirable or sustainable, particularly in light of evi-
dence suggesting difficulties for long-term private sector solutions when confronted with
educational, economic and practical realities. There are also more fundamental ideological
and democratic principles to be considered in attempts to ensure educational solutions for
the public good. Campbell and Whitty take the particular case of the role of local authori-
ties as the “middle tier” in educational governance working to connect central government
direction and local school improvement. While the role of local authorities has been reduced
in recent years by successive government policies, there is evidence also of the important
potential contribution of such a “middle tier” for both pragmatic and democratic reasons.
The chapter outlines a range of approaches tried within the UK for transforming perceived
“failing” local authorities, with particular attention to whether the emphasis of reform is
service delivery or strategic capacity and whether solutions are considered to be primarily
through external or internal means. The chapter contrasts reform approaches which effec-
tively replace local capacity by outsourcing local services with approaches that seek to
rebuild local capacity through new forms of partnership working. The prospects of gov-
erning through new public partnerships in urban education are explored. They argue that
new partnership working requires a renewal of urban education governance which trans-
forms, rather than maintains or replaces, local and central relationships and that such move-
ments are inherently informed by political processes.
The development of partnership working is also a central feature of Lyn Tett’s chapter,
“Multi-Agency Working in Urban Education and Social Justice.” Tett outlines the policy
commitment to joined-up government and multi-agency working promoted by the New
Labour government in the UK since 1997. Such multi-agency working, in and through
which education works with a range of other professional and community partners, is
intended to promote social justice by reducing social exclusion. As Tett explains, social
exclusion is considered not just in terms of material disadvantage and poverty but also in
terms of social networks and cultural resources. Schools are considered to have a key role
in promoting collaboration with other services and having a dual function of both pre-
venting social exclusion occurring in the first place and remedying existing social exclu-
sion by reaching out to affected individuals and communities. Tett presents a conceptual
schema for interpreting multi-agency working in urban education along two dimensions.
One dimension is the extent to which institutional and professional boundaries are open or
closed. The second dimension is whether the intended pedagogic purpose is particularistic
940 Campbell and Whitty

(focused on individual development) or holistic (focused on community development).

Tett develops her analysis by examining evidence concerning two specific policy initia-
tives: Integrated Community Schools and initiatives for involving community groups. She
highlights the difficulties in practice of reconciling the sometimes idealistic policy lan-
guage about “partnerships” with the realities of professional boundaries, power inequities,
and historical structural differences. Nevertheless, evidence points to the determination of
individuals and communities to also overcome some of these barriers. Tett stresses, as
have Riddell and MacGilchrist, the importance of multi-agency working to create pur-
poseful partnerships between schools and communities for the benefits of those involved.
A key challenge is to enable professionals to consider, and act on, such developments as
opportunities rather than threats to their work.
In the final chapter, Leisha Fullick and Tim Brighouse comment on “Future
Directions for Urban Education in the UK.” They suggest that the future for improve-
ment in urban education is a “mixed picture,” but that there is an important focus
within the UK for “renewing and developing a new commitment to urban education in
the twenty-first century.” They suggest that urban education is very much part of cur-
rent policy discourse and a concern for urban school improvement is being translated
into practice. Such conditions have helped to create opportunities for “a new theoreti-
cal and policy discourse based upon our growing knowledge of what is working and
why in current approaches, and how certain policies need to be taken forward.” Tracing
recent policy developments, Fullick and Brighouse point to the increasing focus on
neighbourhoods under the New Labour government from the late 1990s onwards and
the renewed emphasis on area-based urban policies. Signals of hope for future urban
education include what Brighouse and Fullick identify as a commitment to “success-
ful outcomes for all pupils” with an emphasis on student learning and development
rather than simply on test scores. They point also to the potential of information and
communication technologies to support new learning, although noting the existence of
a “digital divide” for students. They suggest that the “next breakthrough in urban edu-
cation should centre on the full range of experiences that young people need to have
access to.” This needs to be based upon “a richer definition of what counts as an edu-
cated person for the twenty-first century, and encompass not only knowledge and
understanding but also qualities, attributes, social competencies and development of
interests.” In such a scenario, cities become not only a context in which learning takes
place but also a source for such learning through their rich diversity of cultural, social,
and educational resources. Brighouse and Fullick point also to the importance of
“looking beyond the school day” and the prospects for inter-agency working, some-
thing discussed more fully by Tett. However, alongside optimism about the potential
future of urban education, there are also concerns about current realities and future
prospects, particularly in relation to persisting inequalities for different groups of stu-
dents, especially minority ethnic students, the negative consequences of current choice
policies for social segregation and polarisation of student and school experiences, and
the need for further attention to the educational, social and economic opportunities and
choices available to young people at the later stages of schooling and beyond. They
conclude that the future of urban education in the UK involves “fully understanding
and finding ways of building on the gains to date” and furthermore identifying and
addressing the “losses” and persistent inequities that remain.
 Urban Education in the United Kingdom 941

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49

HISTORY OF URBAN EDUCATION IN THE

UNITED KINGDOM

Gary McCulloch
Institute of Education, University of London, U.K.

This chapter will review the history of urban education in the UK, discussing the major
strengths and limitations of literature in the field, and offering suggestions as to its fur-
ther development. First, it will investigate briefly the development of the field of the
history of urban education in the UK over the past 30 years. It will then analyze in
greater detail the relationship between urban society and educational provision, evi-
denced for example in research on education and social class, the historical geography
of education and literacy, and the experience of education among city children. Third,
it will examine the historical characteristics of educational reform in a number of dif-
ferent urban contexts, including the highly significant and distinctive case of London,
and the more recent attempts to promote educational change through urban-based
initiatives such as city technology colleges and the Education Action Zones.

Development of the Field

The study of urban history in general has developed strongly in Britain since the 1960s.
This has facilitated the growth of a rich literature on a wide range of topics, and also an
infrastructure of resources and major texts. The early development of writing on British
urban history was influenced strongly by H. J. Dyos and the Centre for Urban History
at the University of Leicester (Cannadine, 1982). Dyos himself, the first professor of
urban history in the country from 1971 until his death in 1978, founded the Centre for
Urban History and also the Urban History Yearbook which was published from 1974.
Dyos’s own work examined the dynamics of the Victorian city as it developed during
the nineteenth century (see, e.g., Dyos & Wolff, 1973), a theme that was taken up by
other writers such as Derek Fraser (1976, 1979) and R. J. Morris (Morris, 1986; Morris &
Rodger, 1993). In 2000–2001, a major three-volume Cambridge urban history of Britain
was published, arranged in chronological order with the first volume mapping out urban

943
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 943–958.
© 2007 Springer.
944 McCulloch

developments from 600 AD to 1540, the second from 1540 to 1840, and the third from
1840 to 1950 (Clark, 2000–2001). The recent development of the general field is well
represented in the book series “Historical urban studies,” published by Ashgate, under
the editorship of Jean-Luc Pinol and Richard Rodger (e.g., Colls & Rodger, 2004).
At the same time, the more specific field of the history of urban education in Britain
has developed slowly and somewhat patchily. It is notable, first, that it became a focus
for discussion rather later than in some countries. In the United States, for example,
Michael Katz edited a special issue of the journal History of Education Quarterly as
early as 1969 on the theme of urban education. This included major studies by leading
historians of education on education and race, perspectives on the history of education
in Northern ghettoes, urban school reform, the urban child, and the city as teacher
(History of Education Quarterly, 1969). Katz was able to derive a number of common
issues from this collection. In particular, he emphasized the importance of relating his-
torical study to the contemporary problems of urban schools and schooling. According
to Katz, indeed, “hard-nosed historical assessment of the comparative impact of
schooling and environment as educative forces and of the outcomes of school reform
bears directly upon an understanding of the origins and scope of the urban school cul-
ture today” (Katz, 1969, p. 326). Such historical work, he concluded, “links up with,
and contributes to, the larger critical contemporary reappraisal of American life and
institutions,” in which lay its major significance (Katz, 1969, p. 328). At the same
time, he observed the need for more historical work, which would in turn provide
“detailed, empirical knowledge about schools and their clientele, knowledge which
we do not yet have in anything like sufficient quantity” (Katz, 1969, p. 326). This was
soon followed by a number of major historical studies into the characteristics and out-
comes of urban education in the America city, as well as on the similarities and differ-
ences between particular American cities (e.g., Goodenow & Ravitch, 1983; Tyack,
1974). Such treatment was much more focused and comprehensive than was to be the
case in Britain.
In the British context, similar calls for a closer connection between historical study
and contemporary policy in urban education have been made from time to time over
the past 30 years. These have asserted the importance of historical understanding for
urban educational policy, and often the need for historians of urban education to relate
their work to contemporary concerns. An awareness of the inchoate and piecemeal
nature of the development of the history of urban education in the UK has also been a
common theme of commentators in this area.
In the 1970s and 1980s, there was a general lack of historical perspective in discus-
sions about the character and prospects of urban education in the UK. The World Year
Book of Education in 1970, devoted to the theme of education in cities (Lauwerys &
Scanlon, 1970), included chapters on planning schools for new communities in
England and Wales (Smith, 1970), the new town of Milton Keynes (Harding, 1970),
and the established industrial city of Nottingham (Newson & Lowinger, 1970), but
none of these developed a clear historical dimension to the issues raised. They con-
centrated instead on future plans for development. Over the following two decades,
major problems were identified that had a particular relevance to the development of
urban education in Britain. Increasing attention was given to vocational and technical
 History of Urban Education in the UK 945

education, especially as a result of increasing youth unemployment and economic dif-

ficulties in urban districts. The problems of individual schools in urban areas such as
William Tyndale School in 1975 also focused concern on the lack of accountability of
schools to parents and the local community, and the failings of local education author-
ities (LEAs). Such concern was eventually to culminate in the Education Reform Act
of 1988, which increased accountability to parents and abolished the Inner London
Education Authority (ILEA). Yet there was little historical awareness about the urban
tensions that underlay these developments. In 1976, when the Labor prime minister
James Callaghan launched the so-called “Great Debate,” the historian David Reeder
complained that current concerns about urban schooling failed to take account of
longer term historical factors, to the extent that historians were virtually excluded from
the contemporary analysis of urban education (Reeder, 1977a, p. 2).
By the early 1980s, as the Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher began to
give an increasing emphasis to educational issues, the sociologist Gerald Grace could
elaborate on the importance of “recovering a sense of the historical.” As he observed,
urban school systems “arose in particular historical conditions and as the outcome of
a complex of forces.” The outcomes of particular forces, he suggested, varied over time
and in relation to the dynamics of the society involved. Therefore, a serious study of
urban education was obliged to engage with such issues, even if its major concern was
with the problems of contemporary urban schooling. Grace concluded that students of
urban education should “locate their contemporary discussions in a framework which
is sensitive to issues of continuity and change,” and that the recovery of a historical
dimension was a precondition of the development of what he called “critical scholar-
ship” in the field (Grace, 1984a, pp. 35–37). One section of this collection dealt in
more depth with the historical location of urban education, with a contribution on the
history of urban education in America, another on university settlements, class rela-
tions and the city, and a third on the urban, the domestic and education for girls (Grace,
1984b, Part II).
Two international collections on urban education, both published in 1992, shed light
in different ways on the development of the history of urban education in the United
Kingdom. On the one hand, its relevance to current issues in urban education was held
to be open to question. On the other, the coherence of its contribution to an under-
standing of historical issues was also challenged. The first of these works, the World
Year Book of Education of 1992, offered a number of reflections on historical
approaches (Coulby, Jones, & Harris, 1992). It suggested that in the UK, and even
more in the United States, much of the work produced by urban educationists was his-
torical in its approach. It pointed out the existence of a large number of studies of this
type on individual schools and localities. However, it commented that historical per-
spectives often tended to be remote from the “struggles of the present” (Coulby &
Jones, 1992, p. 5). For this reason, it proposed, they needed to be combined with
approaches that emphasized social, political and economic contextualization, and the
role of discontinuities as well as continuities in the development of urban education.
These observations pointed to the potential linkages between historical, sociological
and international approaches to urban education, although they appeared to regard
history as a junior partner and a specifically national focus as unduly parochial.
946 McCulloch

The second major collection published in 1992 was more historical in its emphasis,
and adopted a critical stance towards the contribution of previous histories of urban
schooling to the historical literature. According to David Reeder, although there were
numerous accounts of the history of urban schools and schooling, there remained “no
distinct genre of urban educational history in Britain” (Reeder, 1992, p. 13). Such
studies, he argued, had proliferated in “an almost adventitious way,” with the result that
“the city has entered into the educational story mainly as a backdrop, with few ques-
tions asked about the interconnections between educational development and
processes of urban or social change” (Reeder, 1992, p. 13). He complained also that
current policy debates on urban education tended to neglect the potential contribution
of historical perspectives. In another contribution to this volume, David Coulby
repeated the criticisms that he and Jones had advanced in the World Yearbook of
Education (Coulby, 1992).
The challenge for the history of urban educational history in Britain, therefore,
seems to be to demonstrate its value to social, political, economic and cultural history
in general, at the same time that it reveals a relevance to understanding and addressing
the problems of today. The history of education, on the one hand, and urban education
on the other need still to be brought together more fully and systematically in the con-
text of the UK. And yet there is already a significant body of research available in this
area that should be recognized and built on further over the coming generation. The
next section will assess the contribution made towards historical studies of urban soci-
ety in the history of urban education in Britain that has been produced over the past
20 years. The following section will address the characteristics of educational reform
in a range of different urban settings within the UK.

Urban Society and Educational Provision

The history of urban education has contributed to the historical study of urban society
in Britain in a number of key ways. First, it has emphasized the role and nature of
social class provision of education in urban centers, especially for the working class.
Second, it has demonstrated the significance of the social geography and ecology of
the city, town and suburb when addressing the historical characteristics of education,
especially through the work of W. E. Marsden. Third, it has begun to pursue a number
of themes such as ethnicity in urban contexts, the experience of urban education, and
the nature of literacy.
The framework of urban history in the UK over the past two centuries is without
doubt one of unprecedented growth. According to David Cannadine (1980, preface),
“It is arguable that the most fundamental changes to have occurred in Britain during
the last two centuries concern the decline of the hereditary, aristocratic elite on the one
hand, and the rise of a new, industrialized, urban society on the other.” The majority of
the British population were classified as being urban only in 1851, and then only on
the basis of living in a place with at least 2,000 inhabitants. A century later, over half
of the population lived in urban areas of more than 100,000 people. In 1801, there were
no towns in Britain, apart from London, with over 100,000 inhabitants. By 1831, there
 History of Urban Education in the UK 947

were seven of these (Manchester, Glasgow, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Birmingham,

Leeds, and Bristol). By 1901, nearly 40 towns had reached this level. Moreover, dur-
ing this period of massive urban growth, London retained its already established pre-
eminence in size (Thompson, 1988, Chapter 1). By 1911, out of a total population of
45 million, 40% lived in towns of over 100,000 people (over 50% in England and
Wales). Seven million people lived in London, and fourteen provincial cities had over
a quarter of a million (Harris, 1993, p. 42).
Each of these burgeoning towns and cities had specific characteristics of their own,
in terms of industrial, social and cultural developments. All demanded increasing levels
of social services, including education. The ways in which educational services were
provided were strongly marked by differences of social class, amplified and deepened
by the pressures of urban society. Social class has indeed been a key theme in the his-
tory of urban education, as for the history of education in general in the British
context. The work of Brian Simon has emphasized the importance of social class con-
flict in determining the characteristics of the education system as it has developed over
the past two centuries, with the growth of large industrial towns and cities a potent fac-
tor in this (e.g., Simon, 1974; see also McCulloch, 2003). Literature in the history of
urban education has developed this further, often drawing on the findings of detailed
sociological studies, and tending to emphasize the nature and problems of the urban
working class. Dennis Smith’s research is one major instance in which education in the
urban configurations of Birmingham and Sheffield is related to the political and social
challenges of containing potentially unruly urban populations (Smith, 1977, 1981).
An interesting example of a historical study that focused on urban working class
education is that of Humphries (1981). This was an oral history that engaged with the-
ories of mass culture involving ambivalent and antagonistic working class responses to
urbanization and industrialization. He suggested that the fundamental contradictions
of a capitalist economy could be viewed as problems stemming from industrialization,
leading to state intervention to educate and regulate the lives of working class youth,
and to protect them from the influences of city life. Humphries sought in his work to
demonstrate that city children resisted the educational structures and values imposed on
them, as well as the inequalities that they experienced in their everyday lives, leading
many to join street gangs or turn to crime.
There has been some further debate engendered by this general view. In particular,
Jonathan Rose has questioned the idea that urban working class children resented or
resisted their schooling experiences. He demonstrates (1993) that a large proportion of
working class children enjoyed their compulsory schooling. Rose’s more recent work
(2001) has expanded this thesis into a broader synthesis arguing that working class
people drew on a range of learning experiences inside and outside school to enhance
their position in society and their cultural improvement.
Nevertheless, the deep-seated problems of education in slum districts of the major
cities has attracted attention from historians as well as sociologists of education.
Reeder (1977b) explored what he called the “predicaments of city children,” especially
in terms of the arguments put forward by educational reformers in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, “in the context of a consciousness of the city in which
images of the corrupting, degenerative and irrational forces in urban life had been
948 McCulloch

transmuted into new and more sinister forms” (1977c, p. 77; see also Davin, 1996 on
the case of London). McCulloch (2003, especially Chapter 6) also examined the urban
phenomenon of “slum schools,” in this case the secondary modern schools of squalid
and neglected working class districts in the major towns and cities in the 1940s and
1950s. Many secondary modern schools, catering mainly for working class pupils,
were housed in out of date and unsuitable buildings that dated from the Victorian era
or earlier in the century. These were standing reminders of the social origins of these
schools as elementary education for the working class. The social environment of such
schools and the home circumstances of the pupils were products of urban blight that
developed in many areas around Britain, such as the Lea Hall Estate in Birmingham
and the Tiger Bay area of Cardiff. This led in turn to increasing evidence of educational
inequalities rooted in social class differences in the major urban centers.
A number of sociologists in the postwar period had shown in graphic detail the impli-
cations of these deprived urban conditions for urban working class children and youth.
John Barron Mays, for example, examined the character of the Crown Street area of
Liverpool, basing this on the historical development of schooling in this local area, and
leading him into a trenchant analysis of school subcultures, the home and the school,
and schools in their wider social contexts (Mays, 1962). Similarly, M. P. Carter framed
his sociological study of the education and employment of young people in Sheffield in
a historical awareness of the urban context in which it was based (Carter, 1962).
Such educational inequalities have been explained further in the British context
through the extensive researches of W. E. Marsden into the historical and social geogra-
phy of education. Marsden’s research has investigated in depth the reciprocal interaction
between urban growth and educational provision. As he demonstrates, while a massive
infusion of resources was provided to match the increase in demand for education, there
remained an unequal distribution of resources and opportunities, both between and
within towns and cities (Marsden, 1977, p. 50). For example, he points out, a growth in
residential segregation from the late nineteenth century, by splintering towns and cities
into distinctive social areas, became a major influence on attitudes towards education and
on the character of the provision of educational facilities, as well as on other related
aspects such as religion. Both for elementary schools and for secondary schools, accord-
ing to Marsden, the development of a hierarchy of social respectability and selectiveness
is largely accounted for through their location in the different social areas of towns and
cities. Thus, there was a close correlation between the location of private schools and the
social areas of the town, while secondary schools often responded to incipient social
decline by the expedient of following their clientele. School fees were adjusted to social
areas, and the actual buildings provided matched the perceived status of the locality
(Marsden, 1983, p. 99). Such a framework of analysis facilitated an inter-disciplinary
approach to the ways in which urban forms and relationships of schooling could be
investigated in greater depth (Marsden, 1987). Marsden also documented in close detail
the wide range of geographical factors operating in a local area such as Bootle in
Merseyside (Marsden, 1989), as well as a case-study of a particularly successful ele-
mentary school in its local context, Fleet Road School in Hampstead (Marsden, 1991).
These evident social differences in urban areas also encouraged attempts to “civilize”
working class children and youth in a wide range of educational arenas. For example,
 History of Urban Education in the UK 949

Kevin Brehony portrays the advocates and organizers of the Children’s Happy Evenings
Association, the Children’s Recreation School, Evening Play Centres, Vacation
Schools, the Guild of Play and other play initiatives current in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, in terms of play as “an antidote to a disease, the aetiology of
which was held to be the city and the conditions of urban life in the areas labeled
slums” (Brehony, 2003, p. 89). Other work has demonstrated the variety of levels of
literacy in different urban locales. Notwithstanding that towns had established them-
selves as centers of education and literacy as early as the twelfth century AD (Barrow,
2000), in the nineteenth century they were highly diverse in their literacy levels
between one part of the country and another, and between different types of urban
communities (see, e.g., Stephens, 1987).
On the other hand, while much of this research raised clear issues about the charac-
ter of urban middle class schooling, this area of study has attracted much less attention
from historians of urban education. This is in spite of a marked increase of interest in
the middle classes among historians in general who are, as it has recently been claimed
beginning to “put flesh on the bones of the modern British middle class,” especially in
urban and suburban areas (Trainor, 2000, p. 673). Richard Trainor has suggested that
a socially, occupationally and geographically diverse urban middle class developed in
the late nineteenth century, with significant implications for the character of educa-
tion. Perhaps most significantly, the upper middle class sent their sons, and less often
their daughters, to preparatory schools and public schools, while the children of the
lower middle classes went to day schools (Trainor, 2000, p. 697). These kinds of edu-
cational differences have nonetheless still to be mapped out in their full detail (see,
e.g., McCulloch, 2006).
The relationships between urban educational provision and the dimensions of eth-
nicity and gender have already begun to attract detailed historical attention.
Immigration especially from Commonwealth countries has been a significant factor in
population trends in many urban communities in Britain since World War II, with
the precise nature and implications of these trends varying considerably in different
towns and cities. Ian Grosvenor’s work, for example, has shown how the issue of racism
has impacted on education in the case of Birmingham in the 1960s. As Grosvenor
notes, in 1966 black settlers represented 4.2% of the total population of Birmingham,
concentrated in the middle ring of the city, with a high concentration of pupils in some
schools. This was soon identified as an educational problem in terms of assimilation into
the broader society, and attempts to disperse black immigrants to a wider range of schools
rapidly became evident. This led in turn to resistance on the part of a number of black
ethnic minorities and organizations (Grosvenor, 1997, especially Chapters 3 and 4).
Lorna Chessum has also examined the development of racialized conflict centering on
education in the case of the African Caribbean community of Leicester in the same
period (Chessum, 1997).
Other historians have explored the character of gender-based inequalities as they
have arisen in the urban environment. The general historical patterns of educational
differences between boys and girls were initially identified during the 1980s by femi-
nist historians such as June Purvis (see, e.g., Purvis, 1984). Further work has begun to
analyze in depth the educational experiences of girls and women in towns and cities.
950 McCulloch

Thus, for example, Joyce Goodman has examined the removal of children living in the
brothels of Manchester, highlighting the social danger seen to be embodied in sexually
active girls, and Manchester itself as a locus of social danger (Goodman, 2003).
Stephanie Spencer has pursued aspects of the experiences of young girls and women
living and working in the city in England in the late 1950s, with the city constructed as
a “rite of passage” for girls on the brink of adulthood, a “physical space which facili-
tated independent living, studying and employment opportunities,” but also “an imag-
ined educative space in which to form an adult female identity” (Spencer, 2003, p. 133).
The gendered dimensions of teachers and teaching in urban contexts has also been
addressed most notably by Dina Copelman on the women teachers of London (Copelman,
1996), building on earlier more rigidly class-based accounts of urban teachers by
authors such as Grace (1978).
Thus, there has already been a good deal of significant and promising research
in the history of urban education in the United Kingdom that has shed new light on
the dynamics of the relationship between educational provision and urban society over the
longer term. Nevertheless, much still remains to be done in a number of areas, and
the overall contribution can be said to be suggestive but uneven rather than systematic
or comprehensive.

Urban Educational Reform

In relation to discussion of urban educational reform, it is again possible to point to a
substantial body of historical literature. This includes work on the role of specific local
educational authorities over the past century, detailed examinations of the character of
educational reforms in London, the foremost city in the UK, and the nature of the edu-
cational reform initiatives linked to national policy that have arisen since the 1980s.
Local education authorities (LEAs) were established under the Education Act of
1902, and for more than a century they have been a key source of educational reform
initiatives, often in concert with but at other times in opposition to the grain of national
educational policies. The LEAs based in the major urban centers often had the
resources to take a lead in developing particular approaches, although especially after
the Education Reform Act of 1988 their powers and authority became significantly
diminished (Brighouse, 2002; Sharp, 2002). In the period after World War II until
the 1960s, however, a number of urban country boroughs took the lead in championing
educational reforms including the development of comprehensive secondary schools
intended for all abilities and aptitudes.
In demonstrating the “uneven change” involved in the process of going comprehen-
sive from the 1940s to the 1960s, Kerckhoff, Fogelman, Crook, and Reeder (1996)
emphasize the urban vanguard of the movement represented in such cities as
Manchester, Bristol and Leeds (Kerckhoff et al., 1996, especially Chapter 6). Crook
(2002) pursues this theme further although he points out that despite their enthusiasm
for such reform they were hampered by inadequate building stock, the need to consult
with church authorities, and uncertainties about future relations with local selective
and other schools (Crook, 2002). In Wales, Gareth Elwyn Jones has argued, there was
 History of Urban Education in the UK 951

a clear divide between more conservative rural county councils and urban LEAs in the
south such as Monmouthshire, Glamorgan, and the county boroughs of Swansea,
Cardiff and Merthyr Tydfil. In Swansea in particular, a heated debate ensued over the
plans of the Ministry of Education to insist on the development of different kinds of
secondary schools as opposed to comprehensives (Jones, 1990, 2002).
There were also a number of LEAs in the 1940s that supported the official line of
the Ministry of Education, and developed a tripartite system of grammar, technical and
modern schools in their areas. Although these have often been regarded as simply
acquiescing in the dictates of the central authority, there is evidence that these too were
making a principled choice to define the nature of educational provision in their areas,
based on an assessment of their own demographic patterns and socio-economic needs.
In Huddersfield and Barrow-in-Furness, for example, there was evident enthusiasm
about the possibilities of a tripartite or at least a bipartite system designed to suit the
particular characteristics of their urban communities. Sheffield LEA was also keen to
move in this direction, taking the lead to champion such a policy from an early stage
(McCulloch, 2002).
Even before the introduction of the LEAs, urban authorities in the form of the
local School Boards of the late nineteenth century had acquired a reputation for
independent thinking and action that often cut across general priorities as defined by
the State. This was the case, for example, in Bristol, where the School Board set out to
improve the provision of elementary schools for which it was responsible, to the
extent of developing more advanced education in higher grade schools for those
pupils who proved capable of benefiting from it. One of these was in east Bristol, an
industrial and strongly working class area of the city that was especially noted for
the production of boots and shoes. Another was in a fast growing industrial suburb
of Bristol, Bedminster, linked in particular to the Bristol coalfield and to the manu-
facture of paper bags and cardboxes. A third was created to serve the rapidly grow-
ing population to the north of the city centre. This advanced provision created a
potential rivalry with the established local grammar schools that had served the
needs of the middle classes, and it was abolished along with the School Boards
themselves at the end of the century. Nonetheless, it constitutes a further significant
case in which urban educational reform set itself up in a distinct and often contra-
dictory fashion in relation to the dictates of the national State (see Vlaeminke, 2000,
especially Chapters 3 and 4 for a detailed discussion on the rise and fall of the higher
grade schools in Bristol).
In this respect, the locus classicus was that of London itself, from the days of the
London School Board in the late nineteenth century through to the London County
Council (LCC) and then the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA). A general his-
torical survey on education in London provided by Stuart Maclure (1970), and more
recently Margaret Bryant’s panoramic account of secondary education in London from
the middle ages to the end of the nineteenth century (Bryant, 1986), remind us of the
sheer scale of the enterprise of directing the educational development of this metropo-
lis. As Bryant puts it, London’s “vitality and versatility,” while placing vast economic
and social resources at the disposal of education, also created unique pressures on its
“ramshackle and experimental” provision of schooling (Bryant, 1986, p. 410).
952 McCulloch

The case of the London School Board (1870–1904) is a fascinating example of the
issues involved in governing and reforming the educational provision of a major city.
It was, as Jane Martin observes, “a flagship institution and played a vital role in setting
the educational standards for other school boards to follow” (Martin, 2001, p. 167).
It was a democratic institution in a number of respects, and provided significant oppor-
tunities for example for middle class women activists to become involved in the run-
ning of this expansive and influential institution, “the world’s largest educational
parliament” (Martin, 1999, p. 32). Here it was that London, incomparably the largest
urban community in the UK, struggled to come to terms with the diverse needs of its
unruly, changing and still growing population.
The distinctive educational role of the LCC over the 60 years of its existence has
also attracted attention. For example, it was the power base of an exceptionally influ-
ential education officer, Robert Blair, from 1908 until 1924. Blair exploited the oppor-
tunities available to the LCC’s education committee in an era when the national Board
of Education remained generally reticent and unwilling to intervene actively in local or
urban educational reform. He favored the development of a coordinated but differenti-
ated system of post-primary education for the capital (Thoms, 1980). This was not the
view taken in the 1940s, in the face of the Ministry’s preference for a tripartite system
of secondary schools. Under Sir Graham Savage, the LCC devised an alternative plan
for the development of comprehensive schools, the self-styled London School Plan of
1947, that posed a potent challenge to the claims of the central authority at the same
time that it set out to meet the demands of its own sprawling location (Kerckhoff et al.,
1996, Chapter 4).
The Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) was established in 1965 to take over
the educational responsibilities of the LCC, which was replaced by the Greater London
Council. This new authority soon emulated and even surpassed the independent repu-
tation cultivated by its predecessors. It also became widely regarded as a key national
and even international centre of educational expertise and authority in its own right.
Moreover, it too enabled a wide range of local activists from different backgrounds to
take part in urban educational reform, both in setting the agenda for social and politi-
cal change and in putting it into practice at a grass roots level. It also made powerful
and influential enemies, in particular national policy makers who often resented the
independence and powers flaunted, so to speak, in their own back yard. When prob-
lems arose, the ILEA was exposed to damaging and undermining criticism. This was
the context for the controversy over the William Tyndale Junior School in 1974–1975,
when a public conflict developed over radical teaching methods promoted by the head
teacher and the majority of the staff in this one school in Islington, north London. As
John Davis notes, “The charge of extravagance was standard fare with ILEA’s
Conservative critics, but the suggestion that the Authority’s precepts were funding
chalk-face Trotskyists gave it added bite.” (Davis, 2002, p. 293). It struggled to survive
after the election of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government in 1979, and was
eventually abolished along with the GLC itself (see also Morrell, 1987).
Over the past 30 years, and increasingly in the early years of the twenty-first
century, urban educational reform has been absorbed and assimilated into national state
policy more than it has set out to provide a distinctive and contradictory approach.
 History of Urban Education in the UK 953

This was generally the case with the Technical and Vocational Education Initiative of
the 1980s, for example, albeit that it also generated a number of interesting and inno-
vative urban-based projects (Gleeson, 1987). It was also true with respect to two of
the major initiatives promoted by the government to reform schooling in urban areas
in the late 1980s and at the turn of the century, the city technology colleges (CTCs) and
the Education Action Zones (EAZs).
The CTCs were introduced by the Conservative government in 1986 to establish what
were described as independent state schools in urban areas, bypassing the LEAs and
designed to develop innovative approaches to the curriculum (see, e.g., Whitty, Edwards, &
Gewirtz, 1993; McCulloch, 1994). The first CTC to be opened, in September 1988, was
Kingshurst CTC in Solihull, Birmingham. This was not an inner city deprived area of the
kind initially envisaged for the scheme, but a mixture of middle class affluence, subur-
ban sprawl, and working class housing estates (Walford & Miller 1991, pp. 21–22).
Kingshurst CTC was adapted for its new role on the existing premises of a former com-
prehensive school. It received equipment and sponsorship from the business community,
including the multi-national Hanson Trust. However, insufficient financial support was
forthcoming from local businesses and industries, and too few suitable inner city sites
were available for development, with LEAs proving predictably reluctant to sell off
disused schools to a rival organization. A number of ways were devised to salvage and
revive the CTC project and the ideals of urban regeneration that partly underlay it, but by
the mid-1990s it was quietly shelved (McCulloch, 1994).
The EAZs were based on an initiative initiated by the new Labor government under
the School Standards and Framework Act of 1998. They were to establish partnerships
among schools, parents, business, community organizations, and the voluntary sector
in clusters of schools located in areas of social and economic difficulty around the
country. By the end of the Labor government’s first term in office, in 2001, there were
73 EAZs around Britain. Moreover, within a year of introducing its original EAZ pro-
gram, the government put forward a further proposal for a number of smaller EAZs as
part of its Excellence in Cities initiative for addressing low achievement in inner city
schools, in this case funded and administered through the LEAs. Rather like the CTCs,
however, they largely failed to win the active support of urban interests, and were soon
“gone before you know it,” discarded and largely abandoned (Franklin & McCulloch,
2003; Franklin, 2005).
Historical antecedents and issues help to contextualize and explain the continuing
preoccupation with urban educational reform in the 1990s and early twentieth century.
Despite this, the large number of prescriptions produced to solve the educational prob-
lems identified with the inner cities (see, e.g., Atkinson, 1994; Barber & Dann, 1996;
Marland, 1980) by and large failed to draw out the implications of previous historical
experience. Some historical insights were occasionally brought to bear, such as in the
unusually radical proposal of the minister of state for schools, David Miliband, and
the historian Tristram Hunt to “learn from the Victorians” in reviving the cities through
the development of good schools (Miliband & Hunt, 2004). Yet there was little evident
enthusiasm for re-establishing the School Boards, still less the London School Board or
the ILEA. Deep-seated social problems in urban education continued to be exposed and
were a continuing source of deep political and media concern, especially in London
954 McCulloch

(e.g., The Independent 2003, Evening Standard 2005, Times Educational Supplement
2005). Substantial and lasting success in tackling them remained as troublingly elusive
as 40 or even 100 years before.

Conclusion
This chapter has reviewed the contribution made by the history of urban education in
the United Kingdom, and has sketched the outlines of some of its most characteristic
work. This has tended as we have seen to emphasize the historical dynamics of the
relationships between education and urban society, and the longer term characteristics
of urban educational reform. This research, although it has not been wholly coherent
or systematic, should not be ignored either by urban historians in general or by educa-
tors seeking to address the urgent issues facing urban education in the twenty first cen-
tury. As a dimension of urban history in general, it clearly provides key insights into a
substantial and always prominent feature of urban life and services. As a contribution
to urban education, it continues to provide an unmatched means, as Grace put it so
simply and well more than 20 years ago, of locating our contemporary discussions in
a framework which is sensitive to issues of continuity and change.

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50

URBAN EDUCATION THEORY REVISITED:

FROM THE URBAN QUESTION TO
END OF MILLENNIUM

Gerald Grace
Institute of Education, University of London, U.K.

In this chapter I want to consider the importance of theory in locating the challenges
of urban education within a wider analytical framework, which I shall argue, is neces-
sary for an in-depth understanding of the urban education problematic. I will attempt
to do this by providing a personal, reflective account of my own struggles as an Urban
Education researcher and university teacher to “make sense of the urban” in studies
between the 1970s and 2004. I will also report the experience of students on an
advanced program of Urban Education studies as they sought to make connections
between urban theory and their day-to-day teaching in London’s inner-city schools.
In 1976 I established the MA in Urban Education (with special reference to the
inner-city) at King’s College, University of London. King’s College was itself located
within the inner-city and the Faculty of Education had developed interests in the
History of Education, Science Education and Religious Education but not in the
systematic study of Urban Education. It seemed to me strange that a college which
prepared its student-teachers to begin their professional careers in London’s inner-city
schools had no programs of advanced study for their continuing professional develop-
ment in the Urban Education field. The purpose of this program established in 1976
was to provide such opportunities, especially for teachers and school leaders in what
was then known as the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA). What struck me at
the time was the structural urban contradiction that major cultural, financial, social
and political institutions were located in the inner-city but were not, in any relational
sense, of the inner-city. The absence of developed partnerships between these institu-
tions and, for instance, the schools of the inner-city, seemed to me to be part of what
was then being described as the “urban education crisis” in England and particularly in
London. The inner-city was at one and the same time the location of great cultural,
financial, social and political resource while the working class schools adjacent to
these resources were said to be in a situation of crisis in cultural, educational and social
terms. How was this possible?

959
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 959–978.
© 2007 Springer.
960 Grace

Urban Education: From Policy Science to

Critical Scholarship
To prepare material for the MA program I read all the available literature on the prob-
lems of urban education at that time. The main conclusion of this small exercise in the
sociology of knowledge was that Urban Education Studies as then constituted, was a
form of policy science, as defined by Fay (1975) in his seminal book, Social Theory
and Political Practice:

that set of procedures which enables one to determine the technical best course of
action to adopt … . In this regard the policy scientist really is a type of social
engineer who makes instrumental decisions on the basis of the various laws of
science-in this instance social science, which are relevant to the problem at hand.
The policy engineer … is one who seeks the most technically correct answer to
political problems. (p. 14)

In other words, the problem of the urban school had been constituted, by the lens of
policy science, as a theoretical object in itself, abstracted from other contextual frame-
works. It was, in this sense, a form of “abstracted empiricism” of the type which
Wright Mills (1973) had identified as characteristic of the field of social pathology.
My conclusion was, that whatever was presented as the contemporary problems of
urban schooling, could not be properly understood unless those problems were located
in the larger framework of historical, social, cultural, economic and political relations
in any given society. I had also come to the view that urban education theory could not
be constituted as a theoretical field in its own right but had to be related to theory in
the larger fields of Urban Studies and Urban Sociology. The work of Manuel Castells
in The Urban Question (1977) was published just as the MA (Urban Education) was
launched at King’s College and it became a central text for the program because of its
empirical richness and its critical challenges to theory. This chapter is an extended
reflection upon Castells’ theorizing between the 1970s and the present day and upon its
educational implications. I am convinced that the urban education problematic has to
be related to forms of urban theorizing which are more complex than that derived from
a policy science or social pathology paradigm.
To advance this view and to provide a resource for graduate programs of Urban
Education study, I edited a collection of papers under the title, Education and the City:
theory, history and contemporary practice (1984). My own contribution to this collection
consisted of two chapters, “Urban Education: Policy Science or Critical Scholarship?”
and “Theorising the Urban: some approaches for students of Education.” In the first,
I argued that Urban Education study must develop beyond the limitations and constraints
of policy science to become a more comprehensive form of critical policy scholarship.
This would involve:

Theorising the nature of the urban and establishing a coherent rationale for urban
education study; recovering a sense of the historical in the study of urban school-
ing; confronting the political and the economic in a more radical way; engaging
 Urban Education Theory Revisited 961

with a wider range of cultural and pedagogic theory and attempting to situate
empirical inquiries in relation to these wider frameworks. (pp. 32–33)

In the chapter, “Theorising the Urban … .” I presented the results of my own initial
exploration of social theory relevant to the study of urban education. This suggested
the following theoretical schema:

It becomes apparent from the literature that there are different ways of articulat-
ing or theorising the urban problematic … . It is possible, in ideal type form, to
identify these differences around the organising constructs of problem, conflict
and contradiction … . An emphasis may be discerned upon “urban problems”
which is underpinned by forms of functionalism and system theory … . An
emphases upon “urban conflict” draws its inspiration from the work of Max
Weber and from the work (in England) of urban theorists such as Ray Pahl and
John Rex.1 Challenging both of these constructs and the conventional wisdom of
urban studies, is the work of modern Marxists such as David Harvey and Manuel
Castells where the emphasis is upon “urban contradiction” as indicative of the
wider contradictions of capitalism. (pp. 94–95)

My purpose in this chapter was to alert students of Urban Education to the fact that
there were at least three ways of locating and articulating the challenges of urban, and
especially inner-city schooling. What was constructed as “the crisis of inner-city
schooling” could be seen as an outcome of system dysfunction (failings in the schools
and the teachers and failings in local education administration); as an outcome of urban
conflicts (struggles among different interest groups based on class, race, religion and
gender) or as an outcome of contradictions in the wider social and economic structure.
To assist students to come to their own intellectual judgments on questions of theo-
retical coherence, it seemed important to clarify distinctions between an urban conflict
perspective and one which used the language of contradictions. These distinctions
were expressed as follows:

Conflict as used in Weberian urban theory refers to the struggles and oppositions
of various social and interest groups … as they are expressed in different sectors
of the market for resources. Contradictions refer to structurally determined
incompatibilities within a social and economic formation (generally identified
with capitalism). (p. 103)

While it is true to say that I wrote the chapter “Theorising the Urban …” to assist stu-
dents to find an appropriate theoretical framework in which to study the challenges of
urban schooling, it is also true that it was part of my personal search to “make sense of
the urban.” As a regular professional visitor to London inner-city schools in the 1970s
in the role of school practice supervisor,2 I began my own analysis of the challenges
which they presented, from an “urban problem” perspective. However, as I read more
widely in the literature of urban and social theory, I began to see that a problem per-
spective was a first stage analysis based upon close examination of local phenomena
962 Grace

(school, community, education administration). This local phenomenon was itself an

expression of wider urban conflict in the city as a whole, arising from divergent class,
race, political and religious interests. Second stage analysis suggested therefore that
some resolution of urban conflicts could be attempted using a progressive political
process and liberal mechanisms designed to achieve “a just distribution of resources,
justly arrived at” in the manner suggested by John Rawls’ in his Theory of Justice
(1971). The sustained application of measures of resource redistribution by enlight-
ened political and policy agencies, coupled with a serious commitment to social justice
appeared to be the way forward for significant improvements in urban education at this
time. It was for this reason that I invited the leader of the Inner London Education
Authority, (ILEA), Frances Morrell, to contribute a chapter to the 1984 collection
under the title, “Policy for Schools in Inner London.” Faced with the challenges of
inner-city schooling, the ILEA had a city-wide approach to resource redistribution and
to the advancement of social justice through policies to combat sexism, racism and
classism in urban education.
The ILEA urban education policies of the early 1980s were theorized at a socio-
spatial level which transcended a localized and pathological view of the individual
“failing” school or urban community. With an intention to turn such theory into serious
education policies of city-wide resource redistribution and the explicit naming of poli-
cies in race, class and gender terms the ILEA was condemned by conservative media
agencies for its “radical,” “ideological,” and “political” approaches to the challenges of
urban schooling.
It would be true to say that the majority of the students of the MA (Urban Education)
program at Kings College, London endorsed the redistributive and social justice strate-
gies of education authorities such as the ILEA. The fact that such urban education
policies were under attack from New Right ideological agencies at this time, seemed
to them to confirm that these policies were on target. Social justice in urban schooling
was from their perspective a realizable goal if policies such as these were seriously
implemented. However as part of their commitment to a comprehensive study of urban
and social theory relevant to urban education, the students were expected to engage
with a body of literature which suggested that social justice strategies alone could only
make a limited impact on the state of urban schooling. This body of literature, of what
might be called third stage analysis, challenged the aspirations of the social justice
paradigm.3 Two major texts which articulated this position were David Harvey’s,
Social Justice and the City (1973) and Manuel Castells’, The Urban Question (1977).

The Political Economy of the Urban Question:

Theory in the 1970s
The epistemological status of Harvey’s text in Urban Studies is probably unique. The
first half of the book consists of a systematic attempt (in what is called “Liberal
Formulations”) to work through a logic of territorial distributive justice according to
principles of social justice as set out by Rawls (1971). The second half of the book
(in what is called “Socialist Formulations”) argues that liberal redistributive theory
 Urban Education Theory Revisited 963

and practice cannot work in the context of capitalist urbanization. In a personal, reflec-
tive comment Harvey noted:
“The emergence of Marx’s analysis as a guide to enquiry … requires further com-
ments. I do not turn to it out of some a priori sense of its inherent superiority … but
because I can find no other way of accomplishing what I set out to do or of understand-
ing what has to be understood” (p. 17). Having examined existing urban intervention
programs (including those in urban education) Harvey had come to the stark conclusion
that they were “doomed to failure” (p. 110). In summary form his challenge to conven-
tional wisdom on the urban question at that time may be represented as follows:
(1) There is a fundamental contradiction between the imperatives of capital, which
require the priority of profit and the imperatives of social justice which require
the priority of social needs.
(2) In relation to cities, capital will flow in the direction of greatest profit.
(3) Government urban and inner-city programs which attempt to counteract that ten-
dency are operating against the imperatives of the market. As such they are always
limited in funds and time-scale, intermittent in relation to specific crises, and lack-
ing in power to accomplish any significant changes. At worst, such programs and
allocative devices are nothing more than face-saving or crisis-dampening devices.
At best, they are well-intentioned but ineffectual interventions against the grain of
the socio-political and economic situation.
(4) Empirical study of urban intervention programs both in Britain and America
demonstrates the validity of this analysis.
For the students of the MA (Urban Education) program in the 1970s and their tutor,
here was a text which challenged their commitments to liberal redistributive and social
justice in education programs by suggesting that a “revolutionary theory” of the urban
was required. This theory would have to confront the contradictions of a capitalist mar-
ket economy in order to understand the phenomena described as “urban problems” or
“urban conflicts.” This challenge was intensified by the analysis presented by Manuel
Castells in his influential text, The Urban Question (1977). Castells called for a new
theoretical field of the urban which would concentrate upon (1) the social structuring
of space; (2) the organization and mode of the institutions of collective consumption
(housing, education, health, transport etc); (3) politics and the intervention of the state
and (4) forms of urban resistance. For Castells the study of the city was important
because in metropolitan cities in particular the contradictions of capitalism, especially
in the sphere of consumption became visible in dramatic ways. Welfare services in
cities demanded by popular political action are, Castells argued, generally unprofitable
for capital.4 As pressures upon and expectations for such social services increase in
metropolitan cities, the welfare costs increase, with the result that corporate interests
attempt to resist this and in fact work to reduce existing levels of provision. Such con-
tradictions had already revealed themselves in the constructed fiscal crises of several
American cities. There are two consequences arising from this situation. The central
state and the local state5 are forced to take action to try to resolve these contradictions
and conflicts by urban intervention programs of various types. Issues of power and
politics then become central, “it is politics which structures the totality of the field and
964 Grace

determines how it is transformed” (p. 243). However, growing urban contradictions

provide not only increasing interventions from the state but also a growing resistance
and opposition from different sectors of the urban population. Castells predicted that
“urban social movements” would develop in metropolitan cities related to struggles
over housing, education, health and other welfare services. In a subsequent publica-
tion, City, Class and Power (1978), Castells was very specific about this:

There will be a significant development of urban social movements as a means of

changing social relations and this will arise from urban contradictions. (p. 127)6

Castells had argued in the introduction to The Urban Question that “any new theor-
etical position that is not anchored in concrete analysis is redundant” (p. 4).
What gave his writings on urban phenomena such power was the fact that they were
anchored in impressive research and detailed empirical data, it was not easy to dismiss
this work (or that of David Harvey) as simply abstract theory or political ideology. The
challenges of this third stage analysis of the Urban Question had to be faced.

Politics, Theory and the Urban Question:

Challenges in the 1980s and 1990s
Castells’ (1977) observation that politics structures the totality of the urban field,
including that of urban education, was validated dramatically in 1988 when the
Conservative (and New Right) government of Margaret Thatcher abolished the Inner
London Education Authority. What had been the leading local education authority and
exemplar of progressive policies in urban schooling in Britain was swept away as part
of the Thatcher government’s Education Reform Act of 1988.
In an analysis of education policy and the inner cities, Geoff Whitty (1986) had
commented on the radical nature of the policies of the ILEA, including a serious
approach for students and teachers to political education, anti-racist education and
anti-sexist education. The continuance of these policies he predicted would be
“dependent on the changing balance of political forces both in and beyond the urban
educational arena” (p. 141). By 1988 it was clear that a Conservative “Strong State”7
was not prepared to tolerate the existence of a local education state in the capital city
with radical urban education policies. The balance of political forces had changed.
In 1992 Kenneth Wong called for more attention to be given to the politics of urban
education as a field of study and in a published collection, The Politics of Urban
Education in the United States (1992) important analyses were presented by a range of
academic writers and researchers. By comparison, the politics of urban education in
Britain has been a relatively undeveloped field. The abolition of the ILEA was, as
Crispin Jones (1989, p. 91) has put it, “an event of considerable symbolic importance”
in the field of urban schooling and yet no extensive study of its political assassination
has been undertaken.
The abolition of the ILEA can be theorized in these terms. It represented an opposi-
tional agenda in urban schooling which threatened dominant class, political, cultural
 Urban Education Theory Revisited 965

and race relations, as represented by a New Right Conservative government in Britain.

It was explicit about the importance of political education (characterized by critics as
“socialist propaganda”): It named class as a correlate of educational achievement (in
the face of an ideology which denied that class existed)8: It named racism9 (challeng-
ing the culture of silence on this question) and it named anti-sexism (caricatured as
“loony feminism”). The great political offence of this urban education authority was
that it made visible in discourse and in policy formation and action some of the key
determinants of inner-city educational experience and outcomes, that is, politics, class,
racism and sexism. It did this in the face of a dominant political ideology in Britain,
that became known as Thatcherism,10 which denied that these concepts had any legiti-
mate place in education policy and practice or even in educational discourse.
If the first and greatest offence of the ILEA was to name in education policy that
which should not be named, its second offence was “extravagance.” As the Secretary
of State for Education asserted, the “ILEA spent far more money per pupil than any
other authority in the country, yet it presided over some of the worst exam results to be
found anywhere.”11 What this statement ignored, of course, was that the ILEA had to
deal with the most complex social and educational disadvantage in the country. The
offence of the ILEA was to provide a level of educational resourcing for urban work-
ing class students which began to rival levels of provision for privileged middle class
students in private educational institutions. This was not the first time in the history of
urban schooling in England that the level of educational resourcing for urban working
class pupils had been judged to be “extravagant” and subsequently cut back by the
action of a conservative central state.12
What followed the abolition of a democratically elected, city-wide educational
agency for the improvement of inner-city schooling was what Whitty and Menter
(1989) have described as the “atomization” of urban education. In place of the ILEA,
thirteen local education authorities, ranging from Camden to Westminster now had to
take up responsibility for inner-city schooling in London. With the abolition of the
redistributive resource provisions of the ILEA,13 a situation of more strongly polarized
resources for urban schooling resulted. As Crispin Jones (1991, p. 12) has noted, the
effect of the removal of this provision, “was to decrease the amount of money available
for the education of children and young people in those areas of inner London which
had the high concentrations of social and economic disadvantage.” London boroughs
such as Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Southwark and Lambeth were faced with relative
educational impoverishment and associated problems related to teacher supply and
retention.
The structural and fiscal “reforms” of Thatcherism were accompanied, as Whitty,
Edwards and Gewirtz (1993) pointed out, by what they described as “the socio-cultural
project.” This involved the introduction of market forces and market values into the
previously protected (public good) welfare services of education, housing, health and
transport. What Castells (1977) had earlier described as “the institutions of collective
consumption” in urban settings became subject in the 1980s and 1990s to situations of
competition, privatization and apparently enhanced “customer choice” of services. In
urban education this meant that a culture of competition was introduced between local
education authorities, between individual schools and among parents reconstructed as
966 Grace

consumers in an educational marketplace. As Whitty, Edwards, and Gewirtz (1993:

p. 11) expressed it:

The task was not only to encourage members of a market society to think of them-
selves as individuals competing against other individuals in order to maximise
their own interests; they also needed to be encouraged to accept that it was appro-
priate for there to be winners and losers in the system.

The changed culture of urban schooling in London and in other major cities in the
1990s was now ideologically based upon a “winner,” “loser” syndrome. “Successful”
inner-city schools were represented as the outcome of the work of outstanding school
leaders (Super-heads), supported by high quality teachers and responsible and com-
mitted parents. “Failing” innercity schools were represented as failures because of
inadequate school leadership, incompetent teachers and irresponsible parents. The
theoretical context for explanations of differential achievement in urban education had,
by political and ideological means, been reconstructed to make a social pathological
paradigm dominant. Urban schools “failed” because of deficiencies in local adminis-
trators, school leaders and teachers and not because of social and economic depriva-
tion in communities, under-resourcing of some schools or changes in student intake
arising from the application of market forces to school recruitment. Reviewing this
new situation in urban education in 2002, Geoff Whitty pointed out that the emphasis
on enhanced parental “choice,” increased school autonomy and the free operation of
market forces would result in “the disproportionate representation of socially advan-
taged children in the most ‘successful’ schools and of socially disadvantaged children
in those schools identified as ‘failing’ ” (p. 84).14
The history of urban schooling in England, and especially in London, in the 1980s
and 1990s provides a case study for the validation of Castells’ (1977) proposition that
“it is politics which structures the totality of the field and determines how it is trans-
formed” (p. 243). Politics transformed the structures, institutions and cultures of urban
education in London in the last part of the twentieth century. A politics of coordinated
city-wide planning, informed by a strong social justice philosophy was replaced by a
politics of market forces in education informed by a strong commitment to consumer
choice. While some urban educators may want to endorse the slogan “keep politics out
of the schools” this is only possible in the limited sense of avoiding direct party polit-
ical indoctrination in curricula and teaching. In a larger contextual sense politics does
structure urban education and the modes of its transformations and in this sense also
politics does enter the school and affects its educational culture and relationships.
Inner-city educators and students of Urban Education Studies have to confront these
political facts of life and they have to consider their implications for educational
policy and practice. Above all, they will need to reflect upon how it has been possible
for Conservative and New Right ideology in education to represent itself as an
expression of the “natural” and of “common sense,” reserving the label “political” for
alternative positions or characterising their policies as various forms of unnatural
“social engineering.”
 Urban Education Theory Revisited 967

Confronting the Information Age: The Challenge of

the Informational Economy
The publication of Manuel Castells book, The Informational City: Information Tech-
nology, Economic Restructuring and the Urban-Regional Process in 1989 marked a
new and important phase in the development of urban theory relevant to urban educa-
tion. The essence of Castells’ argument was that profound changes were taking place in
the political economy of many cities on a scale comparable with earlier industrial revo-
lutions but of a radically different nature. Castells argued that a new informational econ-
omy based upon “high technology” is emerging. A key structuring feature of cities and
societies would be found in future in a specific relation to information and knowledge-
based means of production. Processes of polarization and segmentation of populations
and spatial areas would take place arising from changes in the labor market:

A new type of labor demand … is creating new types of job, characterised by low
wages and which enjoy less social protection. (p. 202)

Castells described this urban restructuring process as it was developing in the USA
and related it to features of urban schooling in these terms:

There is a mismatching of skills determined by inequality in the educational sys-

tems, itself a result of spatial segregation by class and race. Public schools in the
largest inner cities receive proportionately fewer resources than those in the
suburbs and cater to the poorest sectors of the population, with an overwhelming
proportion of ethnic minorities with the greatest educational needs … . The
majority of the resident population of inner-cities cannot match the skill require-
ments of the new labor market because of the inefficiency and segregated nature
of the public school systems. (p. 204)

Students of Urban Education in England will point out that the characteristics of inner-
city schooling in the USA and in this country, have significant differences and this is
clearly the case. However Castells’ analysis of the potential impact of an information
technology economy raises important questions for urban education practitioners and
researchers in England. What is being theorized here is the generation of a new type of
literacy – an ICT literacy, which will require a new type of pedagogy and a higher level
of educational resourcing in urban schooling. In his much quoted discussion of the
social class bases of different forms of pedagogy,15 Basil Bernstein (1975) pointed out
that some forms of pedagogy are much more expensive than others. It seems clear that
an ICT based pedagogy in inner-city schools will be expensive when compared with a
textbook based pedagogy. Castells’ (1989) analysis suggests that inner city schools in the
USA will be unable to fund an effective ICT curriculum and pedagogy, both in terms of
initial formation and in terms of the required updating of the technology over time.
Without massive additional resourcing (open to the charge of urban education “extrava-
gance”) it seems likely that the gap between inner-city school outcomes and those of
968 Grace

suburban schools will widen in the new information economy. This is likely to be true,
not only in the USA but also in other urban education locations.
In his latest analysis, End of Millennium (2004b) (volume 3 of The Information
Age: Economy, Society and Culture), Castells returns to the theme of the social
consequences of the shift from an industrial to an informational economy. In his view,
processes of polarization in metropolitan cities will become sharper as differential
ability to participate in a knowledge-based market results from differential access to
quality education:

Education becomes the critical resource to add value to ones labor in the new econ-
omy … . Furthermore, education is not the same as schooling. The knowledge-
based economy requires general analytical skills and a capacity to understand and
innovate which can only be satisfied in upgraded educational institutions. Low-
income groups, immigrants and minorities have significantly lower chances of
access to quality education both at the secondary level and in college. (p. 136)
As more inner-city residents and youth are unable to gain access to the infor-
mational economy, Castells predicts that there will be a corresponding growth of
an urban criminal economy in all its forms. Urban crime becomes another form
of urban resistance.

Urban Theory and Urban Educational Practice

For those teachers and policy makers who are anxious to grapple with the challenges
of inner-city schooling, an examination of trends in urban theory may seem to be a
diversion which delays engagement with and action about the “real issues” which exist
in “the real world.” Such a view is understandable in its impatience with “theorising
while the inner cities burn,” but it ought nevertheless to be resisted. The rationale of the
previous analysis is that no formulation of the “real issues” in the inner city or in urban
education can take place independently of theory. If such theory is not made explicit it
will nevertheless continue to operate and shape the field covertly. There seems to be
every reason therefore to make it visible and explicit.
However, being explicit about urban theory, especially that which has been described
as third stage theory can result in feelings of powerlessness and loss of morale among
urban educators. This also must be resisted. What Urban Education Study has to attempt
is a balanced synthesis between a form of “pessimism of the intellect” (facing theories
and facts, “even when they are decidedly unpleasant”16) and a form of “optimism of
the will” (resisting structural determinism and recognizing the power of agency). As
Marx might have said, “the urban theorists have only analysed the world, the important
thing is to change it.” But how? This requires some consideration of the possible forms
of agency which are available in contemporary urban education, given the contexts and
constraints which urban theoretical analysis suggests.
By agency I refer to a variety of modes of individual, institutional and community ini-
tiative constituting oppositional action against what appear to be the inevitable outcomes
of existing political and economic relations in society. Such action can be pursued by
 Urban Education Theory Revisited 969

individual teachers and school leaders, by local groups of citizens, by organizations based
upon race, ethnic and gender concerns, by religious17 and faith organisations18 and by cor-
porate and business interests which take social and community responsibility seriously.
For contemporary urban educators in Britain and elsewhere it is necessary to reflect
upon Castells’ central observation that “it is politics which structures the totality of the
field” (p. 243) and after reflection, to consider what forms of educational action should
be developed for the future. Merson and Campbell (1974) argued that the defining
characteristic of inner city residents is their relative powerlessness. Such political
powerlessness arises from a number of causes. It arises because most educational sys-
tems do not take political education or citizenship education seriously. In his reflections
upon the “Challenges of Urban Education,” Paulo Freire (1993) argued that “literacy
involves not just the reading of the word, but also the reading of the world” (p. 59). An
education for critical consciousness would not only help students in inner-city schools to
acquire literacy but also develop a political literacy which would help them to understand
why the inner-city is as it is, and what possible forms of democratic action are available
for its transformation.19 The education of most urban students at present is not generative
of such political literacy. In Britain a disillusionment with the formal political process
has resulted in growing levels of voter “apathy”20 or abstention from that process. Many
inner-city residents do not believe that political parties have any sustained programs for
the improvement of their communities and, as a consequence, they do not participate in
elections. This compounds the problem as Galbraith (1992) has noted. If the urban poor
are not an active voting constituency, political parties will adjust their programs in the
interests of those who are active. Galbraith also argues in his thesis of the growing influ-
ence of “the political economy of contentment,” that the comfortable and contented
majority of active voters are increasingly embracing a culture of relative private interest.
The result of this is that action for the improvement of the inner-city and its schools is
marginalized. As I expressed it in an earlier paper, Grace (1994):

In a political culture of relative public good, a significant sector of citizens accept

the legitimacy of political action taken in support of disadvantaged citizens as a
practical expression of commitment to ideas of social justice, equality of oppor-
tunity and equity in society. In a political culture of relative private interest a
growing number of citizens reject the legitimacy of action in support of the dis-
advantaged (who are seen to be responsible for their own problems) and support
policies designed to enhance their own interests … . (p. 53)

Galbraith (1992) argues that this changed political culture is now very visible in the
USA and it can be argued that it is emergent in Britain also.
The social consequences of these developments will be, as Castells (2004b) has
pointed out, a sharper polarization between the comfortable suburbs and the impover-
ished inner-cities. If inner-city youth are not able, in sufficient numbers,21 to gain
access to the new informational economy; if they are cynical about the formal politi-
cal process and if they are alienated by a poor urban education experience, it seems
likely that they will become recruits for the growing urban crime economy. All of this
suggests that serious political and citizenship education must be a priority in the
970 Grace

schools of the inner-city. Such students need an “education for critical consciousness.”
They need socio-political and economic literacy to understand the inner-city as it is
currently constituted. This does not mean, of course, the formation of a particular
political ideology but rather the formation of an educational consciousness of what
democracy means and what its potential for transformation can be. Students educated
in and for a serious democratic literacy could become “active citizens.”22 As such they
could become advocates for their communities; active in political processes, formal
and informal; and effective in forming alliances with other major institutions in the
inner-city to work for improvements in urban education.

Urban Education and the Concept of “Complex Hope”

In 1994, I defined “complex hope” in urban education as a necessary complement to
critical analyses of the present state of urban schooling in various locations. Unlike
naïve hope or simple hope which often appears in the literature as an “incapacity to
face facts as they are” (Wright Mills, 1973), complex hope is “an optimism of the will
that recognizes the historical and structural difficulties which have to be overcome.”23
David Halpin in his ground-breaking book. Hope and Education (2003) has argued
that hope of this type is the essential driving force for educational activity and for
inspirational teaching. He quotes with approval Terry Eagleton’s formulation of this
stance as finding “a bridge between present and future in those forces within the pres-
ent which are potentially able to transform it” (2000, p. 22).
In a recent analysis of the challenges and contradictions confronting urban schools in
London,24 I was faced with the research of Buck, Gordon, Hall, Harloe, and Kleinman
(2002) and Reay (2003) which established that class differentials in urban schooling in
Britain were still considerable, despite decades of attempted reforms. How can urban
schools respond in situations of obvious class inequalities in educational opportunities
and outcomes?
Given that the major challenges in this area are social, structural, political and eco-
nomic, hope for transformation, even complex hope, seems problematic.
However, as Martin Thrupp (1999) has pointed out, we cannot simply wait for major
social transformations to take place. There are strategies for change which can be
implemented albeit ones that can only be long-tem solutions.
Thrupp makes a powerful argument that urban school mix defined as “the social class
composition of a school’s student intake” has major consequences for school effective-
ness. From this perspective, the differing academic profiles of urban schools are largely
a function of their differing student intakes, rather than related to significant differences
in their internal educational cultures. In Thrupp’s view, “the key solution to the effects of
school mix will be to reduce between-school social class segregation” (p. 185).25
Thrupp also argues that teachers and school leaders in disadvantaged communities
and “failing” urban schools should become advocates for the residents and the
students and that they should “publicly reject the politics of polarization and blame” in
urban schooling, which hold schools individually responsible for supposed “failure.”
From my own experience of researching Catholic secondary schools in the inner-
cities of London, Liverpool and Birmingham (Grace, 2002), I know that the leaders
 Urban Education Theory Revisited 971

of such “failing” schools have a very good understanding of the complex of social
forces working against the schools and they have intelligent suggestions for policy
and action to assist the schools. However, these school leaders while articulate in dis-
cussions with a visiting researcher, are often inhibited from engaging in public advo-
cacy for their schools and communities for a number of reasons.26 These include
potential charges of “special pleading,” “vested interest,” and “being political.” The
irony of the situation is that those who know most about particular challenges in
urban schooling are inhibited from expressing these publicly, while those who know
least, that is, Government ministers and the national and local media achieve maxi-
mum publicity for their accounts. Here is another of the many contradictions of the
urban education situation.27
To protect school leaders and to do justice the complexity of “the failing urban
school,” what is required is the formation of research partnerships between such
schools and education researchers at local colleges and universities. Such partnerships
could produce evidence-based accounts which could be used as a form of public advo-
cacy for the school, not in the sense of special pleading but as a comprehensive and
objective account of the many challenges facing the school. School leaders alone can-
not be expected to do this but school leaders, with research support, could become
powerful advocates for necessary reforms.
Complex hope also involves a commitment to working for wider socio-political and
cultural change in society. What is needed in contemporary Britain for instance is a new
“sociocultural project” which will replace the market individualism of Thatcherism
(unfortunately largely continued under “New Labour”), with a praxis of the common
good and of serious social justice. This thesis has been powerfully argued by Brown and
Lauder (2001) in their contention that:

the great ethical hope at the beginning of the twenty-first century lies in the devel-
opment of social solidarity based on the reflexivity of individuals who recognise
that their quality of life depends on co-operation with others rather than relentless
competition … . (p. 284)

Brown and Lauder point out that among the forces working for change in this direc-
tion, the power of organized women could be crucial. Feminist consciousness provides
an oppositional agenda for “reading the world” and for reconstructing the world.
A similar point is also made by Castells and Ince (2004, p. 75) when he says:

Women have a history and a set of values that involves a higher level of sharing
than men are accustomed to, and this broader, richer and more flexible tradition
would be a major social transformation if it became general.

It could be argued that “those forces within the present” include religious and faith
organizations of all types. Of all existing institutions they have the clearest mission to
transform the ideological legacy of the New Right which has undermined commit-
ments to welfare, social justice, equity and the common good. What the present
historical juncture requires is a remoralization of the culture of politics after decades of
its demoralization in a political culture of dominant material private interests. There are
972 Grace

resources for hope in urban education to be found in counter-cultural statements from

faith communities such as that produced by the Catholic Bishops of England and
Wales in The Common Good in Education (1997)28 and by the Chief Rabbi in Britain,
in The Politics of Hope (2000).29
There are resources for hope in contemporary evidence of relative improvements in
the performance of some inner-city schools in England.30 This evidence of success in
the face of existing circumstances is a realization of what the optimism of the will, of
inner-city teachers, can achieve (although at great personal cost).31 However, its real
significance lies in the recognition that if this is what can be accomplished in exis-
ting circumstances, what might be achieved if these circumstances were radically
changed?
This chapter has used the extensive writings of Manuel Castells on the urban ques-
tion (in all its forms) as a major theoretical framework within which the challenges of
urban education have to be located. However, it may be noted in conclusion that
Castells’ analysis has very little to say about religious and faith communities as bases
for urban social movements working for change in the inner-cities. To supplement this
partial view, students of Urban Education will need to consult other sources such as
Harvey Cox’s, Religion in the Secular City (1984), “a book about the unexpected
return of religion as a potent social force in a world many thought was leaving it
behind” (p. 20) With their emphases upon the common good, as a part of the social
teachings of the major faiths of Christianity, Islam and Judaism, there are other sources
for hope in the city and for hope in urban education. Politics has structured the
contexts for urban education in the past but these major religions and faiths may be
significant in contributing to their restructuring in the future.

Religion, the Secular City and Urban Education

The latest stage in the development of urban theory relevant to urban education issues
is a growing recognition that religion and the existence of faith communities has to be
integral to future scholarship in urban education. A collection of essays with this focus
was published in 1993 under the title, Religion and Ethnicity: minorities and social
change in the Metropolis.32 Various contributors reported research studies which
demonstrated the complex interactions of different faith communities in the construc-
tion of urban social movements and new cultural institutions: relationships with state
provided schooling and relationships with other urban residents (both positive and
negative). In other words, urban education theory has to change to a new intellectual
paradigm that takes faith in the city seriously.33
The limitations of existing perspectives in urban theory have been recognized in a
recent symposium on “The Future of Urban Sociology” (2005). As Saskia Sassen
(2005, p. 353) argues:

the city is once again emerging as a strategic site for understanding some of the
major new trends reconfiguring the social order and hence potentially for produc-
ing critical knowledge not just about cities but about the larger social condition.
 Urban Education Theory Revisited 973

Among those major new trends are the social and educational consequences of a resur-
gent Islam, a changing Judaism, a reformed Catholicism, an active Christian Evangelical
movement and the developing aspirations of Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist communities in
various societies. These constitute new elements in “the larger social condition” and they
have important implications for policy and practice in urban education.
Harvey Cox has argued in Religion in the Secular City (1984, pp. 170–171) that, “if
freedom once required a secular critique of religion, it can also require a religious
critique of the secular.” A religious critique of writings in urban theory and urban
education theory might point out that the existence of religious communities, religious
institutions and religious cultures within major cities is routinely ignored. The analysis
of urban education problems, conflicts and contradictions and of related policy
interventions takes place within a taken-for-granted secular paradigm. This paradigm
limits both a comprehensive analysis of the urban question and the formulation of poli-
cies to improve urban education contexts. Cox (1984) in his critique of the secular city
believed that Liberation Theology had considerable potential to transform urban situ-
ations in the future through the agency of base communities. Base communities are
local groupings of Christians where education, religion, politics and the realities of
local social existence are brought together in shared discussion, prayer and plans for
action. Base communities may demonstrate that religion, far from being “the opium
of the people,” could be an effective agency for the praxis of social and educational
justice in urban settings.
A similar critique has been produced from a Jewish perspective by Jonathan Sacks
in The Politics of Hope (2000). Sacks argues that modern politics have been dominated
by two entities, the state and the market, and:

The shared assumption has been that between them they hold the answer to all
social problems. The right prefers the market. The left prefers the state. Both,
however, have found themselves faced with social problems that have resisted all
attempts at a solution. Among them are rising crime, the breakdown of the fam-
ily, educational underachievement … . (p. xiv)

What this paradigm has forgotten, in Sack’s view, is the importance of what he calls,
“Third Sector institutions.” Third Sector institutions related to family, community and
faith are essential to any strategy for the improvement of urban life, culture and
education. The “Third Sector” realizes itself in concepts of social capital, reciprocal
altruism or communitarianism.
Reflecting on his own educational and social experience in East London, the Chief
Rabbi argues that what is missing in many urban education situations today is the faith
and community support of third sector culture:

As I reflected on how my own family, along with thousands of others like them,
had broken free of the bonds of poverty in a single generation, I came to the con-
clusion that it was because of the strength of those things: family, community and
faith. The Jews of the East End were poor in everything else, but they were rich in
social capital … . Today, when I visit run-down neighbourhoods, I see the same
974 Grace

poverty I remember from my childhood, but with one fateful difference. I see a
poverty of hope. (p. xvii)

Much of the social capital which exists in major cities is to be found still in religious
communities, Christian, Jewish, Islamic etc. Faith-based urban schools can draw upon
these resources of social capital for the benefit of their students. However, if these
resources are only available to the children and youth of particular religious commu-
nities then their contribution to the overall improvement of urban education outcomes
will be limited. A challenge for progressive urban education policies in the future will
be how to find ways of integrating the third sector strengths and resources of various
religious communities into programs for the overall improvement of urban education
in society in general.
The application of a complex hope perspective for future faith related developments
in urban education requires a measure of realism. Faith groups have the potential to be
a positive influence in urban education improvement, if their contribution is handled
with sensitivity. On the other hand, communities with a strong religious identity may
generate increased social divisiveness and conflict.34
Urban education policy in the future must find ways of balancing the legitimate
aspirations of faith communities for particular types of educational experience, with
equally legitimate concerns for greater social solidarity and community cohesion
within metropolitan cities and their schooling systems.

Acknowledgements
I thank the following critical friends for their comments, help and advice. Where I have
taken their advice it has improved the analysis:
Stephen Ball, David Coulby, Sharon Gewirtz, Harvey Goldstein, David Halpin,
Crispin Jones, Norman Lucas, Meg Maguire, Ian Menter, Peter Newsam, Martin
Thrupp and Geoff Whitty.

Notes
1. Important sources at the time included Pahl’s (1975) book, Whose City?: and further essays on Urban
Society and John Rex’s (1973) book, Race, Colonialism and the City.
2. Visiting inner-city schools on a regular basis stimulated my interest in research in urban education.
I subsequently undertook doctoral research under the supervision of Professor Basil Bernstein. This
research was published in 1978 as Teachers, Ideology and Control: A Study in Urban Education.
3. The 1984 Urban Education collection therefore included a chapter by Rachel Sharp, “Urban Education
and the Current Crisis” which argued this thesis using international data.
4. The unprofitability of state provided welfare services was a frequent theme in the critical literature of
the time. However, with the growing privatisation of welfare services in cities in the 1990s the coloni-
sation of these services by corporate interests has begun to change this situation. For one discussion,
see Monbiot (2000).
5. For one treatment of the local state, see Cockburn (1977).
6. Writing in 2004, Castells modified this confident prediction. For this later discussion, see Castells
(2004a, pp. 64–68).
 Urban Education Theory Revisited 975

7. For a good discussion of this, see Gamble (1998).

8. Whitty and Menter (1989, p. 58) argued that the policies of the British government at this time were
class-based and that, “Thatcher’s rhetoric of classlessness is precisely designed to obscure this fact.”
9. ILEA’s initiatives in anti-racist education, stimulated conferences and research projects to engage with
these issues. See, for example, Pumfrey and Verma (1990).
The influence of the ILEA can still be traced today in the work of the Anti-Racist Teacher Education
Network (ARTEN).
10. In “Thatcherism and Education,” Roger Dale (1989) argued that an ideological and political alliance (with
some internal contradictions) had been formed among “industrial trainers,” “old tories,” “populists,”
“moral entrepreneurs” and “privatisers,” which was anti-statist and anti the Welfare State in particular.
11. Quoted in Jones (1991, p. 107).
12. Urban working class schooling in England was accused of “extravagance” in the 1860s and in the
1890s and in both cases expenditure was cut back. See Reeder (1977).
13. ILEA income was derived from a rating system based on property values in London. This meant in
practice that the ILEA received considerable income from the City of London (The corporate centre)
which it was able to redistribute via the Index of Relative School Needs (devised by the Research and
Statistics Department) to schools in poorer areas such as Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Lambeth and
Southwark. In 1980 the ILEA budget was £900 million, £400 million of which came from the City of
London. I am grateful to Sir Peter Newsam, former Education Officer for ILEA for this information.
14. This was dramatically exemplified in the struggles surrounding the closure of Hackney Downs School
in 1995. See O’Connor, Hales, Davies, and Tomlinson (1999).
15. See also my discussion of different forms of pedagogy in urban schooling, Grace (1995).
16. The terms “pessimism of the intellect” and “optimism of the will” were used by the political theorist,
Antonio Gramsci in the early twentieth century to suggest a necessary strategy when facing a difficult
socio-political situation. By pessimism of the intellect, Gramsei was referring to a realistic analysis
and evaluation of a given situation, that is, a readiness to look clearly at what might be a grim and
unpleasant scenario. This would always be a necessary preliminary to any effective action.
However, it was important that this analysis should not have the effect of paralysing subsequent
action because of the scale of the problems revealed. “Optimism of the will” was the socio-political
stance required in attempting to transform the situation.
Wright Mills (1973, p. 9) expressed similar views when he criticised the American social science
texts of his day: “To cry for ‘the constructive program’ and ‘the hopeful note’ is often a sign of inca-
pacity to face facts as they are, even when they are decidedly unpleasant – and it is irrelevant to truth
or falsity and to judgements of proper work in social science.”
17. I have tried to illustrate the tensions between market values and Catholic values, for instance, in Catholic
inner-city schools in London, Liverpool and Birmingham. See Grace (2002). See also Vallely (1998).
18. See, for instance, Faith in the City (1985), The Cities: A Methodist Report (1997), Urban Christ (1997)
and Gospel From the City (1997). A new field of Urban Theology now has to be taken into account in
urban education scholarship. See, Northcott (1998).
19. As Freire (1993, p. 40) put it: “The fundamental issue is politics. It has to do with which content gets
taught, to whom, in favour of what … against whom and how it gets to be taught.”
20. “Apathy” as used here, is a construct of social pathology. What is being referred to is the rational
abstention of inner-city voters from a political process which they believe no longer represents their
interests.
21. It is always possible to show individual “success.” What is needed is cohort analysis of the destinations
of inner-city students.
22. This phrase was used as a political slogan in Britain in the early 1990s but the pedagogy of active cit-
izenship has yet to appear in most urban schools. For an important discussion of education and the
struggle for democracy see Carr and Hartnett (1996).
23. Grace (1994, p. 57).
24. See Grace (2006).
25. A range of possible long-term solutions to this problem is suggested by Thrupp. See pp. 185–196.
26. It is recognised that there are important differences between the UK and the USA contexts in relation
to public advocacy for urban schools.
976 Grace

27. In “Urban Education: Confronting the Contradictions” (2006) I examine the contradictions relating to
power, class, gender, race and literacy.
28. While the education policies of successive British governments have encouraged schools to think of
ways of being individually successful in a market economy for schooling, the Catholic bishops
exhorted them to hold fast to common good values and to values of solidarity and professional
community.
29. “The time has come for a counter-cultural voice to challenge the idols of the age: celebrity, power,
wealth, success and the freedom to do what we like so long as we can pay governments to deal with the
consequences … .” Dr Jonathan Sacks (2000, p. xix).
30. For a recent statement of this evidence from the Schools Standards Minister in Britain, see “Urban
education: lessons from London” (9.2.2005) www.fabian-society.org.uk. For a current statement of
government policy on urban education in London, see The London Challenge (2003).
31. As Meg Maguire and Justin Dillon (2003, p. 117) express it:

Perhaps the most intractable and contradictory dilemma that faces teachers in the inner city is the par-
adox of recognizing the social and material realities in which the school is placed, while at the same
time ensuring that aspirations and expectations are not reduced by these challenges.

32. See especially chapter 3, “The Political Articulation of Community and the Islamisation of Space in
London” and chapter 5, “Schools and Muslim Girls.”
33. Michael Apple (2001, p. 102) argues “one should never underestimate the power of religion in the
United States.” See Grace (2004) for a similar argument in the field of sociology of education.
34. Critics of faith-based urban schools are quick to suggest that this will be the case. However, there is as
yet, no strong research base to support these claims.

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Apple, M. (2001). Educating the “right” way: Markets, standards, god and inequality. New York: Routledge
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51

COMBATING RACISM IN SCHOOLING:

A CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE ON
CONTEMPORARY POLICY AND PRACTICE

David Gillborn
Institute of Education, University of London, U.K.

Introduction
A characteristic of most urban areas is their ethnic and racial diversity.1 In this chapter
I examine how race, and in particular racism, operate in and through contemporary edu-
cation policy and practice. Building on an analysis of both quantitative and qualitative
research in the field, the chapter examines how race inequity has been influenced by
the drive to improve “standards” as measured through the crude results of high stakes
tests. The principal sections of the chapter consider differences in attainment between
different minority groups; the in-school processes that shape minority students’ expe-
riences and achievements; the issue of exclusion (expulsion) from school; and the pos-
sibilities for meaningful anti-racism in contemporary policy and practice. In order to
contextualize these debates, however, it is useful to begin with a brief introduction to
the demographic landscape.

Populations and Problems

A significant and growing number of British residents (around 4.6 million) have com-
munity backgrounds outside the UK: equivalent to around 8% of the total population
in the most recent national census (Office for National Statistics [ONS], 2001). This
figure represents a growth of around 48% between 1991 and 2001. Most minority eth-
nic communities have much younger population profiles than white communities;
consequently it is anticipated that minority ethnic communities will continue to grow
substantially, both in relative and absolute terms, over the next 20 years.2 This will
have a particular consequence for education, where the school population will con-
tinue to include a greater proportion of minority ethnic people than is true of the adult
population. These changes are already well advanced. In 2004 around 15% of second-
ary school pupils (aged between 11 and 16) and 18% of primary pupils (age 5–10)
were classified as having minority ethnic heritage (Department for Education & Skills
979
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 979–1006.
© 2007 Springer.
980 Gillborn

[DfES], 2005a, p. 3). In the cities of London, Birmingham and Leicester it is projected
that by the end of this decade no group will account for 50% or more of the population:
that is, there will be no ethnic majority.
These demographic changes are not restricted to urban centers alone. There are few
parts of the education world that are not directly affected by the multiethnic nature of
society. Official statistics already suggest that only a minority of primary schools
(around 25%), and very few secondary schools (5%), can accurately claim to be “all
white” (Department for Education & Employment [DfEE], 1999, p. 2). Nevertheless,
it remains the case that most minority ethnic students are educated in urban schools
(DfES, 2005b, pp. 8–9).
Against this background of increasing diversity, the English education system cur-
rently faces a series of challenges.3 On one hand, because of legislative changes arising
from the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry (Macpherson, 1999),4 the system now has a legal
duty pro-actively to pursue race equity; on the other hand, the system continues to pro-
duce outcomes that are deeply scarred by systematic race inequities (in, e.g., rates of
permanent exclusion and academic success). In this chapter I review the current state of
race equity in the English education system, consider the conflicting demands upon the
system, and explore the possibilities for meaningful anti-racist change in the future.

Attainment and Under-Achievement

the reality is that some children from all minority ethnic groups achieve highly but
more children from some minority ethnic groups (Chinese, West African, Indian)
achieve higher levels of attainment than is the case for other minority ethnic
groups.
To argue thus is not to indulge in semantics. (John, 2001, p. 3, original emphasis)

The relative attainments of children in different ethnic groups have long dominated
discussion of ethnic diversity in English education. The field has been plagued by
widespread misunderstanding and over-simplification that have sometimes added to
the problems. The notion of “under-achievement,” for example, is widely quoted but
rarely subjected to proper scrutiny. In most current academic and policy treatments,
the term refers to a situation where the attainments of one group are significantly less
than those of the majority ethnic group. This is usually judged by comparing group
averages or the proportion reaching some agreed cut-off point, such as a minimum of
five higher grade GCSE passes.5 These are important measures but they do not tell us
anything about all members of that group: although members of a particular group
might be less likely to attain five higher grades overall, some individuals in that group
will undoubtedly meet and exceed such measures. Too much attention to group meas-
ures can sometimes lead to over-simplification and even stereotyping. Many writers
have argued that the notion of “under-achievement” itself has become yet another
stereotype – as if each individual member of an under-achieving group were destined
for failure.6 Gus John’s argument (quoted above) powerfully identifies how easy it is
for discussion of group differences to lapse into dangerous and racist assumptions. He
argues that if minority ethnic students continue to be presented as one-dimensional
 Combating Racism in Schooling 981

and separate groups, policy “will succeed in projecting ‘ethnic minority’ students as an
undifferentiated mass, pathologically defined, as if the lack of attainment with which
the group as a whole has come to be identified is somehow congenitally determined ”
(John, 2001, p. 3, original emphasis). These warnings are important because the pat-
tern of attainment by minority ethnic students is considerably more complex than is
widely recognized.
First, it is important to note that every ethnic group is capable of the highest achieve-
ment. This statement is not some idyllic dream or ideological commitment, rather it is
a fact documented in official statistics. For each of the principal recorded groups of
color in England (White, Black African, Black Caribbean, Black Other, Indian,
Pakistani, Bangladeshi) statistical data from Local Education Authorities (LEAs)
show that there is at least one part of the country where that group has the greatest pro-
portion of young people attaining five or more higher grade GCSEs (Gillborn &
Mirza, 2000, pp. 8–11). This is a vitally important finding that demolishes any notion
of innate differences between groups and is a forceful reminder of the need to guard
against stereotyping on the basis of broad descriptive statistics.
A second point to remember is that the very definitions and assumptions that shape
official statistics can come to influence the terms of debate and determine policy prior-
ities. Gypsy/Traveller children are frequently absent from considerations of minority
ethnic groups. For example, they are not included in one of the British government’s
most detailed sources of data, the Youth Cohort Study (YCS)(DfEE, 2001a; DfES,
2003a). This is especially worrying because the consensus is that these children are the
group most at risk of educational failure (see, Bhattacharyya, Ison, & Blair, 2003;
Bhopal, Gundra, Jones, & Owen, 2001; Office for Standards in Education [OFSTED],
1999; Plowden, 1967; Swann, 1985). A survey by the schools inspectorate (the Office
for Standards in Education: OFSTED) found that Gypsy/Traveller children were mas-
sively over-represented on the register of children designated as having “special educa-
tional needs” and:

although some make a reasonably promising start in primary school, by the time
they reach secondary school their levels of attainment are almost always a matter
for concern. Many, especially boys, opt out of education by Year 9 [aged 13–14]
and very few go on to achieve success at GCSE or beyond. (OFSTED, 1999, p. 11)

The 2001 Census included a “mixed” category in the question on ethnic origin for the
first time and this has subsequently been adopted in the categories used in the annual
schools census. This is an especially heterogeneous group and there is some contro-
versy about the assumptions behind the label “mixed” (Pheonix & Owen, 2002).
Nevertheless, as more data emerges, it is likely that in the future this category will
begin to feature in relevant debates to a greater extent than was previously the case
(Tikly, Caballero, Haynes, & Hill, 2004).
Nationally discussion of “under-achievement” usually focuses on three principal
minority groups; Black (African Caribbean),7 Bangladeshi and Pakistani children.
Although rates differ from year-to-year and from region-to-region, overall it is clear
that children from these groups tend to achieve less well, on average, than their white
982 Gillborn

peers of the same sex and social class background. This pattern is well established at
the national level and has been found in numerous different surveys. In 2004, 55% of
white 16 year olds attained five or more higher grade (A*–C) passes in their GCSEs.
In contrast, this level was attained by 33% of Black young people, 37% of Pakistanis
and 46% of Bangladeshis. (See Figure 1.)
When considering attainment data it is important to remember that key information
is often absent from official statistics. The information in Figure 1, for example, does
not mention gender nor social class. And yet it is well established that both these factors
are strongly associated with differences in average attainment: on average girls attain-
ment is higher than boys in each of the principal minority groups (Bhattacharyya et al.,
2003, p. 12; Gillborn & Mirza, 2000, pp. 22–25) and boys and girls from non-manual
backgrounds score considerably higher on average than peers from manual households
(Gillborn & Mirza, 2000, pp. 18–21). These factors are vital because, of course, they
each interact. A re-analysis of official data, for example, showed that although girls cat-
egorized as African Caribbean and Bangladeshi/Pakistani were attaining higher on
average than boys in their ethnic groups, their attainment was not only less than white
and Indian girls, but also less than white and Indian boys. In other words, the gender gap
within minority ethnic groups is not enough to close the wider inequities that exist
between different ethnic groups (Gillborn & Mirza, 2000, pp. 25–26). Similarly,
although Black students from non-manual (middle class) households are likely to per-
form better than their Black counterparts in manual households, their attainment is less
than all other non-manual groups (Gillborn & Mirza, 2000, p. 20). It is necessary, there-
fore, to keep in mind the significance of class, ethnic origin and gender: each factor is
important, but none are completely dominant.8 However, the common assertion that
gender and/or class factors “explain” ethnic inequities is demonstrably false.

80%
72%
70%

60%
55%
5+ A*–C GCSE passes

50% 46%

40% 37%
35%

30%

20%

10%

0%
Indian White Bangladeshi Pakistani Black

Figure 1. Attainment and ethnic origin (England & Wales, 2002)

Source: DfES (2005c) Table A.
 Combating Racism in Schooling 983

Education Reform and Changing Patterns of Attainment

Overall rates of success in the GCSE have risen significantly since the examination
was introduced in 1988. Successive governments (both Conservative and Labour) have
used the proportion of students attaining five or more higher grade passes as the dom-
inant measure of “standards” and achievement in the system. Consequently, a great
deal of extra effort has gone into attaining this measure (at both school and LEA lev-
els) and a year-on-year improvement has become the norm for more than a decade.
This raises an important question: have minorities shared equitably in the improving
rates of GCSE success? The best available data suggests that there is considerable
cause for concern.
In late 2000, OFSTED published a new review of evidence on the influence of “race,”
class and gender on educational attainment (Gillborn & Mirza, 2000). Commissioned
as part of OFSTED’s response to The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry (Macpherson, 1999),
and building on an earlier review of “race” research (Gillborn & Gipps, 1996), the
report drew considerable publicity with its claim that substantial inequities of attain-
ment between minority groups were not only persisting but, in some cases, actually
growing:

Indian pupils have made the greatest gains in the last decade: enough to overtake
their white peers as a group.
Bangladeshi pupils have improved significantly but the gap between them-
selves and white youngsters is much the same … .
African-Caribbean and Pakistani pupils have drawn least benefit from the ris-
ing levels of attainment: the gap between them and their white peers is bigger now
than a decade ago. (Gillborn & Mirza, 2000, p. 14)

In apparent contrast to these findings, just a few months later the government
announced new data and trumpeted that “black and Indian students and students from
working class backgrounds have seen their GCSE results rising nearly three times as
much as the national average since 1997” (DfEE, 2001b, p. 1). Predictably the news of
Black students’ improving at such a rate drew great attention and was played up in the
government’s subsequent plans for education reforms (see DfEE, 2001c, p. 14). As
Figure 2 demonstrates, however, the government’s pleasure was short lived. Not only
did the apparent gains look more modest over a longer time period; but subsequent
data showed a further decline for Black students.
Figure 2 charts the changing patterns of GCSE attainment from the late 1980s
through to 2004. The data are drawn from the Youth Cohort Study (YCS). A disadvan-
tage with the YCS is that it reports on a sample of 16 year olds, rather than the whole
cohort. Although the sample is large (more than 14,000 in 2004) it is considerably
smaller than the numbers involved in the Pupil Level Annual Schools Census (PLASC)
which, in 2002, began to gather systematic data on the ethnicity of every child in the
state system. However, at the time of writing the PLASC data are only available for two
cohorts. In contrast, the YCS offers a unique picture of how different ethnic groups have
fared over more than a decade. The YCS data are especially important because they
 984
Gillborn

Percentage gaining five higher grade GCSEs and percentage point difference with the “white” group

1989 1991 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004

% gap % gap % gap % gap % gap % gap % gap % gap % gap

White 30 – 35 – 37 – 43 – 45 – 47 – 50 – 52 – 55 –
Black 18 12 19 16 23 14 21 22 23 22 29 18 39 11 36 16 35 20
Indian na na na na 38
1 45
2 48
3 54
7 60
10 60
8 72
17
Pakistani na na na na 26 11 24 19 23 22 29 18 29 21 40 12 37 18
Bangladeshi na na na na 14 23 20 23 25 20 33 14 29 21 41 11 46 9

Figure 2. Ethnic origin & GCSE attainment

Source: Adapted from DfES. (2005c). Youth Cohort Study: The Activities and Experiences of 16 Year Olds: England and Wales. SFR 04/2005. London: DfES: Table A.
Notes: na  not available: separate calculations were not made for Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi students until the 1992 cohort.
Year  the year of the cohort being questioned: the GCSE examinations were taken in the previous calender year.
Please note: these are the official statistics and include students attending independent schools.
From 1998, the data include those attaining equivalent GNVQ qualifications in Year 11.
 Combating Racism in Schooling 985

offer the only available information on how a nationally representative sample have
fared since the beginning of the major reforms that began with the Education Reform
Act 1988.
The data are generated by a questionnaire sent to a nationally representative sample
of 16–19 year olds. Figure 2 records the proportion of students in each of the main eth-
nic groups who achieved five or more higher grade GCSE passes (or their equivalent)
in the most recent surveys. Alongside the relevant percentage is a calculation of the
“gap” between that group’s attainment and the level for their white peers in the same
survey. Hence, in 1989, 30% of white young people gained five or more higher grade
passes, compared with 18% of Black students: this equates to a “gap,” an inequity, of
12% points.
Only one of the ethnic groups identified by the YCS has enjoyed an improvement in
every one of the surveys: white students. The performance of the other groups has been
less certain, with periods where their attainment in one study remained static or actu-
ally fell below that of the previous survey. These changes could relate to actual fluctu-
ations nationally, but they might also be a product of relatively small changes within
the sample groups. Consequently, it is advisable to treat year-on-year changes with
caution and focus more on the longer term trends. This caution notwithstanding, it is
surely significant that only white students have drawn clear benefit every year since the
main reforms got underway.
The performance of Black students has shown a marked improvement over recent
years. Over the entire period in Figure 2 (1989–2004) the proportion of Black students
attaining at least five higher grades almost doubled (from 18 to 35%). This improve-
ment (of 17% points), however, did not keep pace with white students (whose attain-
ment improved by 25% points over the same period). Despite improvements during the
1990s, therefore, it remains the case that the so-called “Black/white gap” is currently
bigger (at 20% points) than it was more than a decade ago (12% points in 1989). This
comparison, however, does not tell the whole story.
The data in Figure 2 show that the Black/white gap grew considerably during the
early- to mid-90s. This was a period of intense emphasis on raising exam performance
and improving positions in the newly introduced school performance tables (first pub-
lished for secondary schools in 1992). In contrast, surveys in 1998 and 2000 showed a
narrowing of the Black/white gap. Despite the significant gains that received so much
publicity in the 2000 data, figures for 2002 and 2004 showed a fall in the proportion of
Black students attaining five or more higher grade passes, meaning that once again the
inequity of attainment has begun to rise. Notwithstanding the earlier warning (above)
about fluctuations in the YCS figures, it is clear that parity of attainment remains a
long way away: the Black/white inequity in the most recent data is almost as great as
that at any time since the late 1980s.
If anything the pattern of attainment by Pakistani students is even more complex.
Since 1992, the achievements of Pakistani young people have varied considerably:
falling in two consecutive cohorts before showing some important gains more recently.
Overall, between 1992 and 2004, the proportion of Pakistani students attaining five or
more higher grade passes improved by 11% points (from 26 to 37%). This is a signif-
icant increase but is mostly accounted for by gains in the 2002 cohort alone (up from
986 Gillborn

29 to 40%) which were not fully sustained in the next survey. In addition, it should be
noted that the gap between Pakistani students and their white peers, while fluctuating
considerably, was actually at its lowest when data were first gathered separately for this
group, in 1992.
From a very low starting point in 1992, the Bangladeshi group showed quite dra-
matic improvements until the 2000 survey, when their attainment fell below the level
of the previous cohort. However, the upward trend resumed in subsequent surveys and,
overall, Bangladeshi students are now three times more likely to attain five higher
grades than they were in the early 1990s. Nevertheless, Bangladeshi students remain
less likely to achieve five or more higher grades than their white counterparts.
The picture for Indian students is markedly different from the other minority groups
examined above. From a position of virtual equity in 1992, when the YCS first disag-
gregated the composite “South Asian” category, Indian students have improved more
than their white peers. Although the proportion attaining five or more higher grades
remained static between 2000 and 2002, overall Indian students have improved from
38% in 1992 to 72%, an increase of 34% points: more than double the white improve-
ment (15% points) over the same period.
Data on ethnic origin and achievement for the last 15 years or so, therefore, shows
that none of the existing inequities are fixed. Each of the attainment inequities have
varied over time, with the early and mid-1990s being a period of especially pro-
nounced inequity. All groups have enjoyed some improvement over the period but sig-
nificant problems persist. The Black/white gap is almost as great as ever and both
Bangladeshi and Pakistani students have experienced periods of growing inequity.

Changes in Attainment: From Age 5 to 16

The Governments’ use of attainment scores as a crude indicator of “standards” has led
to a significant increase in formal assessment throughout the English education sys-
tem. One consequence of this has been the generation of additional data that offer the
possibility of further inquiry into patterns of attainment as students move through the
compulsory system. It is a mark of the low level of official interest in “race” equity,
however, that relatively few current statistics are available with any meaningful analy-
ses by ethnic origin. In contrast, some local authorities have been gathering ethnically-
based data for more than a decade and such areas now offer the opportunity to examine
the entire range of attainments at different stages in the system (from age 5 to 16).
Data generated in a range of urban authorities suggests that patterns of ethnic
inequity might actually worsen as students go through school (see Gillborn & Mirza,
2000; Richardson & Wood, 1999; Warren & Gillborn, 2003). In particular, Black
(African-Caribbean) students often enter schooling better prepared than their peers, but
their relative attainment falls dramatically as they move through the education system.
These data, from a range of LEAs, suggest that schools add considerably less value for
their Black students. In one large metropolitan LEA in 2000, for example, Black stu-
dents entered primary school (aged 5) attaining an average of 20 points above the local
average in their baseline assessments but their older Black peers were leaving school
(aged 16) attaining 21 points below the LEA average in their GCSEs (See Figure 3).
 Combating Racism in Schooling 987

30

20

Indian
10
White

0 LEA average
Baseline
1 (age 5) Key Stage
2 1 (age 7) Key Stage
3 2 (age 11) Key Stage
4 3 (age 14) Key Stage 4 (age 16)

–10
Pakistani
Bangladeshi
–20
African-Caribbean

–30

–40

–50

Figure 3. Ethnic inequalities: Age 5 to 16 (one metropolitan authority, 2000)

Source: Gillborn & Mirza (2000) Figure 5.

Initially there was no requirement for ethnic monitoring in the assessments of five year
olds: however, national data do confirm that Black Caribbean students, in particular, suf-
fer a marked decline in their attainments relative to white students between the ages of
11 and 16. Nationally, white pupils are more likely to attain the desired level in their Key
Stage 2 English tests (aged 11) than Black Caribbean pupils by a margin of 8% points:
at age 16, however, the gap is more than double at 17% points (DfES, 2003c, p. 9). As the
data in Figure 3 testify, however, there may have already been a dramatic fall in relative
attainment during the primary school years culminating in the Key Stage 2 test results.
Quantitative data, therefore, show that although the situation is by no means fixed,
it is clear that in the high stakes examinations that mark the end of their compulsory
schooling some minority ethnic groups (especially Black students) attain significantly
less well on average than their white peers. Students in all ethnic groups are more
likely to attain higher grade passes than they were before the “standards” drive began
in the late 1980s but they have not benefited to the same degree. Only white students
have enjoyed continual improvement throughout the last 15 years and the Black/white
gap is bigger than it was when the reforms got underway. Worse still, these inequities
seem to grow as students move through the school system. In order to understand some
of the processes that lie behind this picture, it is necessary to draw on qualitative
research that explores the realities of life in urban schools.

School Processes and Institutional Racism

It’s not blatantly there. I mean, you can’t, you wouldn’t be able to just walk in the
school and say “Oh the school’s racist.” You have to take time before you knew that.
(Marcella: a 14 year old African Caribbean student)9
988 Gillborn

Detailed research on life in multi-ethnic schools has revealed a good deal about the
significance of “race” and ethnic identity for students and teachers. In many cases the
influence of ethnicity is quite subtle: in others, the ethnicized nature of interactions is
more obvious. Among the latter are cases where students’ feel themselves the victim of
racial harassment. Unfortunately, despite its often overt form, racist harassment
between students is frequently not recognized by teachers, whose inaction can result in
spiralling conflict (see Connolly, 1998; Gillborn & Gipps, 1996). In an outstanding
study of the school experiences of South Asian students, for example, Ghazala Bhatti
documents aggression from fellow students and notes how teachers’ reactions can play
an active role in shaping further resentments and conflicts. The following episode, for
example, is drawn from Bhatti’s study and begins with her field notes on a classroom
dispute between John (a white boy) and Shakeel (an Asian classmate). As the episode
begins there has already been some conflict between the two:

The atmosphere was getting charged. Miss Paine was busy writing the date on the
blackboard. Lot of general noise in class which sounds incoherent on tape.
Shakeel looking very provoked, shoved the book aside and pushed the chair back.
Lull in noise level.
John: Look at him! Paki Pakora [Latter said in a near whisper but audible to
Shakeel, Asad and me]
Shakeel: I’ll smash your face in, you clown [said very loudly]
AP: [turning around] Right that’s enough. Shakeel leave the class this minute.
Shakeel: But Miss …
AP: Out! Go and stand outside … God these boys!
I wrote in my field notes that Shakeel made a lot of noise collecting things and
putting them in his bag. There was a look of great satisfaction on John’s face.
There was pin-drop silence in the class. (extract from Bhatti, 1999, p. 192)

Ghazala Bhatti accompanies this description with her own reflections on the incident
and explains that the following day three white and three Asian boys were involved in
a fight away from the school: both John and Shakeel took part. Bhatti notes that other
students had been making noise and remarks on her surprise that “Miss Paine did not
keep the quarrelling parties behind to try and ascertain the circumstances which had
led to the incident” neither did she “leave the classroom to explore what had hap-
pened.” Had the teacher sought an explanation from Shakeel, she could have been in a
position to defuse the conflict and to challenge John’s racism. In this case, however,
only one party was disciplined and the dispute was intensified. Additionally, Bhatti
notes, the incident would not have had racist connotations if both boys had been of the
same ethnic origin. But in this example, ethnicity is clearly a key factor. Shakeel is
reacting to racist name calling and the teacher’s decision solely to punish the Asian
student “was racist in its outcome if not in intention” (Bhatti, 1999, p. 192).
This kind of conflict is compounded by some teachers’ reluctance to address racism.
If racist name-calling (or worse still, racist physical violence) goes unpunished by
teachers then witnesses will draw their own conclusions. White students may think that
 Combating Racism in Schooling 989

teachers condone such perspectives and minority ethnic students will rightly question
the school’s commitment to equity and justice. This situation may sound exaggerated
to some (see, e.g., Smith & Tomlinson, 1989, p. 106), but qualitative studies of schools
suggest that racial harassment is a regular (for some a daily) occurrence. The names
shouted across classrooms, the student tripped on the corridor, the graffiti on the wall:
all of these are forms of racist abuse that have been seen to go unpunished in some
schools.
Following the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, the Home Office issued a new code of prac-
tice on reporting racist incidents. The document recommended the following definition:

A racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any
other person … The purpose of this definition is not to pre-judge whether a per-
petrator’s motive was racist or not: that may have to be proved … rather (it is) to
ensure that investigations take account of the possibility of a racist dimension to
the incident and that statistics of such incidents are collected on a uniform basis.
(Home Office Code of Practice on Reporting and Recording Racist Incidents,
quoted in London Borough of Lambeth nd, p. 16)

Such an approach does not prejudge the guilt of any party: rather it emphasizes the
importance of people’s perceptions; insists that racism be recorded wherever a partic-
ipant experiences it; and adds to the impetus for a serious investigation and subsequent
action. Too often, racist incidents (especially racist name calling) have been denied
significance by white people who have failed to understand the meaning of such
assaults. Twenty years ago an official inquiry, the Swann Report (1985), complained of
this approach and it is still in evidence: the following quotations, for example, are
taken from a study of white teachers’ views (Kemp & Gillborn, 2000) questioned up to
a year after the publication of the Stephen Lawrence report – a period where there had
been a great deal of public debate about more subtle and extensive forms of racism:

I haven’t seen any instance of what I would call a serious racist incident. I’ve
heard silly name-calling. I suppose it’s got to be taken seriously, but within rea-
son: kids do call each other names, to start panicking and saying “it’s terrible, it’s
being racist” is just not the case. (White primary school teacher)
Occasionally they’ll name call but they won’t do it in a racist way any more than
they’ll say “you’re fat” or “you’ve got glasses.” (White primary school teacher)
The other day a boy called a teacher racist and I said “We’re not allowing you
to use your colour as an excuse” and he admitted it … it was his cop out. (White
secondary school teacher)
… their first line of defence is that, “Oh, the teacher’s racist” … it’s an easy
cop-out. (White secondary school teacher)

These quotations are significant for several reasons. First, they suggest that even post-
Lawrence, some teachers remain unwilling to take seriously accusations of racism or
incidents where racism is clearly in play. The primary teacher who views racist name
calling as “silly” rather than “serious” not only runs counter to current official advice
990 Gillborn

on such matters (see above) they also show less awareness of the realities of racism
than the white primary school perpetrator quoted in research by Barry Troyna and
Richard Hatcher:

like if I call someone “Dickhead” it doesn’t really hurt them, but if I call someone
a “black bastard,” something like that, it would hurt them. (Gillian, white primary
student quoted in Troyna & Hatcher, 1992, p. 168)

The secondary teachers’ comments are also significant. They evidence a common fear
among white teachers that minority ethnic students will use the notion of racism as a
weapon to make spurious accusations and deflect criticism. This is an important concern
and one that anti-racist institutions must work through seriously (see Bonnett, 2000;
Gillborn, 1995). To simply deny the possibility that the student has a genuine grievance,
however, is not only disrespectful, but also refuses any possibility of engagement and,
effectively, rejects the case for anti-racism. It is a position that is untenable in contempo-
rary education. In many ways this kind of rejection trades on an assumption (common
among many white people) that “racism” is crude and obvious; seen in violent attacks or
the language of neo-Nazi political parties. But the thrust of many contemporary critiques
(and increasingly a view enshrined in formal equity legislation in Britain) is that racism
can actually be much more subtle and even unintended. This is the position underlying
the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry report’s definition of “institutional racism”:

The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and profes-

sional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be
seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimi-
nation through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereo-
typing which disadvantage minority ethnic people. (Macpherson, 1999, p. 28)

This definition is highly relevant to education because research has increasingly

revealed numerous ways in which teachers’ assumptions (e.g., about behavior, “abi-
lity” and motivation) can operate to the disadvantage of particular minority ethnic
groups. Research, in both the US and UK (and for at least two decades), has shown
consistently that when teachers are asked to judge the relative ability, motivation and
behavior of their students, it is likely that Black students will be systematically disad-
vantaged. Black students are typically under-represented in high status teaching
groups (Hallam, 2002; Hallam & Toutounji, 1996; Oakes, 1990; Sukhnandan & Lee,
1998). In some cases, teachers’ differential expectations mean that Black students are
placed lower than white counterparts with inferior test scores (see Wright, 1986).
Additionally, Black students are over-represented in low status groups, a factor that
artificially lowers their attainment because grouping students according to teachers’
expectations creates institutional barriers to success. Lower ranked groups frequently
receive a more limited curriculum, which has a cumulative effect as students move
through school (Plewis, 1996).
A further area of disadvantage relates to differences within the dominant examina-
tion itself, the GCSE. Most GCSE examinations are now “tiered,” meaning that teachers
 Combating Racism in Schooling 991

have to enter students into two separate hierarchically-ordered question papers for
which only a limited range of grades are available. Students can only attain the highest
pass grades if they are entered in the top tier; but Black students tend to be under-
represented in this level (Gillborn & Youdell, 2000; Qualifications & Curriculum
Authority, 2000). Worse still, the system of tiering in mathematics includes an addi-
tional tier, with the effect that students entered in the lowest tier can only attain a grade
D at the very best: this despite the fact that D and below are commonly seen as failures
in the job market and in competition for places in further and higher education.
Research in two London secondary schools found that two thirds of Black students
were placed in the lowest of three tiers for mathematics (Gillborn & Youdell, 2000).
Consequently, in one of the most important core subjects, two in every three Black stu-
dents had been denied the opportunity of attaining a higher pass grade before they had
even seen the question paper.
For South Asian students, there is evidence that language needs are frequently misin-
terpreted, leading to stereotyping and the denial of learning opportunities. There is often
a failure to distinguish between language needs and learning difficulties. This can lead
to students with English as an Additional Language (EAL) being defined as having spe-
cial educational needs (SEN) and then being passed over for subsequent opportunities
because of issues related to teacher expectations, curriculum coverage and examination
attainment (Cline & Shamsi, 2000; Gillborn & Youdell, 2000; Hallam & Toutounji,
1996; Troyna & Siraj-Blatchford, 1993).

Exclusions from School

In March 2002 around 2,000 Black parents, teachers and community members attended
a high profile conference focusing on the education of Black children in London.
Subsequently described as “a landmark and historic event in the life of London’s
African and Caribbean communities” (Livingstone, 2003, p. 1) the conference was
organized by Diane Abbott, one of the few Black members of the British Parliament.
Attendees were asked to complete a questionnaire on relevant issues and one of the
most striking findings was the priority accorded to pupil exclusions.10 This was the sin-
gle most commonly cited problem: more than a third of respondents (37%) described
exclusions as the “most important” educational issue for Black people. Uniquely
among the various problems highlighted, in every group of participants (parents, stu-
dents, governors, teachers, local authority officers, and community workers/activists) at
least 30% of respondents described exclusions as the most important problem: the
figure was highest (45%) among community workers and activists (Greater London
Authority, 2003, p. 50).
This is a high profile and long-established problem. Black students have tended to
be over-represented in permanent exclusions (expulsions) whenever relevant data have
been broken down by ethnicity. In the mid 1980s, for example, “Afro-Caribbean” stu-
dents accounted for 14% of London school children but made up more than 30% of all
exclusions in the capital (Times Educational Supplement, September 9, 1988). This
problem became even more pressing during the 1990s when the overall number of
992 Gillborn

exclusions increased dramatically: the figure for 1995/1996 was 12,476: four times the
number recorded at the start of the decade (Gillborn, 1998, p. 11). In the mid 1990s
new data, based on Ofsted inspections, suggested that nationally Black Caribbean chil-
dren were excluded from secondary schools at almost six-times the rate for white stu-
dents (Gillborn & Gipps, 1996, p. 53). It was calculated that this meant around 1,000
additional and potentially unjust Black expulsions every year (Gillborn, 1998, p. 13).
In 1998, the first report of the newly created Social Exclusion Unit focused on
exclusions and truancy from school. The unit’s recommendations were taken up by
Government and committed Labour to a major reduction in the number of permanent
exclusions: a drop of a third by 2002 (Social Exclusion Unit [SEU], 1998). Based on
the peak of around 12,700 exclusions in 1996/1997, the target was set at 8,400 by
2002. The Government abandoned this target, in 2001, arguing that the reduction had
all but been achieved (at 8,600 in 1999/2000) and that no new targets were necessary
(DfES, 2001): an announcement that seemed designed to placate a right-wing media
that was keen to present a reduction in exclusions as equivalent to lowering standards
of discipline. Perhaps predictably, the following two years saw a rise in the number of
students being permanently excluded (DfES, 2003b, Table 1).
It is important to remember that the official statistics on permanent exclusions are
only part of the story. Indeed, there are indications that “unofficial exclusions,” which
evade official recording, are becoming increasingly common (Osler, Watling, Busher,
Cole, & White, 2001). We should also remember that the growth in alternative provi-
sion, including the use of referrals to “Pupil Support Units,” will have helped reduce
the official numbers but do not guarantee students access to the mainstream curricu-
lum. Additionally, Black parents’ groups have raised concerns about “internal exclu-
sion,” where students may be repeatedly removed from class: again, a form of
exclusion from equal access to schooling but not a form of exclusion that shows up in
official data. With these warnings in mind, the official statistics on ethnicity and exclu-
sion are summarized in Figure 4.
Figure 4 shows the recorded levels of permanent exclusion since the overall peak in
1996/1997. The columns show the number of students in each group formally recorded
as having been permanently excluded. The percentage column shows that number of
students as a percentage of their ethnic group in school; hence, the figure of 0.06
Bangladeshis in 2002/2003 represents six students in every 10,000, and 0.37 for Black
Caribbean students represents 37 in every 10,000.
The first thing to note is the complexity of the statistics. The number of white pupils
recorded as permanently excluded declined each year between 1996/1997 and the
overall low of 1999/2000, but then rose in each of the next two years. In contrast,
the number of Black Caribbean pupils excluded barely changed in the first year of the
overall decline, but (having begun to fall more rapidly) then continued to decline even
in 2000/2001 when overall numbers began to rise once again. Indian students had the
least chance of being excluded (as a percentage of their numbers in the school popula-
tion) throughout the entire period in question: but the number (and proportion) of
Indians excluded actually rose in 1997/1998 just as overall rates began to fall. The
exclusion rate for Bangladeshi students has been volatile throughout the period;
including a rise in 1999/2000 (the third successive year of overall reductions), a fall in
Ethnic 1996/1997 1997/1998 1998/1999 1999/2000 2000/2001 2001/2002 2002/2003

Origin N % N % N % N % N % N % N %

White 10,555 0.18 10,303 0.18 8,801 0.15 6,890 0.12 7,574 0.13 7,820 0.13 6,800 0.12
Bl. Caribbean 770 0.78 765 0.77 589 0.60 455 0.46 385 0.38 410 0.41 360 0.37
Bl. African 200 0.31 203 0.30 157 0.21 145 0.17 156 0.17 160 0.15 130 0.12
Bl. Other 334 0.71 287 0.58 268 0.50 218 0.37 236 0.39 220 0.35 90 0.32
Indian 91 0.06 116 0.07 71 0.04 54 0.03 47 0.03 60 0.03 50 0.03
Pakistani 286 0.18 218 0.13 165 0.10 129 0.07 113 0.06 170 0.09 130 0.08
Bangladeshi 60 0.10 60 0.10 42 0.07 53 0.08 44 0.07 80 0.11 40 0.06

TOTAL 12,668 12,298 10,424 8,314 9,122 9,519 9,270

(includes some groups not shown separately above)

Figure 4. Ethnic origin and permanent exclusions from school (England, 1996/1997 to 2002/2003)
Sources: For 1996/1997–2000/2001.
Department for Education & Skills (2002). Statistics of Education: Permanent Exclusions from Maintained Schools in England. London: DfES. Table 4.
Thereafter
Department for Education & Skills (2003). Permanent Exclusions from Schools and Exclusion Appeals, England 2001/2002 (provisional). London: DfES, Table 2.
Department for Education & Skills (2004). Permanent Exclusions from Maintained Schools in England, 2002/2003. SFR 42/2004. London: DfES, Table 4.
Notes: N  number of pupils permanently excluded.
%  number of pupils excluded in that ethnic group expressed as a percentage of that ethnic group in compulsory schooling.
Combating Racism in Schooling
993
994 Gillborn

2000/2001 (when the overall rate started to rise), and a steep increase (of more than
80%) in 2001/2002.
In view of the limitations of the official statistics, and the volatility of figures for
minority ethnic groups, it is necessary to be cautious about interpreting these data.
Overall, it appears that students in each of the principal ethnic groups shared to some
degree in the overall reduction that occurred between 1996/1997 and 1999/2000 inclu-
sive. However, taking a longer term view (over the whole period detailed in Figure 4)
a more varied picture emerges. Comparing the numbers excluded at the start and end
of this seven year period, and disregarding the “Black Other” composite group,11 the
greatest proportionate reduction was experienced by Pakistani students (down around
55% on the 1996/1997 high). Students recorded as Black Caribbean (53%), Indian
(45%) and Black African (35%) also experienced a greater proportionate decrease
than the 36% enjoyed by their white counterparts.
When we focus on the likelihood of exclusion within each ethnic group some more
consistent patterns begin to emerge. Students of “South Asian” ethnic heritage, for
example, have almost always been less likely to be excluded (as a percentage of their
ethnic group) than their white and Black counterparts.12 In contrast, Black students
(those categorized as Black Caribbean, Black African or Black Other) have almost
always been more likely to be excluded than their white counterparts: a pattern that is
true in every year and for each of the Black groups (with the lone exception of Black
African students in 2002/2003, when their rate of exclusion was the same as their
white peers).
The “mixed” ethnic group (discussed earlier) does not yet feature in official statistics
on permanent exclusion. Additionally, there are no national data on the use of short
“fixed term” exclusions (or “suspensions” as they are sometimes also known): when
students are barred from a school for a fixed amount of time. However, recently pub-
lished data on Birmingham (one of Britain’s largest and most ethnically diverse LEAs)
does not make comfortable reading. Figure 5 details the use of fixed term exclusions in

Primary Secondary Special

Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys All fixed School

(%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) term (%) pop. (%)

Af. Caribbean 15.4 18.5 30.2 20.4 5.0 8.4 21.3 6.9
Bangladeshi 0.0 1.3 1.5 3.3 0.0 1.6 2.4 3.8
Indian 0.0 3.1 2.9 2.6 0.0 0.0 2.6 6.5
Mixed Race 12.8 17.6 12.7 12.2 15.0 20.4 13.6 4.3
Pakistani 1.3 7.0 6.4 13.2 10.0 14.1 10.6 17.9
White 67.9 51.5 45.0 46.2 65.0 53.9 47.7 56.5
Other 2.6 1.0 1.3 2.2 5.0 1.6 1.8 4.1

N 78 874 907 2693 20 191 4763

Figure 5. Fixed term exclusions by ethnic origin & gender in primary, secondary & special schools,
Birmingham 1999–2000
Note: because of rounding, percentages may not always equal 100.
 Combating Racism in Schooling 995

Birmingham schools broken down by ethnic origin, gender, and type of school.
“African Caribbean” students (a composite of the main “Black” groups) and “Mixed
Race” students account for a disproportionately high number of fixed term exclusions:
a pattern that is true regardless of gender and type of school. Overall, African Caribbean
and Mixed Race students accounted for more than three times the number of fixed term
exclusions predicted by their representation in the local school population.
The over-representation of Black students in the numbers excluded from school is a
topic that generates considerable debate and controversy. There is insufficient space
here to explore all the relevant factors: nevertheless, in view of this chapter’s focus on
the interaction between policy and equity at the school level, the single most important
fact may be that there is growing evidence that the over-representation is the result of
harsher treatment by schools rather than simple differences in behavior by students.
Twice in recent years the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED: the independ-
ent schools inspectorate) has published special inspections concerning discipline and
exclusions from school. In both cases they have found evidence that Black students are
treated somewhat more harshly than their peers of other ethnic origins. In the mid
1990s inspectors found that the profile of “Caribbean” excludees was significantly
different to that of other excludees: with the former judged of higher prior attainment
and having less pronounced histories of disruption (OFSTED, 1996, p. 11). More
recently, Ofsted reported that “many black pupils who find themselves subject to dis-
ciplinary procedures perceive themselves to have been unfairly treated”: inspectors
noted that “the lengths of fixed-period exclusions [suspensions] varied considerably in
some schools between black and white pupils for what were described as the same or
similar incidents” (OFSTED, 2001, p. 23). These comments must be read within a con-
text where Ofsted has, itself, been criticized for failing to take a sufficiently active role
in debates on race equity (Osler & Morrison, 2000). Indeed, a research report funded
and published by the Department for Education & Skills has noted that “Ofsted school
inspections rarely comment on disproportionality in exclusions” (Parsons et al., 2004,
p. 1). The report noted that even where evidence of over-representation was contained
within reports, it usually went unremarked:

None of the seven Ofsted inspection reports published on secondary schools [in the
sample] commented on disproportionality of minority ethnic exclusions, which was
evident in the tables published in six of them. (Parsons et al., 2004, p. 50)

Once again, these official reports lend substance to several qualitative research studies
that have suggested that Black students receive systematically harsher treatment, not
through any conscious conspiracy to discriminate, but through the actions of teachers
who tend to perceive a greater threat in their Black students (e.g., see Blair, 2001a,
2001b; Parekh et al., 2000; Sewell, 1998; Wright, Weekes, & McGlaughlin, 2000).
In relation to attainment in high stakes tests and in exclusion from school, therefore,
the best available evidence demonstrates first, that considerable race inequities con-
tinue to scar the English educational system. Second, the school system and education
policy appear to be actively implicated in the process that sustain, and in some cases
extend, race inequity. Some of the processes can appear subtle, for example, teachers’
996 Gillborn

differential expectations and the cumulative effects of internal selection within schools.
But their effects can be gross, including the fact that Black children are disproportion-
ately removed from the mainstream system altogether (via expulsion) and refused the
chance even to enter examinations that could offer the highest possible grades. Having
mapped some of the major areas of inequity, the following section considers the
prospects for improvement in the near future.

Racism and Anti-Racism: Policy and Practice

The terms “multiculturalism” and “anti-racism” tend to be used somewhat more specifi-
cally in the British literature than elsewhere. Whereas scholars in the US, for example,
have used the former term to cover a very wide range of approaches (for an excellent
summary see Banks, 2004), in Britain multiculturalism has often been defined negatively
in contrast to a more radical critique offered by theorists and activists under the head-
ing of “anti-racism.” Such critiques portray multiculturalism as a liberal facade that
deflects deeper criticism by attending to superficial matters of “celebrating diversity”
and making limited token (often patronizing) curricular changes. Similar criticisms
have been made in Canada and are becoming increasingly prominent in the US litera-
ture where the notion of critical multiculturalism, and in particular the adoption of
Critical Race Theory, has much in common with anti-racist theory elsewhere (see
Carrim & Soudien, 1999; Dei, 1996, 1999; Figueroa, 1999; Gillborn, 2000, 2006;
Goldberg, 1994; Ladson-Billings, 1998; May, 1999; Nieto, 1999; Troyna, 1993).
Until recently “anti-racism” inhabited a role outside the political mainstream in
Britain. Its proponents included prominent politicians in local authorities, education-
ists and community activists, but national policymakers fought shy of the term, which
was popularly equated with extreme radicalism (see Gillborn, 1995; Sivanandan,
1990).13 Anti-racism was especially vilified during the 1980s and 1990s.
Writing about the public assault on anti-racism in the 1980s (by politicians, media
and right-wing academics), one of the foremost anti-racist writers in Britain noted how
the hysteria that was generated acted to:

still the voices of those, like myself, who tried to say that there was no body of
thought called anti-racism, no orthodoxy or dogma, no manual of strategy and tac-
tics, no demonology. What there was in our society was racism, in every walk of
life, and it had to be combated – in every conceivable way. And because racism
was hydra-headed, and reared its different heads in different ways in different
times … the ways of combating racism were also legion. (Sivanandan, 1990, p. 147)

The popular demonization of anti-racist education was lent further impetus by media
distortions of an inquiry into the racist murder of an Asian student, Ahmed Iqbal Ullah,
stabbed to death at Burnage High School, Manchester, by a white peer (Macdonald,
Bhavnani, Khan, & John, 1989). Sections of the press represented the inquiry’s find-
ings as an indictment of anti-racism in its totality – according to one national newspa-
per, the “Anti-racist policy led to killing.” This is a gross distortion of the report which,
in fact, argued strongly in favor of anti-racism as an essential component in the work
 Combating Racism in Schooling 997

of all schools. The inquiry team were, however, scathing in their criticism of the par-
ticular form of “symbolic, moral and doctrinaire anti-racism” that had been practiced
in Burnage. Among the defining characteristics of “symbolic anti-racism” are:
● an essentialist and reductive approach to race: color is assumed always to be the
most important feature of a person/community – overriding other issues such as
social class, gender, age, sexuality, disability, size, etc.
● an assumption of white racism: racism is defined as a “whites only” problem and
all whites are automatically assumed to be directly implicated in racism and racist
structures.
● a Black/white worldview: “Blacks” are cast as powerless victims and differences
within and between minority communities are denied relevance.
While offering no detailed blueprint for a more complex version of anti-racism, the
Burnage report’s attack on “symbolic, moral and doctrinaire” approaches offered an impor-
tant basis for more reflexive and nuanced approaches (see, e.g., Carrim, 1995; Dadzie,
2000; Gillborn, 2000). Unfortunately, it took yet another racist murder (that of Stephen
Lawrence), to prompt official bodies to reconsider their assumptions about anti-racism.
On its publication, in February 1999, the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report
(Macpherson, 1999) sent shock waves through Britain with its meticulous account of
the bungled police investigation and its conclusion that:

racism, institutional or otherwise, is not the prerogative of the Police Service. It is

clear that other agencies including for example those dealing with housing and
education also suffer from the disease. (Macpherson, 1999, p. 33)

One of the most significant aspects of the report concerned an attempt to move beyond
the superficial and extreme notion of racism that had previously characterized policy
debate (in education and beyond). Pre-Lawrence public authorities and commentators
tended to work with a view of racism as encompassing only the more obvious and
deliberate forms of race hatred: as if “racism is restricted to a few ‘rotten apples’ in
a basket that is basically sound” (Rizvi, 1993, p. 7, after Henriques, 1984, p. 62).
Remarkably, for a report that began with a racist murder (surely the most crude and
vicious form of racism), the Lawrence Inquiry insisted on a broad reworking of the
term “institutional racism” (noted above), that explicitly included unintended and
thoughtless acts that have the effect of discriminating regardless of their intent.
Needless to say, this definition has been subject to endless scrutiny and debate. It is
by no means a simple paraphrasing of previous approaches and it is not without its
problems. Nevertheless, one thing that is common to this perspective and longer estab-
lished definitions, is its fundamental challenge to complacency about the realities of
contemporary racial politics and inequities. As Stokely Carmichael and Charles V.
Hamilton observed more than 30 years ago, institutional racism:

is less overt, far more subtle, less identifiable in terms of specific individuals
committing the acts. But it is no less destructive of human life. [It] originates in
the operation of established and respected forces in the society, and thus receives
998 Gillborn

far less public condemnation … . (Carmichael & Hamilton, 1967 original empha-
sis, reprinted in Cashmore & Jennings, 2001, p. 112.)

Speaking in Parliament on the day of publication, the Prime Minister Tony Blair,
hailed the Lawrence inquiry as a turning point in British political life:

The publication of today’s report on the killing of Stephen Lawrence is a very

important moment in the life of our country. It is a moment to reflect, to learn and
to change. It will certainly lead to new laws but, more than that, it must lead to
new attitudes, to a new era in race relations, and to a new more tolerant and more
inclusive Britain. (Hansard, February 24, 1999, column 380)

As promised the report has led to new laws, most notably the Race Relations
(Amendment) Act 2000. This law extended the existing race equity legislation and
covered more than 45,000 public bodies in England and Wales (Commission for Racial
Equality, 2002a). One of the most significant changes was the requirement that public
bodies take positive action to promote race equity. Certain specific requirements were
made of particular services: in education, every state maintained school in England
and Wales is now required to:
● have a written race equality policy;
● monitor its activities for any sign of bias (especially in relation to student attain-
ment); and
● draw up action plans to eliminate racial inequality. (Commission for Racial
Equality, 2002b)
On paper this is some of the toughest equalities legislation anywhere on Earth and the
Act undoubtedly lends a great deal of weight to those communities, practitioners and
academics arguing for more anti-racist developments in education. In practice, however,
the immediate impact of the legislation appears to be much less radical than might have
been supposed. An initial report on rates of compliance in different parts of the public
sector, for example, paints a particularly discouraging picture in relation to education.
In a survey of more than 3,000 public authorities, schools were the least likely to
reply. Overall, a response rate of 47% was achieved, but the rate for schools (20%) was
less than half of this (Schneider-Ross, 2003, p. 5). Clearly a low response rate could
indicate many things: for example, schools may simply be too busy to reply to ques-
tionnaires or, less charitably, a low response rate might suggest that they are less secure
in their race equity work. But all this is speculation: it is reasonable to suppose, how-
ever, that the schools that did respond might include a relatively high proportion of
those that view race equity seriously. If this is the case, then the survey’s results sug-
gest several causes for concern.
First, the report singles out education as an area where a high proportion of returns
consistently failed to identify meaningful outcomes in their plans:

There is a great deal of variation between sectors – with over half of respondents
from the education sector, for example, having not identified outcomes under
 Combating Racism in Schooling 999

most headings. There is clearly a need for organisations to articulate more directly
what they are aiming to achieve – within a concrete timetable. (Schneider-Ross,
2003, p. 6)

As noted earlier, in relation to education the new legislation gives particular priority to
levels of attainment in high stakes tests. Despite this, the survey revealed that in each
part of the education sector a majority of respondents had not adequately identified
outcomes that they wished to achieve. The best results were from further education
institutions (where 42% set clear targets), then higher education (38%) and finally,
schools (36%) (Schneider-Ross, 2003, p. 11).
Second, schools were among the least positive respondents when assessing the
impact of their race equity policies to date. Roughly two in every three schools that
responded (65%) said that the changes had already produced some positive outcomes:
this compares poorly with almost all other bodies, including central government
(89%), further and higher education (80%), criminal justice and policing (74%) and
local government (68%). Only one sector, health (62%), was less positive than schools
(Schneider-Ross, 2003, p. 8).
Third, and perhaps most worrying of all, schools were unlikely to report any per-
ceived need for greater support in developing their race equity work in the future:

The stated need for more guidance does not always correlate with sectors
in which least progress had been made. This suggests that both the CRE [Commi-
ssion for Racial Equality] and sector based bodies have a role in targeting aware-
ness campaigns. (Schools for example, were least likely to express a need for
further guidance – despite having made less progress in many cases). (Schneider-
Ross, 2003, p. 13)

The lack of progress in this field is especially frustrating because there is no shortage of
clear guidance on how schools can move forward. The schools inspectorate, for example,
has published two separate reports discussing examples of primary (OFSTED, 2002a) and
secondary schools (OFSTED, 2002b) that are especially effective for African Caribbean
students. Indeed, a wide range of research has identified a number of approaches that sup-
port high achievement for all groups and help to counter racism in schools:
● strong leadership on equal opportunities and social justice (from the local author-
ity and the head teacher in particular);
● seeking and using the perspectives of students and parents;
● designing and enacting clear procedures for recording and acting on racist incidents;
● generating and sustaining an ethos that is open and vigilant, which enables pupils
to discuss “race” issues and share concerns;
● developing and communicating high expectations accompanied by a clear view
that under-performance by any group is unacceptable;
● reviewing curricular and pastoral approaches to ensure their sensitivity and appro-
priateness;
● using ethnic monitoring as a routine and rigorous part of the school’s self evalua-
tion and management.14
1000 Gillborn

Advancing race equity in schools is not rocket science. Experience in the English sys-
tem clearly demonstrates, however, that being able to identify “good practice,” and
even passing laws to require monitoring and target-setting, are not sufficient. The key
ingredient would appear to be the political will to face up to such a complex and polit-
ically charged set of issues: to date, this has apparently been too much for the majority
of head teachers and politicians (locally and nationally) regardless of their political
allegiances.

Conclusion
The future prospects for the development of a more just and anti-racist education in
Britain are somewhat mixed. On one hand, the Lawrence Inquiry has helped to drive
forward a radical critique of institutional racism that goes beyond any previous
approaches that have received mainstream support. Simultaneously, legislative
changes have made public authorities (including all state maintained schools) legally
answerable for race inequity and established a series of requirements that provide a
powerful framework for placing anti-racism on the agenda of all schools and local edu-
cation authorities. These developments have considerable potential to make race
equity a genuinely “mainstream” concern. On the other hand, however, the rhetoric of
public figures and the good intentions of new legislation have yet to make any mean-
ingful and consistent impact on the brutal realities of racist inequity experienced by
many students. The central tenets of education policy continue to be driven by a top-
down reformist agenda that prioritizes crude and regressive notions of “standards”
above any serious attempt to reduce inequity and improve social inclusion. The drive
to produce “results” that will look good in the formal school performance tables con-
tinues to distort school curricula; selection within schools continues to spread (to more
parts of the curriculum and throughout the entire compulsory age range); inequities in
attainment remain significant, in some cases they are worse than a decade ago; and
Black children remain significantly more likely to be excluded from mainstream
schooling altogether. Overall, the lesson to be learnt appears to be that in the absence
of a thorough critique of the processes that support race inequity, and despite inclusive
rhetoric from politicians, in reality racism and race inequity are left largely unchal-
lenged, and even strengthened, through contemporary policy moves to raise standards
through accountability measures that trade on results in high stakes tests.

Acknowledgements
This chapter is an expanded and up-dated version of a paper previously prepared for
the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and Sage Race Relations Abstracts. The chap-
ter has benefited (directly and indirectly) from the input of numerous friends and col-
leagues; in particular Michael W. Apple, Stephen J. Ball, James A. Banks, Carol
Campbell, Nazir Carrim, Samidha Garg, Dorn Gillborn, Zeus Leonardo, Sophie
Kemp, Alison Kirton, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Marie Lall, Richard Majors, Heidi
 Combating Racism in Schooling 1001

Safia Mirza, Tariq Modood, Nicola Rollock, Ed Taylor, Carol Vincent, Simon Warren,
Geoff Whitty and Deborah Youdell.

Notes
1. There is no such thing as “race” in the strict biological sense of significantly different sub-species of
homo sapiens. The groups that are commonly known as “races” are viewed differently at different time
points and between different contemporary societies. However, the idea of race remains a powerful
social construct that requires constant interrogation. It is in this sense, sometimes called “social race,”
that the term is used in this chapter.
2. Around 16% of white people are aged 65 or over, compared with approximately 3% of Africans,
Bangladeshis and Pakistanis. Conversely, it is estimated that 20% of whites are less than 16 years old,
compared with 43% of Bangladeshis, 35% of Pakistanis and 32% of Africans (Parekh et al., 2000,
p. 375). It is officially estimated that people of minority ethnic heritage will account for around half
the growth in the working age population between 1999 and 2009 (Cabinet Office, 2003, p. 4).
3. A limited form of devolution within the United Kingdom means that although a single British Parliament
resides in Westminster, certain powers (including those to determine the curriculum and education regu-
lations) are now held separately in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. In this chapter I focus
specifically on the situation in England: there are several reasons for this. First, the largest proportion of
Britain”s minority population reside in England. There are significant demographic and historical differ-
ences between the minority populations of different parts of the UK and, in a chapter of this length, it
makes sense to deal with one country in detail, rather than merely skim across several. Second, and most
important, the majority of relevant research has been conducted in English schools. This means that we
know a good deal more about how race and racism operate in the English system.
4. Stephen Lawrence, an 18 year old Black college student, was stabbed to death by a group of white
youths on a London street in April 1993. Following a prolonged campaign for justice, led by his par-
ents Doreen and Neville Lawrence, in 1997 an official inquiry was launched into the murder and the
failed police investigation. The inquiry reported in 1999 (Macpherson, 1999).
5. The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is the most common examination at the end
of compulsory schooling in England. The following grades can be awarded: A*, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, U.
With the exception of U (ungraded), all other grades are considered to be “passes” but grades A*–C
are described as “higher pass grades.” The latter are usually given preference in competition for entry
to professional training and higher education.
6. For this reason I prefer to talk of inequities in attainment rather than “under-achievement.” This has the
advantage of accurately describing the situation while avoiding the common misconceptions linked to
“under-achievement” (see Bhattacharyya et al., 2003; Gillborn & Mirza, 2000; Wright, 1987).
7. In this chapter I use the word “Black” to refer to those children with family heritages in Africa and/or
the Caribbean. There is no universally agreed protocol on the use of such terms but this approach does
at least have the advantage of reflecting the preferred self-identification of many of the people so
labelled.
8. The government has recently begun to release data broken down by ethnic origin and receipt of Free
School Meals (FSM). It should be remembered, however, that FSM is only a crude proxy for social
class. Receipt of FSM is an indicator of family poverty but there are very many working class children
who do not receive FSM. This is important when considering such data because the great variety of
experience within different groups could be masked by such a blanket category as “non-FSM.” It
is certainly not the case that non-FSM equates to “middle class” in a sense that would be widely
understood.
9. Quoted in Gillborn and Youdell (2000, p. 186).
10. In Britain the most serious sanction that a school can take against a student is to permanently expel
them (“exclusion” in the official lexicon of the law). The local state has a duty to ensure that such stu-
dents receive a basic education elsewhere, usually through placement in some form of special unit or
limited private tuition.
1002 Gillborn

11. “Black Other” a composite group which can be prone to dramatic fluctuations in size from 1 year to
the next.
12. The only exception to this pattern was in 1996/1997 when the percentage of Pakistanis excluded was
the same (0.18) as the white rate.
13. For a consideration of differing national traditions of anti-racism see Bonnett (2000).
14. This list draws on numerous studies, including work funded and conducted by a range of participants,
including academic researchers, charitable foundations and statutory bodies (for further details see
Gillborn & Mirza, 2000, p. 27).

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52

REFORMING URBAN EDUCATION SYSTEMS

Martin Johnson
Acting Deputy General Secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, U.K.

Four Countries in a United Kingdom

Britain is a largely urban society. Agriculture and fishing employ just 1.4% of the
working population. Although the pattern of recent census data is of reducing popula-
tions in some of the cities, movement is towards towns rather than the country. England
has a very high population density and strict legislation with respect to building in the
countryside which limits population drift.
Although in some counties there are schools where rural isolation and the associated
lack of aspiration are said to be a hindrance to pupil performance, most English pupils
attend urban schools. Recent reform of the education system has been at the national
level, with an unstated assumption that the system is one of urban schools. Indeed, there
is a view that recent policy has been made with excessive attention to the circum-
stances (in some versions of this statement, misunderstood ) of London schools alone
(Fullick & Brighouse, 2007).
Those parts of the United Kingdom which have retained the most rural character are
on its geographical margins, and most are not in England. Northern Ireland, Scotland,
and Wales also have their own powers over education policy, though to varying
degrees. In part, devolution of powers from the UK government occurred during the
first term of the Labor Government elected in 1997.
Scotland’s school system has always been different from England’s, even though it
was governed from London until 1999. From 1885, when the Secretary of Scotland
Act established the Scottish Office and presaged a separate administrative machine, a
distinctively Scottish education system developed, with provision in advance of
England. Although the observer from outside the UK might feel that the difference
amounts largely to one of nomenclature, curriculum and assessment structures are
divergent, as are important details of the workforce structure and roles, governance,
funding, and inspection.

1007
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1007–1026.
© 2007 Springer.
1008 Johnson

The geography and history of Scotland have produced a concentration of population

in the central lowlands, including the cities of Edinburgh in the east and Glasgow in the
west. In this belt, the exploitation of coal led to early industrialization with heavy indus-
tries such as shipbuilding which declined in the second half of the twentieth century.
Scottish urban social structure differs from England’s in having a strong religious dimen-
sion, with active antipathy between “Protestant” and “Catholic” communities with
largely segregated schools in the cities. However, the Scottish Office and latterly the
Scottish Executive has also needed to attend to the needs of children in the comparatively
sparsely populated areas outside the central belt, and particularly in the Highlands and
Islands where the protection of Gaelic culture is an ongoing political issue, particularly
since depopulation was enforced by English rulers in the eighteenth century.
Northern Ireland is a different case. Geographically, Belfast is its only major city. As
would be expected in a small town environment, its secondary schools are on average
smaller than those in England. There are also serious centuries-old divisions between
“Protestant” and “Catholic” communities, played out in armed conflict between 1969
and 1998, and replicated in highly segregated schools across the whole of Northern
Ireland.
From the establishment of Northern Ireland in 1921 it was governed from London,
but with powers including those over education devolved to a parliament at Stormont.
Until the early 1960s, successive Protestant governments replicated English legisla-
tion. In 1972, Stormont was prorogued as a result of the armed conflict; power then
reverted to London where it remains, with a brief interlude of self-governance follow-
ing the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. During this period the UK Government has not
sought to replicate most education initiatives in Northern Ireland, and with local poli-
tics concentrating on ending violence the school system has been subject to relatively
little change. Most noticeably, while the 70s saw the abolition of selection for second-
ary schools on ability grounds in most of England, Northern Ireland still has a system
of “grammar” and “secondary” schools, although their reform is now being planned.
While there has been some grass-roots support, mainly from the middle-class, for
“integrated” schools, practical support from the state has been limited, and 95% of
pupils still attend segregated schools.
Wales is in an intermediary position. Prior to the 1997 referendum on devolution,
legislation gave some recognition to Welsh culture. The Welsh Language Acts in 1972
and 1973 made teaching the Welsh language compulsory and created some Welsh
medium schools. Voters in Wales were almost evenly split in the referendum, and the
resultant legislation to establish a Welsh Assembly provided for a lesser degree of devo-
lution than in Scotland. Within education, there is an unsatisfactory balance between
powers situated in Cardiff and London, particularly on staffing, where terms and con-
ditions for teachers are determined by the UK government but linked matters are
devolved. Since the establishment of the Welsh Assembly Government it has attempted
to emphasize its separate identity from the Westminster Government. It has explicitly
distanced itself from market models of public service delivery. In education, although
English regulatory bodies are replicated in Wales, their tone and detailed operation are
different; where in England government’s purpose is to force up standards in schools, in
Wales it is to support schools to improve their standards.
 Reforming Urban Education Systems 1009

Cardiff is the only major city in Wales. It is much less culturally diverse than English
cities. Deprivation is more a feature of the much smaller communities which have
suffered from the loss of coal-mining and other basic industries. Cardiff reflects the
communal culture of these communities, and there is relatively little appetite for choice
behavior in public services. However, for the Welsh Assembly Government issues of
rural education, and in particular the connections with the promotion of Welsh language
and culture, have a much greater political significance than in Westminster.

Continuous Reform
The last two decades have seen continual attempts by the UK government to reform
schools. As described below, they have been based at system level on a market model,
but with strong centralist overtones and with an emphasis on powerful school account-
ability mechanisms. Until the transfer of powers to the Welsh Assembly Government,
some of the reforms applied equally to Wales, but without any evidence of attention to
its distinct needs, and reform was clearly targeted at England. However, neither the
market rhetoric nor most of the interventions have been adopted by the administrations
of the other countries, either before or since devolution.
Also described below are policies specifically addressing urban education issues.
These have not been simply replicated in the three countries. Apart from the compli-
cation of an overlay of sectarianism in Glasgow and Belfast, there is less market behav-
ior on the part of urban parents outside England, with a greater sense of connection to
the “local school.” There may be problems of deprivation and alienation in the cities of
the three countries, but their administrations are relatively more aware of problems of
rural poverty and isolation. Hence, the remainder of this account refers to schools in
England.
The manifest purpose of reform has been a single consistent theme, that of economic
competitiveness which is said to require an educated workforce, itself narrowly defined
in terms of some academic qualifications. This has been without regard either to an evi-
dence base linking school achievement with economic performance (Robinson, 1997),
or to additional purposes of a state system of schools. The essential character of the
school system in England and Wales was established in the Education Act 1944, and in
the next 35 years only three Education Acts of note were thought necessary. The elec-
tion of a reforming Conservative Government in 1979 soon led to a comparative flood
of legislation, including the radical Education Reform Act 1988 and the even longer
Education Act 1993, and over 30 Acts between 1979 and 2000 (Tomlinson, 2001). With
education remaining high on the political agenda, each new Secretary of State seems to
feel it necessary to make a mark with further legislation. Most of this legislation affects
all schools, but since most English schools are urban it can be seen as a reform pro-
gramme of urban education. As discussed later, some of the more recent innovation has
been more targeted at areas whose schools are producing the lowest pupil performance,
these being deprived urban locations including the inner cities.
It may be convenient to view the period since 1988 in three overlapping phases,
according to the dominant focus of reform: at first the system, then the school, and
1010 Johnson

later the classroom. The period between 1988 and 1993 saw the implementation of the
Education Reform Act, which amongst a large number of changes centralized curricu-
lum but devolved to schools significant staffing and budgetary power and established
a quasi-market. The rationale for and impact of the quasi-market has been extensively
reviewed (Davies, Adnett, & Mangan, 2002; Gewirtz, Ball, & Bowe, 1995; Power &
Whitty, 1999; Whitty, 1997; Whitty, Power, & Halpin, 1998; Woods, Bagley, & Glatter,
1998). It is quasi since no price mechanism applies, but no other effective mechanism
to balance demand and supply is in place, with the result that the administrative
arrangements for admitting pupils to schools remain problematic.
Adherents of the market expected open enrolment, roll-based funding, and publication
of some pupil performance data to force schools to improve pupil performance in
order to compete for pupils. The establishment at the same time of the Office for
Standards in Education (Ofsted) may be seen as an aspect of product information for
the consumer, or as an alternative policy, a centralized inspection agency to regulate
performance. Another mechanism of the same kind was the standard national tests at
ages 7, 11, and 14 in addition to the existing exams for 16 year olds.
It is extremely difficult to judge the success of the quasi-market, as distinct from
other coinciding system changes, in improving pupil performance, although it is clear
that performance has risen substantially. In 1989, 32.8% of pupils aged 16 plus
obtained five or more of the new GCSEs at grades A–C, the principal benchmark; by
2004, 53.7% reached this standard. Some early evaluation suggested that schools were
responding by more actively recruiting potentially high performing pupils but the
extent to which the distribution of pupils amongst schools has changed remains
unclear (Woods, 2007). The economists Bradley and collaborators (Bradley, Johnes, &
Millington, 2001; Bradley & Taylor, 2002, 2004) used multivariate analysis to meas-
ure the impact on a secondary school of the performance of rival schools, and con-
cluded that a 3% improvement in rivals is followed by a 1% improvement in the
school’s own performance. They concede, however, that family background is the most
substantial determinant of a school’s performance. The problem with this kind of
analysis is that causation is not addressed.
These reforms in place, attention then turned to supporting schools to improve in
response to market pressure. This phase was led by academic research into effective
schools, which may be traced back to Rutter, Maughan, Mortimore, & Ouston (1979)
and Mortimore, Sammons, Stoll, Lewis, & Ecob (1988). The school improvement move-
ment identified in-school factors tending to raise pupil performance. They included
strong but team-based leadership, and an associated shared vision; positive and con-
sistently managed expectations of pupil behavior and performance; and a commitment
to working with parents and community (MacGilchrist, 2007).
School improvement was as much a grass roots movement as a Government policy,
but it provided support for two policy themes. First, it supported the contention implied
in the earlier reform that autonomous schools could produce better pupil performance.
Second, it underpinned the rejection of an apparent determinism which explained
pupil failure in terms of social factors, as summed up by the Labour Secretary of State
for Education, David Blunkett – “poverty no excuse.” Whilst fatalism and low expecta-
tions were, and possibly remain, a feature of some schools, it seemed by the mid-nineties
 Reforming Urban Education Systems 1011

that the pendulum of rhetoric had swung excessively, leading to the title Schools
making a difference: let’s be realistic (Thrupp, 1999), and “… improvement methods
would make a difference. A little difference.” (Johnson, 1999, p. 166) Limitations on the
utility of the school improvement model became clear (Mortimore, 1998; MacGilchrist,
2007).
One was the reliance on high quality leadership and management, when there was
continuing concern about that quality which led to the establishment of a National
College for School Leadership. The second was the recognition that school improve-
ment placed heavy demands on a workforce already feeling overstretched. Thirdly,
improvement research corroborated earlier findings (Coleman et al., 1966; Hanushek,
1992) and showed that 85% of the variation in pupil performance is due to factors
external to the school (Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000).
Of the remaining 15%, the classroom effect was shown to be the most substantial.
This finding coincided with the determination of the Labour Government elected in
1997 to move to the third phase of reform, a programme to develop the teaching force
and the quality of pedagogy. The programme seemed highly centralized even to a sys-
tem which had absorbed the centralization of the Education Reform Act, as it imposed
a model lesson, “the literacy hour,” on primary teachers. Said to be based on research
evidence relating to effective teaching, it was implemented by way of cascade training
to every primary teacher in the country, and enforced by means of the Ofsted inspec-
tion system. This National Literacy Strategy was followed quickly by a National
Numeracy Strategy and a National Secondary Strategy.
The Government, which had set itself targets for pupil performance, claimed dramatic
success for this programme. Key Stage two (end of primary) test scores improved sub-
stantially (Table 1) and Ofsted reported improvements in the quality of teaching in pri-
mary schools. Later, the independent evaluation of the Strategies reported a much more
mixed picture, with a degree of implementation without embedded comprehension, and
increased problems of teacher overload and loss of autonomy. There was also excessive
and counter-productive coaching for tests, and some staff doubted whether improved test
results reflected real improvement (Earl et al., 2003). Recent analysis of primary pupil
achievement suggests the doubts to be well-founded (Richards, 2005; Tymms, 2004).
The conclusion to be drawn from this programme is that it may well be appropriate
to focus on the classroom as a site where interventions can lead to improvement in
pupil performance. However, a simple and didactic pedagogical model can be effective
only for a short while and only to a degree. Its inadequacy was illustrated by the school
inspection framework operated by Ofsted, in which inspectors were required to make
separate judgments about both the quality of teaching and the quality of learning.
Inspection reports frequently revealed a disparity. Whatever may be said about the

Table 1. Key stage two: Percentage of pupils achieving level 4 or above

Year 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

English 57 60 63 65 68 70 72 73 72 74
Math 54 60 64 65 69 72 74 74 74 75
1012 Johnson

adequacy of the inspection framework, the implication was that a lesson (and the
teacher) could be regarded as satisfactory or better if its structure reflected the ortho-
doxy of the Strategies, regardless of its effect on the pupils.
The introduction of the new orthodox term “teaching and learning” indicates a more
sophisticated approach to pupil performance, in which the classroom is understood as
the site of complex social interaction and learning is seen as both the appropriate focus
and as deeply problematic. Two strands of work arise.
First is a revived interest in the theory and practice of learning. The learning sciences
are being invoked to encourage teachers to increase their understanding of how children
learn, and hence what kind of techniques can be used in classrooms to help children
learn more. As Claxton puts it, “Learning is learnable (and we ought to teach it)”
(Claxton, 2004). Some of the science is distorted as it is operationalized into teaching
plans, such as Gardner’s (still contested) theory of multiple intelligences being trans-
muted into “learning styles” (Coffield, 2004). Nevertheless, national agencies such as
the National Strategies and Ofsted now require teachers to have regard for reception as
much as delivery of their lessons.
Second is a concern to develop the school workforce. The evaluation of the primary
strategies found that they “have added to teacher workload (already an issue) and con-
tributed to feelings of being overwhelmed.” (Earl et al., 2003, p. 7) At the moment of
the publication of this study, the Government was signing an agreement with the
national employers and most of the unions representing school staff, “Raising
Standards and Tackling Workload: A National Agreement.” For the unions, the primary
aim was to reduce excessive workload, largely by transferring parts of teachers’ work
to other staff. For the Government, a longer term aim was to provide the capacity at
school level for teachers to become more effective. In part, this involved contractual
changes to identify time set aside for the preparation of high quality lessons. Another
part, currently in development, is both contractual change and development of provi-
sion to enable teachers to take part in professional development to enhance their
understanding of the theory and practice of pedagogy.
An alternative approach to this aim is to make provision which addresses barriers to
learning within the lowest achieving groups. This is one of a number of drivers behind
the debate about qualifications and curriculum in the 14–19 phase. There is a limit in the
extent to which better pedagogy and test preparation can continue to raise achievement.
With only just over half the cohort reaching the benchmark of five good GCSE passes,
and the benchmark national test at 18, three GCE A levels, passed by 28%, national test-
ing in this phase can be seen as a process of exclusion, since none of the proliferation of
other qualifications available have similar status. Proponents of reform argue that a sin-
gle qualifications framework for all academic and vocational studies with clear pro-
gression covering all attainment levels would result in increased participation in the
post-compulsory phase. Some of the proponents go further, arguing for substantial cur-
riculum reform for all in the secondary school so that lower achievers can be offered
more appropriate learning experiences to maximize their commitment to learning.
Qualifications and curriculum reform may be desirable for a number of reasons.
It remains an open question as to whether it would benefit lower achievers dispropor-
tionately and thus reduce the range of achievement, or whether a more attractive offer
 Reforming Urban Education Systems 1013

would enable all pupils to make better progress. Formal expressions of “pupil voice”
are not strong within British schools, but it may be that even successful pupils find the
current experience demotivating and develop very instrumental attitudes to learning
and qualifications.
Another weakness of this approach is the lack of connection with labor market eco-
nomics. Evidence on returns to qualifications, the extent to which a given qualification
increases earning power, suggests that low levels of participation in non-academic
courses post-16 may be rational responses to their value. It is the attitudes of employers,
and in particular their readiness or otherwise to pay wage premiums for qualifications,
which may well have more decisive influence on participation rates.

Developing the Quasi-Market

This categorization of reform as having three phases since 1988 should not obscure the
overlap between them. In particular, there have been continuing attempts to develop a
market model for the school system. Adherents of the market argue for product differ-
entiation in order to provide consumers with real choice. With a national curriculum
prescribed in detail, regular national pupil assessments, and a national inspection sys-
tem which has inhibited innovation, it might be argued that there is little space for
schools in England to develop individuality, but to enable a choice rhetoric govern-
ments since 1988 have developed a number of categories of schools.
It is worth reflecting that although the three phases of reform were applied to all
schools, the choice rhetoric and measures to produce differentiation have been targeted
largely at secondary schools. It is not clear why governments have not thought it
important to drive up standards in primary education by means of competition within
a quasi market, especially since primary schools in England with a mean roll 239 are
generally considerably smaller than secondary schools, with a mean roll 943 (DfES,
2004, Table 2), so that in urban settings the larger number of primary providers might
be expected to make a more satisfactory market.
Product differentiation has been achieved in forms of governance and finance, but it
is difficult to judge to what extent these have resulted in differences that are obvious at
the level of the classroom. A constant theme has been the injection of private sector
resources and expertise, despite the lack of any evidence that the private sector as a
whole has significant enthusiasm for close involvement with individual institutions.
The first attempt of this kind was the City Technology College, provision for which
was made in the Education Reform Act. CTCs were established as independent schools
funded largely by the Government, but with sponsorship from business. They were
obliged to follow the national curriculum but were independent of all local authority
control, including over admissions. In the event only 15 opened. Mainstream business
would not support the programme, and most of the sponsors were self-made entrepre-
neurs. CTCs affected the balance of intake of other schools within their catchment
areas, but made little impact on the system as a whole.
The 1988 Act also introduced grant-maintained schools in England and Wales. They
were distinguished by an even higher degree of autonomy than enjoyed by all state
1014 Johnson

Table 2. Percentage of school leavers achieving five or more GCE O

level/CSE grade 1/GCSE grades A–C in England

Boys Girls Total

1962/63 16.3 15.0 15.7

1963/64 18.2 17.2 17.7
1964/65 21.0 19.5 20.3
1965/66 22.0 20.3 21.1
1966/67 22.8 21.2 22.0
1967/68 22.8 22.2 22.5
1968/69 22.8 22.6 22.7
1969/70 23.0 23.2 23.1
1970/71 23.3 23.8 23.5
1971/72 23.3 23.6 23.5
1972/73 22.5 23.4 22.9
1973/74 22.9 23.4 23.1
1974/75 22.2 23.0 22.6
1975/76 22.7 23.1 22.9
1976/77 23.4 23.5 23.5
1977/78 23.7 23.6 23.7
1978/79 23.5 23.9 23.7
1979/80 23.7 24.4 24.0
1980/81 24.5 25.6 25.0
1981/82 25.4 26.8 26.1
1982/83 25.4 27.1 26.2
1983/84 26.3 27.2 26.7
1984/85 26.3 27.4 26.9
1985/86 26.2 27.2 26.7
1986/87 25.6 27.2 26.4
1987/88 28.2 31.7 29.9
1988/89 29.8 35.8 32.8
1989/90 30.8 38.4 34.5
1990/91 33.3 40.3 36.8
1991/92 34.1 42.7 38.3
1992/93 36.8 45.8 41.2
1993/94 39.1 47.8 43.3
1994/95 39.0 48.1 43.5
1995/96 39.9 49.4 44.5
1996/97 40.5 50.0 45.1
1997/98 41.3 51.5 46.3
1998/99 42.8 53.4 47.9
1999/00 44.0 54.6 49.2
2000/01 44.8 55.4 50.0
2001/02 46.4 57.0 51.6
2002/03 47.9 58.2 52.9
2003/04 48.8 58.8 53.7

schools, and their budgets were enhanced by the amount that other schools were calcu-
lated to be receiving in services from their local authorities. It was for schools themselves
to decide whether to transfer status. Take-up was geographically varied, ranging from 16
out of 17 secondary schools in the outer London borough of Bromley to none in some
 Reforming Urban Education Systems 1015

counties, but by the time of the change of government in May 1997 a fifth of secondary
schools in England had become grant-maintained. To some surprise, particularly of
many of its supporters, the incoming government signaled its adherence to the choice
rhetoric by maintaining the distinction (though with a new name, “foundation schools”
and revised funding arrangements).
The Labour Government further developed differentiation by means of the strong
development of a programme of specialist secondary schools, which combined a
number of elements of the choice agenda. The virtue of private sector involvement
was injected by means of a requirement that schools raise £50,000 in sponsorship as
part of a bid for the status. The bid also required a 4 year plan for what could be
described as a programme of school improvement centered round an expertise in a
particular curriculum area from a short list chosen by the Government. However, spe-
cialist schools were not released from the requirement to teach the National
Curriculum. Most schools participating in the programme, again self-selecting, freely
accepted that the major motive was the cash benefit totaling about £0.5 million over
4 years for the average sized school.
The purpose, particularly the ideological purpose, of this programme is somewhat
unclear. In the early years there were strong claims from the Government, and of course
from specialist schools themselves, that they formed a kind of elite. Their pupil per-
formance was better than that of other secondary schools, though the dispute as to
whether that derived from their qualities or the qualities of their intake has never been
quite resolved. However, the Government then announced the aim that all secondary
schools should become specialist, and indeed by September 2005, 2,383 out of 3,385
schools in England had achieved the status. This expansion has ended the role of the spe-
cialist schools programme as providing market differentiation, especially since the spe-
cialism is often not a strength of the specialist school (Ofsted, 2005). It has also made
argument about comparisons between specialist and other schools a matter of history.
Apart from the specialist programme, the Labour Government made commitments
to support “faith” schools as a means of promoting what it termed “diversity and
choice” despite evidence on their segregational effect in English cities and the implied
reinforcement of continuing segregation in Northern Ireland. Further, it introduced its
own version of the CTCs, known as academies (originally city academies). The signif-
icant difference between the two programmes was the readiness of the Labour
Government to fund high-cost new build, and this in the context of a commitment to
rebuild or refurbish every secondary school in the country over a 15 year period by
means of Building Schools for the Future, a private-public partnership scheme with
traditional financial controls.
Most recently, in October 2005 the Government published a White Paper, “Higher
Standards, Better Schools for All” which attempts to stimulate market behavior in two
ways. Firstly, it introduces further product differentiation by means of “trust schools.”
Private sector and charitable organizations may establish trusts and take over willing
maintained schools, although they would enjoy only the same degree of autonomy as
foundation schools. This also reflects the belief of the Prime Minister in the superiority
of the private sector. There are no apparent incentives for schools to take up this option,
but the White Paper proposes a new government office, of Schools Commissioner,
1016 Johnson

which would broker trust schools, and it remains to be seen what unofficial leverage
would be applied.
Second, the White Paper reflects the recent concern amongst supporters of the mar-
ket that it would operate more effectively if it were more dynamic, with easier entry
and exit. Nodding also to “parent power” it proposes to facilitate proposals from
groups of parents, or others, to establish new schools. It remains to be seen how the
provision of capital for site acquisition and building, planning consent, and project
management is to be facilitated, but the implication is that it is “others,” in the form of
enterprises with access to such resources, who are more likely to be involved than
groups of parents.
These proposals were associated with the Prime Minister personally, rather than the
whole Government, far less the governing Labour Party. As their publication coincided
with speculation about the Prime Minister’s authority and popularity in the context of
his decision to resign at some time before the next general election, it remains to be
seen how much of them will be realized.
The mechanisms for differentiation listed above are far less powerful determinants
of school organization and functioning than the centralized policies described earlier.
The national curriculum, national testing, national inspection, national funding, a
workforce employed on nationally determined contracts and standards, together make
English secondary schools highly similar. Their differences are due in part to any indi-
vidual ethos that may be generated, particularly in the case of faith schools, but largely
to differences in intake characteristics. It is probably the case that parental concern
about “choosing” a secondary school is rather higher than 20 years ago although 45%
of secondary pupils attend their nearest school (Burgess, McConnell, Propper, &
Wilson, 2004), but it is difficult to know whether that is because they feel more like
consumers with a choice to be made from a range of products, or because of the height-
ened salience of education, and “school standards” in particular, as a political issue. The
Government has sponsored research on parental attitudes to secondary admissions
(Williams, Coldon, Stephenson, Logie, & Smith, 2001) but none on attitudes to the
quasi-market and choice.
It may be that an effect of the quasi-market has been to generate not diversity but
ethos convergence amongst urban secondary schools. A symbol of ethos in English
schools is the pupil uniform, a matter for decision by schools and traditionally a visi-
ble signal of a school’s (class) cultural position. Since the introduction of the quasi-
market uniforms have become not more various but more similar (Halpin, Power, &
Fitz, 1997). This would be explained by schools adopting a recruitment strategy aim-
ing not at a market segment but at some middle ground, which incidentally is likely to
be occupied by comparatively non-problematic pupils – from the points of view of
both behavior and attainment.

Reform and Attainment

The purpose of school reform, whether focused on the system, the school, or the
classroom, has been consistent and simple. It is to raise levels of pupil attainment.
 Reforming Urban Education Systems 1017

Attainment is capable of simple definition since the introduction of national testing at

the ages of 7, 11, 14, 16, and the post-compulsory school age 17 and 18. Attainment is
defined and measured by written examinations in English, mathematics and science at
11 and 14, and in a wider range of subjects at 16. The validity and reliability of these
tests is assured by a national agency, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.
From the point of view of policymakers, reliability is the more important characteris-
tic as it permits comparisons within and between cohorts. The degree of reliability over
time is a disputed technical question.
Attainment scores have been subject to national targets since the 90s, but targets
were systemized by the introduction of a system of Public Service Agreements in
1998. In a Comprehensive Spending Review, the Treasury negotiated with each spend-
ing department of state an agreement on the department’s activity, spending, and
planned outcomes for the period ahead. The outcomes were expressed as targets. The
process has been repeated every 2 years, although the Treasury has announced a fur-
ther Comprehensive Spending Review to take place in 2006. In 1998, targets for
school performance by 2002 were set as follows:

● At key stage two, 80% to reach Level 4 in literacy and 75% in mathematics.
● At 16, Increase in the proportion who achieve one or more GCSEs at Grade G,
or equivalent, from 92 to 95%, and five or more GCSEs at Grade A* to C from
45 to 50%.

As pointed out earlier, the years since the implementation of the Education Reform Act
have seen substantial increases in pupil performance as measured in both primary and
secondary schools. However, only the five A* to C target was met. As the tables below
show, performance at key stage two flattened off from 2001, and the rate of improve-
ment at GCSE has slowed.
It is instructive to take a longer term perspective over school performance. Although
there are no longer term data for primary schools, there is claimed continuity in standards
set in national tests at 16.
It is reasonable to describe trends in performance at 16 plus as follows. There was a
steady rise in the 60s with a period of stagnation in the 70s. Another short period of
modest increase in the early 80s was followed by further stagnation, coinciding with a
period of teacher unrest. The most marked rise occurred between 1988 and 1993, from
26.4 to 41.2%, an increase of almost 2.5% p.a. This preceded the implementation of
the Education Reform Act with its marketization, but coincided with the introduction
of the GCSE, a unified examination. In the period 1994–2004 there have been further
steady increases averaging 1.1% p.a. There has been no significant change in the range
of achievement. Improvement of a whole cohort at approximately the same rate, rather
than relative gains by lower attainers, is indeed a plausible outcome of both school
improvement and teaching and learning approaches to reform. National, highly cen-
tralized reform programmes might be assumed to benefit all schools and all pupils to
approximately the same degree. Indeed, as Rutter et al. observed in 1979, if all schools
were to improve to the standards of the most effective, the advantage to the pupils of
more favored backgrounds would become more marked.
1018 Johnson

The School Quasi-Market and Range of Performance

The data on pupil performance does not provide conclusive evidence on the effectiveness
or otherwise of all or any of the reform programmes undertaken in the last 20 years.
The establishment of targets made pupil performance a significant political issue, par-
ticularly in light of the well-known statement by the leader of the Labour Government
that his priorities were “education, education, education.” An outcome has been close
scrutiny of performance data and the generation of more sophisticated and differenti-
ated data, which itself has fed further policy debate. The remainder of this chapter is
concerned particularly with two debates about the relationship between school reform
and pupil performance, within the context of a greater interest in internationally com-
parative education performance. The first of these focuses on not average performance
but the range of performance, and so deals with questions of equity within the reformed
system. The second returns to questions of the impact of social structures outside edu-
cation on pupil performance, and by implication the utility of public expenditure on
education itself.
In the early years of the publication of pupil performance data, attention was cen-
tered on the national figures, in relation to national targets. Governments attempted to
explain differences in performance at school level in terms of differential school effec-
tiveness, in line with the rhetoric of the school improvement movement. Hence the
slogan, “poverty no excuse.” Other analysts sought not excuses but evidence on the
relationship between social factors and attainment as a basis for further policy. Gender,
race, and deprivation and class could be seen as being related to achievement at all
ages. The policy debate was further enhanced by the publication of reports of OECD’s
PISA project (OECD, 2001, 2004), an international comparative study of attainment in
language, mathematics and science. It also contained associated data, including social
background and pupil attitudes. The British government pointed up the 2001 finding
that the performance of 15 year olds in England and Wales in literacy compared well
internationally. Other commentators noted the detail that the highest achievers were
almost the best in the world, but England and Wales had the highest range of achieve-
ment amongst the better performers, giving rise to the phrase “Britain’s long tail
of underachievement.” These findings stimulated a debate about inequality of per-
formance which continues to the present. More recently, the relatively low education
and training participation rate of English 17 year olds has also been accepted as an
indicator of the need for policy development, particularly in the area of curriculum and
qualifications.

Targeted Support for Schools

British policymakers noticed that the PISA studies showed a much closer relationship
between the social class origin of pupils and their educational attainment in Britain than
in many other OECD states (MacGilchrist, 2007). The Labour Government’s policy
interventions directed at this link began soon after its election, co-existing with a market
rhetoric. These programmes targeted support at geographical areas where pupil
 Reforming Urban Education Systems 1019

performance was lowest, and these coincided with areas of social deprivation. First, the
Government established 73 Education Action Zones throughout the country between
1998 and 2000, containing over 1,300 schools. Before the programme was wound up
in 2005, EAZ schools benefited from about £300 million of extra investment. Schools in
the zone were required to work together and with partners such as the LEA, parents, local
community, voluntary organizations, and local businesses. The latter were expected to
contribute about a quarter of the funding, although actual cash and kind donations were
much smaller.
The aim of the EAZs was to use the additional resource, the freedom to innovate,
and the energy of collaboration between schools and with the community and local
business to raise pupil performance. The outcome was patchy. Some EAZs were seen
as extremely successful, but others lacked the internal momentum to produce test
score improvement greater than non-EAZ schools (Ofsted, 2003; Halpin, Dickson,
Power, Whitty, & Gewirtz, 2004).
Second, the Excellence in Cities programme was launched in 1999, originally cover-
ing secondary schools in inner London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, and West
and South Yorkshire. It was later extended to other cities and 34 smaller towns with
significant pockets of deprivation, and now involves 1,000 secondary schools and over
1,000 primary schools, including those in successful EAZs which have become
“excellence clusters.” By 2004, spending on EiC had risen to some £350 million p.a.
Excellence in Cities was much more centrally directed than EAZs, comprising five
strands each with a dedicated funding stream. Secondary schools welcomed the capacity
to appoint learning mentors, a new kind of individual pupil support worker. Evaluation
suggested positive impacts on attendance and behavior, but pupil performance improve-
ment was again more patchy (DfES, 2005a, 2005b; Machin, McNally, & Meghir, 2004),
although at GCSE stage EiC Schools improved at twice the rate of non-EiC schools in
2002 and 2003 and by about four times in 2004.
Finally, in 2003 the Government responded to media interest in the performance of
schools in London by establishing a unit within the DfES, the London Challenge
(Fullick & Brighouse, 2007). London is a significant factor in any evaluation of
English schools since one sixth of its pupils are educated there. It contains both the
wealthiest and the poorest localities in the country. Some localities exhibit the highest
levels of pupil mobility and the highest concentrations of pupils for whom English is
an additional language, along with deprivation factors associated with low attainment.
Compared with the rhetoric of the market, choice and diversity, the methods of the
London Challenge seem like a throwback to earlier concepts of government interven-
tion, and its work has been largely un-advertised, apart from the inspirational contribu-
tion of the charismatic figurehead of the Challenge, Tim Brighouse. The key activities
of the Challenge are spending and individual school support. London has been an early
beneficiary of the long-term school building programmes, particularly through a con-
centration of academies within the area, a number of which replaced “failed” second-
ary schools. Additional central government funds have been allocated for substantial
increases in salaries and some housing support for London teachers, which has led to
substantial improvement in the perennially difficult teacher recruitment and retention. A
significant proportion of the spending on a national programme to improve leadership
1020 Johnson

has been directed at London schools. The London Challenge team itself has been an
important additional resource. It has supported local authority advisers in finding
solutions to problems faced by individual schools, from finding a suitable applicant for
a key vacancy to finding the appropriate mechanism for a school rebuild. In some
ways, London Challenge is behaving like local education authorities before 1988, con-
trolling additional resources and using its staff to support schools.
Another way in which the Government has signaled its concern with the lowest
attainers is by means of its national targets, which are refined at each Spending
Review. In the first review, targets for schools were expressed in terms of percentages
of pupils to reach certain levels. The 2002 version for performance at GCSE was:

Raise standards in school and colleges so that between 2002 and 2006 the propor-
tion of those aged 16 who get qualifications equivalent to five GCSEs at Grade A*
to C rises by 2 percentage points each year on average … . (DfES, 2002)

However, it was argued that such targets encouraged schools to neglect pupils who
were unlikely to reach grade C. As a result, the Government introduced “floor targets,”
which are designed to affect the performance of the lowest attainers. The 2002 GCSE
target continues:

… and in all schools at least 20% of pupils achieve this standard by 2004 rising
to 25% by 2006.
By 2004, all LEAs to have a rate of achievement for 16-year-old pupils of at
least 38% obtaining five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C or equivalent.
Increase the percentage of pupils obtaining five or more GCSEs at grades A*
to G (or equivalent) including English and mathematics: by 2004, 92% of
16-year-olds should reach this standard.

None of these 2004 targets for secondary schools were met, although significant
progress was made towards the 20% floor target.
A purpose of the Spending Review is to align government department activity to
policy as expressed in the targets. A good example of this was the establishment of a
unit within the DfES to monitor and support all schools which were at risk of missing
the floor targets. Causation is difficult to establish, but in 1997, there were 615 sec-
ondary schools where fewer than 25% of pupils achieved five or more good GCSEs.
In 2004 this had reduced to186.

Targeted Action on Deprivation

Additional support for schools with deprived intakes has been accompanied by the
development of programmes targeted at deprived families. Inevitably, early child
development and parenting have been a major focus of new provision. The 1998 Green
Paper, Meeting the Childcare Challenge, established a National Childcare Strategy for
 Reforming Urban Education Systems 1021

children from birth to 14 as a vital component of the support for parents and families.
The Government introduced free early education places for 4-year olds, later extended
to 3-year olds, and which led to the introduction of the foundation stage of the national
curriculum for children from three to the end of the reception year. The view that child-
care and early education are vital to challenge the propensity of deprived children to
relative underachievement drew on research showing that by the age of 22 months there
is a marked difference in the achievement of pupils from different socio-economic
backgrounds (Feinstein, 2003).
The Government also linked childcare with its 2010 objectives of 70% lone parents
in employment and halving child poverty, on the way to eradicating child poverty in
2020, and other objectives including improving health, boosting productivity, improving
public services, closing the gender pay gap and reducing crime. The Sure Start pro-
gramme aimed to improve parenting support for the poor from birth onwards, with user
involvement in service planning and delivery. The Government also planned a chil-
dren’s centre in every one of the 20% most disadvantaged wards in England, bringing
together good quality childcare, early years education, family support and health serv-
ices. In 2004, The Five Year Strategy for Children and Learners set out plans for
extended services, with schools playing a leading role in making available for all a
core offer including childcare between 8 A.M. and 6 P.M., access to sport and cultural
activities and specialized childrens’ services, and parenting support. Much of this
could be seen as being borrowed from the Integrated Community Schools programme
in Scotland (Tett, 2007), which was initiated in 1998.
However, if the extended services agenda is part of an attempt to raise the rela-
tive attainment of lower achievers, the allocation of just £680 million over 2 years
from an education planned expenditure (2004–2005) of over £52 billion seems
rather conservative. This sum, which is about the same for a national programme as
spent on the targeted Excellence in Cities, is intended to be a 2 year start-up sup-
port with transition to self-funding, which implies charges to service users. The
context is that by 2007–2008 the average per pupil funding for schools will be at
least £5,500, more than double the 1997 figure, and education spending will rise to
5.6% of GDP, although a slowdown in the real rate of growth is planned for
2006–2008. If rational policy making involves allocating resources appropriate to
policy priorities, it seems that the Government has more faith in school improve-
ment than family support as routes to overcoming deprivation but as yet there has
been very little open debate about the relative effectiveness for better pupil per-
formance of marginal spending on a range of public services apart from schools
(Robinson, 2004).
Much of this policy aimed at deprived families is directed to children in their early
years. Hence, any improvement in their educational achievement would not have
worked through to the key national indicators years of age 11 and 16. However, whether
interventions in care and parenting are likely to achieve significant changes to strongly
class related patterns of achievement may depend on the specifics of class cultures and
class relations. Caution on judgments here is indicated by the very stubborn history of
those patterns in Britain.
1022 Johnson

The Stubborn Class Differential

As suggested above, a feature of the English system is the large amount of data on
pupil performance as measured by national tests. Now available down to individual
pupil level, it supports both academic research and political rhetoric. The evidence on
recent trends in performance is mixed. The Government claims that schools in deprived
areas are improving at a faster rate than others. However, in 2005 the Government also
released figures which suggested a widening in the performance gap between deprived
pupils and others at age 11. (DfES, 2005c). Although the proportion of deprived pupils
attaining level 4 is increasing more quickly than for other pupils, the latter are achiev-
ing the higher level 5 in greater numbers.
This failure to close the substantial class differential in performance has been
accompanied by a failure to reduce social inequality in general. In 2003, 28% of chil-
dren in Britain were in poverty (Bradshaw & Mayhew, 2005) and the Government has
confirmed that worklessness is a major cause of child poverty and that lone parent
households have a high level of poverty (Marsh & Perry, 2003). Recent work has shown
over 30% annual mobility around the poverty line (Kemp, Bradshaw, Dornan, Finch, &
Mayhew, 2004), which suggests an even larger social group who experience insecurity
and instability leading to particular cultural forms inimical to education success.
In this highly unequal society education policymakers are handicapped if unable
to use concepts of class culture and cultural reproduction to understand the relation-
ships between “socio-economic status” and educational outcomes. Failure to analyze
educational performance in the context of class structures tends to lead to relative
under-emphasis on factors external to school, and relative over-emphasis on school
improvement. Although the Government has developed policies for both, rhetorically
it is improvement in schools serving deprived communities which has been more
salient. This is strikingly inconsistent with the finding above that at least 85% of
the variation in pupil performance is due to factors external to the school. It is arguable
that virtually all of the policy debate since 1979 about school reform has taken place
as if this were not the case.
Britain has one of the highest levels of relative poverty in Europe (Bradshaw &
Mayhew, 2005). It is difficult to imagine that this is unrelated to its relatively “long tail
of underachievement,” but this connection is not made in much analysis of the PISA
findings. In Britain there has been much popular comment on the success of Finland,
observed to be “top of the league,” but British observers of Finnish schools could not
find obviously superior practice. A wider analysis of the economic and social struc-
tures of Finland has been largely absent; it is surprising that Finland’s distribution of
wealth and income, its levels of relative poverty, and the resultant class cultural forms
including commitment to education, have not been examined.
An alternative suggestion is that these omissions are not at all surprising. British
governments since 1979 have been neo-liberal in approach, with a commitment to
market solutions to policy issues wherever possible. Many members of those govern-
ments with a concern for social justice are committed to a trickle-down theory, that the
benefits of greater wealth for the wealthy will spread throughout society. In this period,
inequality of both wealth and income has grown, including during the period of
Labour Government since 1997. The Labour Government has defended its position of
 Reforming Urban Education Systems 1023

promoting social justice within a neo-liberal framework by increasing spending on

public services and slightly increasing public sector spending as a proportion of GDP.
Schools in particular have benefited from substantial increases in funding.
This firm framework sets the Government in opposition to a “social Europe,” which
it regards as uncompetitive in global markets because of the burden of public sector pro-
vision, not least in services for the disadvantaged. British policymakers are not in a
position to ask themselves whether reducing the range of educational achievement and
the level of educational exclusion can only be achieved by reducing the level of social
exclusion. The Scandinavian model is seen as impracticable, because it implies a degree
of egalitarianism and a size of public sector which governments argue are unacceptable
to the British.

Conclusion
The UK Labour Government first elected in 1997 has continued its predecessor’s strategy
of levering up pupil performance by market mechanisms. However, in practice this
approach has not been applied consistently. It has made no attempt to force it on the more
or less devolved nations, perhaps in part because concepts of parental choice have little
meaning in rural settings – the market can only be a strategy for urban schools. As pointed
out elsewhere in this volume (Woods, 2007) the Government has also worked with the
grain of opinion within the education community that collaboration between schools may
be a more effective route to raising system performance, and recognizes that “co-opetition”
(Davies et al., 2002) better describes how schools really behave.
The result has been an incoherent if not apparently contradictory programme, the
incoherence manifested in its major policy publications. The programmes for urban
schools may be described as partially successful, with large elements of cross-school
co-operation, despite inadequate targeting at deprived pupils and communities. It is
likely that the roll-out of policies to support the young children of deprived families will
also make some difference.
Reform has been accompanied by improvements in pupil performance as narrowly
tested. There remains underperformance by a substantial fraction of the cohort and an
unacceptable range of performance. The failure of schools to produce any reduction in
the disparity of performance between children of different social groups must be seen
as a major failure for a government committed to reducing inequality. There has been
little official focus on the performance of pupils from various “race” groups despite
the clear finding (Gillborn & Mirza, 2000) that within a complex picture some groups
are disadvantaged independently of other factors such as class. It seems likely
(Gillborn, 2007) that in general schools are giving little attention to their statutory duty
with regard to “race.” Policymakers will be forced to return to the simple and long-
standing proposition that differential educational performance is determined largely
by social structures outside schools. Deep-seated questions about the distribution of
wealth and income and the cultural forms generated by the distribution will need to be
addressed again.
At the same time, there will need to be a review of the purposes of state education.
A taken-for-granted within a marketized system is that consumers can compare providers
1024 Johnson

in terms of key data, with the result that individual pupil performance as narrowly
tested becomes the overriding focus of schools. This approach gives rise to concerns at
two levels. First, schools concentrate on a few skills and specified knowledge of aca-
demic subjects required to pass written tests. It may be that such a curriculum does not
sufficiently equip young people with the skills and outlooks required in contemporary
society. Second, it squeezes work on schools’ other purposes, which may be summa-
rized as social rather than individual. Schools need to be perceived as key institutions
in building and maintaining communities and in developing appropriate levels of
social cohesion.
While education remains near the top of the political agenda, schools can expect to
remain the objects of further reform, but there is no reason why the next round could
not have wider foci. However, it is difficult to see how community building ultimately
can co-exist with market drivers. That is the dilemma for today’s policymakers – and
perhaps tomorrow’s.

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53

URBAN LEARNING AND THE NEED

FOR VARIED URBAN CURRICULA
AND PEDAGOGIES

Richard Riddell
Faculty of Education, University of the West of England, Bristol, U.K.

Introduction: The Need for Varied Pedagogies

Pedagogy has been a key focus of the “third phase” of educational reform in the UK,
for the past 10 years or so, as Johnson points out in this volume. Large national pro-
grams such as the literacy and numeracy strategies (DfEE, 1997, 1998) – now the
national primary strategy (DfEE, 2003b) – have brought about substantial changes in
classrooms, with many common pedagogical elements being introduced (Earl et al.,
2003). And the strong external accountability mechanisms established in the first, sys-
tem phase of reform have reinforced these changes and, possibly, ensured they were
implemented faster. In practice, as Johnson also points out, these changes have consti-
tuted a reform program for urban schools because of the urbanized nature of the UK.
However, it is argued here that this will not be sufficient to change radically the rel-
ative performance of children from different backgrounds and communities, even
though this is still the avowed aim of the UK government (DfES, 2005c). The problem
is that twenty-first century urban classrooms, as organizational and personal contexts
for learning, have been constituted by complex, historical processes of social, eco-
nomic, and political change (Riddell, 2003). Learning processes will only be effective
for all children, therefore, if they engage with the specific realities which have emerged
from these processes of change, and are based on an understanding of the different
educational, cultural, linguistic, and social starting points of urban children. Pedagogy –
while clearly needing to draw on much current national and international practice –
needs to be tailored to specific classroom situations. This can only be done after active
engagement with the family, community, and peer-group context for non-school learning,
and its incorporation into the curriculum.

1027
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1027–1048.
© 2007 Springer.
1028 Riddell

Social, Economic and Political Change

Understanding the social, economic and political events of the past 30 years hence
becomes crucial to understanding how the current shape of state schooling has
emerged. In the UK as elsewhere, major recession in the 1970s began a process of
change whose consequences are not yet complete (Brown & Lauder, 1997). A genera-
tion of narrowing income gaps since the Second World War was succeeded by one
where they widened (Power et al., 2002) and, in the early years of the twenty-first
century, evidence of narrowing income gaps and the elimination of child poverty is at
best still limited (Brewer, Goodman, Shaw, & Shephard, 2005; Hills & Stewart, 2005).
One of the consequences is that, in major centers of population, there remain sig-
nificant social and economic gaps between often neighboring communities – British
society remains profoundly stratified. And this has developed and been sustained by
the unfolding restructuring of the British economy since the 1970s, with large scale
reductions in opportunities for unskilled work in major industries (and the end of some
of these industries themselves), rising unemployment as a consequence until the 1990s
(still prevalent in some urban communities), and moves since the 1980s towards more
“non-standard” employment, often insecure by its nature (Hills & Stewart, 2005;
Roberts, 2001).
At the same time, and partly as a consequence, there has been a decline in the size and
relative significance of the working class (Roberts, 2001), and growth in an opposite
trend of the “new” middle class (Bernstein, 1975; Roberts, 2001), that is, those whose
employment is in professional and administrative roles on behalf of others who own or
are responsible for businesses or public sector organizations. The formation of this
class is not complete (Butler & Savage, 1995; Savage et al., 1992), yet it wields
considerable influence in urban areas on employment, housing, consumption, and
education (Butler with Robson, 2003).

Political Change in Public Services: Consequences

of the Quasi-Market
Unlike in villages or market towns where a small number of schools has to cater for
broad strata of the population, schools in major conurbations have always differed in
the social composition of their intake, reflecting the characteristics of the communities
they serve. This has often been exacerbated in the UK by academic selection and the
existence of schools in the private sector (Judge, 1984). However, the introduction
since the 1970s of the quasi-market in one form or another into public services, across
the English-speaking world (Whitty, Power, & Halpin, 1998), has exacerbated this
situation considerably.
The quasi-market intention to ensure that schools responded to the expressed wishes
of “consumer citizens” (in this case, parents), is discussed elsewhere in this volume
(see Johnson, 2007; Woods, 2007). For the present purpose, however, it is important to
understand that not all schools have been affected in the same way (Gewirtz, Ball, &
Bowe, 1995); more to the point, not all parents now enter the market on an equal footing.
 Urban Learning and the Need 1029

Middle class parents enter as “skilled/privileged choosers” (Ibid., p. 25), because of the
knowledge of the system they bring to the market’s processes (Power, Edwards, Whitty, &
Wigfall, 2003) and the skills and resources they are able to deploy, for example, in
appealing against a decision not to offer their child a place at a particular school. In
addition, their economic capital means they are more able to purchase private educa-
tion or a house in the catchment area of favored schools. Working class parents tend
not to be market players at all (Ball, Bowe, & Gewirtz, 1995).
Moreover, “like seeks like.” Middle class parents are keen for their children to be
educated in schools attended by “people like us” and not schools attended by “others”
(Bagley, Woods, & Glatter, 2001; Ball, 2003). The decisions they take and the transi-
tions for their children are not painless (Power et al., 2003), but they are worked on
extensively, with much visiting and gathering of information, which is now legion.
Much of this gathering is through “talk” and drawing on the social capital of networks
of friends and acquaintances (Ball, 2003). Parents also often use their relationships
with schools to glean wider data about, for example, the effectiveness of teachers, and
this is then further discussed with their peers. This appears not to be confined to the
UK – see, for example, Lareau’s (2000) account of the behavior of US middle class
parent helpers in elementary classrooms and their use of inside information.

The Development of Stratification and the Emergence

of “Upper” and “Bottom Strata Schools”
The net result of this cumulative process of the exercise of preference in urban areas
has been an exaggeration of existing social differences between the intakes of schools,
particularly at secondary level (Riddell, 2003). The effect of middle class action has
been exclusive, in the sense that winning opportunities for their children in favored
schools has in practice denied them to others (Ball, 2003). In the major conurbations,
where the effect has been felt over large numbers of schools and young people, the
effect has been dramatic. Up to seven different “strata” of secondary schools can now
be identified (Brighouse, 2003; Newsam, 2003), ranging from those which are aca-
demically selective, which in practice means on the basis of so-called “general ability”
even when the school professes to be assessing “aptitude” (Coldron & Williams,
2000), through those which are socially selective because of the (now) advantaged
nature of the areas they serve and the effects of the quasi-market, to the lower strata
schools.
Schools in the upper strata have a greater proportion of socially advantaged children
and of children from professional and middle class homes. There will be lower pro-
portions of children with identified special educational needs, and certainly those with
social, emotional or behavioral ones, and there will be fewer children from families or
communities in crisis (Riddell, 2003). The schools are more likely to feature well in
external measures of performance and inspection and higher proportions of their
pupils will proceed to higher education.
Schools in the lower strata are categorized by Brighouse (2003, Ibid.) as “compre-
hensive minus,” “secondary modern,” or “secondary modern minus.” Riddell (2003)
1030 Riddell

refers to the group as a whole as “bottom strata schools.” These schools have far lower
proportions of young people from socially advantaged backgrounds because of the
processes by which the schools have emerged, and more from families who experience
social and material deprivation, for whom schooling may not be the highest priority in
their lives. Some will live in abject poverty – still; many however will value education and
ensure their children are well-cared for, but have few well-defined ambitions (Riddell,
2003). There will be fewer young people in these schools who, on the expectation of their
performance at 11, will be high achievers in national performance tests at 16.
These schools will thus be less “attractive” to parents (Gewirtz et al., 1995; Whitty
et al., 1998; Woods, Bagley, & Glatter, 1998) because of the “privileging” of the aca-
demic in the market, and will be more vulnerable to its vicissitudes as a consequence,
particularly if things go wrong for them. Because of the location of bottom strata
schools, many will also have higher numbers of recently arrived immigrant families,
seeking asylum or refugee status, to join established UK communities, or just greater
prosperity; there will be more speakers of English as an additional language. Teachers’
authority will be challenged more often; there will be significantly higher levels of
special educational need; an important minority of students, particularly by the mid-
teens, will not attend school often and some hardly at all; and “behaviour,” ranging
from routine “low-level” disruption in all classrooms to outbreaks of violence, will
either be a continual pre-occupation or require continuous vigilance (Riddell, 2003).
The schools will often experience the social echoes of major events in the community;
managing the resulting tensions between groups of students or parents and ensuring
they do not spill over into outbreaks of disorder in school will become the only task of
senior staff for significant periods of time (Ibid.). What Thomson (2007) describes as
the “time order economy” needs to prevail all the time in these schools.
Because of additional other aspects of the ways in which urban school systems have
developed – “flight” from inner urban areas, for example, and the existence of a thriv-
ing private sector – bottom strata schools often now predominate over large areas of
the major conurbations. At secondary level, they are often the majority form of state
school and are the framework within which local attempts at improvement must be
forged, even though there will be a small number of secondary schools in radically dif-
ferent circumstances, often with extremely high raw score performances, in many
urban Local Authority (school district) areas. So much so, that in some cases they will
“out-perform” local private schools. The presenting cultures of the schools at the two
extremes couldn’t be more different.

The Nature of Learning; Learning Deprivation

The contexts of schools are therefore by no means the same and in urban areas they
differ markedly from each other. The task facing the “super-” or “socially selective
schools” (as Brighouse, 2003 refers to them) is quite different from that facing bottom
strata schools – and the pedagogies required similarly must differ. And although the
demands of “aspirant parents” (DfEE, 1999) in the former schools, and the views they
take of teachers (Butler with Robson, 2003; Lareau, 2000), can be very demanding,
 Urban Learning and the Need 1031

we know that in bottom strata schools, schools serving areas of relative disadvantage,
considerably greater effort is required to make progress, and this effort has to be sustained
over time (Mortimore & Whitty, 2000).
This is not, to take the sort of “deficit ideology” referred to by Tett (2007), just a mat-
ter of “dealing effectively with” the difficult context, for example, through developing
a “behaviour policy,” with graded rewards and sanctions so that teachers can get on with
the “real business of teaching.” Learning is “completely” bound up with the context in
which it takes place – its location, time of day and physical conditions, and in personal
terms, the feelings or states of mind of the learners at the time (Claxton, 1999; National
Research Council, 2000; Riddell, 2003). Even with apparently untroubled transactions
between teachers and young people, the classroom and its interchanges have been
constituted by the sum of, and interactions between, the social, economic and political
processes described so far, even though they are of course also affected by the pedago-
gies employed.
Because urban schools are constituted in such a wide variety of ways, each classroom
has a unique socio-cultural context in which learning is constituted and recognized as
such by young people, and within which previous learning might be used as a building
block, regarded as a hindrance, or just plain bypassed or “ignored.” And to be useful
and drawn upon, the learning derived from classroom experience needs to be applica-
ble in other contexts and situations beyond the school; and further still, the learner
needs to be able to recognize its relevance and be able to apply it. This constitutes the
issue of learning transfer. In the bottom strata schools, this becomes a much bigger
and more complex issue; in schools in the upper strata, children are able to move more
seamlessly between the various contexts for their learning, often because there are
greater similarities between how they are constituted in home, school, and community.
Pollard with Filer (1996, p. 97) construct a cyclical model of learning to describe the
processes involved in classroom activities, their antecedents and outcomes, shown
here as Figure 1. It was developed on the basis of an ethnographic study of children of
primary age and to explain their findings in terms of a “sociology of learning.” Their
model describes how young people carry their unique “identity” into learning experi-
ences. This includes their “intellectual and physical potential,” together with the
“material, cultural, and linguistic resources” they have accumulated from previous
learning, and experiences in school, family and community. In effect, this is both their
social and economic context “in their head” and the results of their previous learning;
classrooms have as many of them as they have children.
Children enter each learning “challenge” – which arise through “experiences,
relationships, and tasks,” and in the social setting of the classroom – with a “stance”
towards learning and the “strategies” for learning they have previously developed.
Once in the classroom, their learning may be enabled or put at risk by the “social” and
“power relations” which exist there, the degree of “control” they are able to exercise
over their own learning and the way the teacher is able to “scaffold” the young people
across their “zone of proximal development,” that is, the area available for the next
steps in their learning (Vygotsky, 1978). This of course varies from young person to
person depending on their previous learning cycles, and is a key role of pedagogy,
practiced appropriately in context.
1032 Riddell

The overall context

in place and time
(state, region, and community) (historical era)

Relationships
of self and others
(with family, peers, and teachers)

IDENTITY
potential and resoruces
(intellectual and (material cultural,
physical) and linguistic)

Learning challenges
Informal learning
(experiences, relationships,
outcomes
and tasks)
(self-esteem and social status)

Learning
Formal learning
stance and strategies
outcomes
(self-confidence, motivation,
(curriculum attainment)
and strategic resources)

Opportunity to learn
in social settings
(working consensus and power relations
affecting risk taking and control)

Quality of teaching and

assistance in learning
(structuring of affective and
intellectual support at the ZPD)

Figure 1. A social model of learning (taken from Pollard with Filer (1997) p. 97)

On the basis of the combined experiences of greater or less effectiveness in learning,

the young person achieves “formal” (curriculum) and “informal” (personal) “outcomes”
to take into subsequent learning experiences. These outcomes further develop their
“resources” and “potential,” affecting the “stance, self-confidence, and strategies”
with which they begin subsequent learning. The context for learning in their heads
changes again.
 Urban Learning and the Need 1033

There are a number of important implications of this model of the learning process
and the issue of learning transfer. First, young people who complete “successful”
cycles, that is, ones with more or better informal and formal outcomes, start subseq-
uent cycles at an advantage. Young people who complete learning cycles less success-
fully start subsequent ones somewhat behind their peers. If they repeat this poorer
process, they fall further behind again. In other words, disadvantage is cumulative and
recycled. Over thousands or more learning cycles during a school career, such relative
“learning disadvantage” becomes more and more serious for young people unless its
underlying causes are identified and addressed.
This must be part of the truth, at least, behind the attainment gaps which widen with
age in the UK (Gillborn & Mirza, 2000) and cannot simply be explained on the basis
of class, ethnic origin, or gender. To put it another way, the Pollard with Filer model
helps provide the link between social structures, individual agency and the further
subsequent development of structures.

Learning Disadvantage and Urban Classrooms

What are the circumstances in which learning disadvantage arises and is then cumula-
tively amplified with age? It is clear that children with fewer material resources – books,
for example, or other stimuli and experience gathered in their family and community
environment through such things as visiting theatres or museums – will be disadvan-
taged as they approach learning experiences where these things are important (in
school). And certainly, if they have dramatically fewer opportunities generally for
learning in family and community, because of the impoverishment of their environ-
ment, they will be further disadvantaged in school because of the cumulative and rein-
forcing nature of learning. Some young people – for example, from some otherwise
impoverished or minority communities (Moll & Greenberg, 1992) – will have a
background of rich learning in community, but transfer may be weak if the school’s
expectations and environment cannot “recognise” the learning and its conventions,
particularly if the dominant ones are of a different type from those in school.
In addition, if children have fewer cultural resources, or less “cultural capital”
(Bourdieu, 1986), they may not know what to expect in the classroom situation and
may continue to misinterpret the signals of their teachers and peers, deepening their
cumulative learning disadvantage. They may not know, and may not learn, how to ori-
ent themselves to school learning; they may not know what success is within the terms
of the cultural expectations of the classroom or, indeed, what it has got to do with them.
This will affect the stance they take to future learning in the terms of the Pollard with
Filer model (1996). And this may be compounded if the linguistic patterns in use at
home (or peer group) are different from those obtaining in school; the “no language”
assumption sometimes made of some children of working class and minority ethnic
origin by teachers has its basis in teachers’ expectations of linguistic interaction with
children which are different from those obtaining at home (Brooker, 2002). From some
backgrounds, for example, African American working class ones, the home-generated
expectation is not that young children will respond to the “questioning techniques” of
1034 Riddell

adults, but listen respectfully and avoid eye contact (National Research Council,
2000). Such children will not benefit readily from the teaching and may be thought
worse of, irrespective of how well-cared for they are at home.
The learning strategies which children have accumulated will be effective if they
work within the classroom context – the closer they are, and the greater similarity
between their backgrounds and their teachers’, such as is often the case in upper strata
schools – the more effective they are likely to be. Children who have chances to exper-
iment and try out different ways of doing similar things in their home environment
(e.g., in a professional middle class home) will bring these strategies into the class-
room, and a belief in their eventual success even if they fail at first. Those without such
opportunities will not, and their self-confidence in learning will suffer. Poorer outcomes
mean fewer or poorer strategies.
Last and by no means least, if children are impoverished, cold, badly clothed, and
under-fed, they will have few material resources and learning may well be the last
thing on their mind. But the important point is that learning disadvantage may be expe-
rienced even by young people from backgrounds where they are well-cared and pro-
vided for, and they are encouraged to attend school and take their school work
seriously. This is not just another tale about material disadvantage and poverty.
In all these cases, the learning disadvantage experienced by young people affects
their stance to learning and the self-confidence with which they may navigate their way
in the social world of the classroom. And this is before the teacher’s pedagogy and
planned experiences begin to have an effect, whatever their sophistication after the
third phase of national reform.
Furthermore, in the classrooms of bottom strata schools, there are more children
experiencing learning disadvantage than others and they constitute a higher proportion
of the pupils on roll because of the way in which the schools have evolved, including the
cumulative “absence” of children from more advantaged backgrounds due to the
quasi-market. The concentration of large numbers of such learning disadvantaged
children has compositional effects in the schools, and this is what makes the nature of
the presenting context “relentless” and much more challenging on a day to day basis
(Riddell, 2003). Again, these schools are quite different to work in from those in the
upper strata. Teachers naturally adapt their expectations in such circumstances in the
face of difficulties and there is some evidence that they modify their pedagogy, often
restricting its range and repertoire (Thrupp, 1999) compared with what is available in
the schools attended by more advantaged children. Thus upper strata schools may have
richer curricula, with a much greater emphasis on “extras”; bottom strata ones much
more of an emphasis on literacy and numeracy and, perhaps, employment outcomes.
This is how the “pedagogy of poverty” becomes the “poverty of pedagogy” (Haberman,
1991), reflecting the nature of national prescription in a performativity climate; this is
precisely the opposite of what is required.
And in countries where schools serving more advantaged communities are better
resourced than those in the bottom strata (not the UK, but see Kozol, 1991 for some of
the effects in the US, and Thomson, 2002 for Australia), learning disadvantage is not
only cumulative with age, but compounded by the schools’ circumstances and ability
to respond.
 Urban Learning and the Need 1035

Constructing Urban Pedagogies to Reduce Learning

Disadvantage in Specific Contexts
The complexity in the community processes through which the huge range of urban
classrooms is constituted requires the construction by schools of a “two way path from
school to the community and from the community to the school” (Heath, 1983; quoted
in National Research Council, 2000, p. 111). In upper strata schools, where many
young people enter schools with clear ideas of its purpose and its rules, and with par-
ents who have already constructed their “life projects” (Ball, 2003), it is certainly
desirable to “start with the child.” But the diversity in the backgrounds of the children
in bottom strata schools, and the consequent potential greater distance between the
expectations, cultural norms and linguistic patterns in school – in short, the instru-
mental and expressive orders (Bernstein, 1975) – and the assumptions and experience
in family and community, make this a necessity, not just a desirability.
The point is the same: providing a mental (and sometimes a physical/pictorial) route
from the home and community environment into the appropriately constructed learn-
ing environment in the school. Young people need to be able to make immediate con-
nections when they enter school, before they are engaged in the formal learning
experiences planned by their teachers, between what is important to them – their inter-
ests, the dominant imagery and the symbols in their family, community and peer group
lives – and life inside school. And they need to be able to see and be aware of these
connections (National Research Council, 1999). Otherwise, they will find some of the
notions with which they are eventually presented in the classroom difficult to accept
(Ibid.) and, certainly, to transfer (Claxton, 1999; National Research Council, 2000).
By these processes, learning in school is located within and starts from pupils’ own
understanding and experience, and a foundation for effective transfer is laid. This does
not mean that young people from certain, non-privileged backgrounds cannot be intro-
duced to “the canon,” whatever combination of abstract knowledge, “subjects,” culture,
and intellectual skills it is taken to be, or to abstract thinking, merely that the physical
and mental routes into it for them have to be well-planned and obvious. And more so
than, for example, for young people from professional middle class homes for whom the
canon reflects the patterns of their family thinking, experience and language exchange.
When they arrive in school, often they are “coming home”; they are stepping through
their second front door.
Nor should this mean a simplification or restriction of the canon, or of aspects of
knowledge to which young people have access in the interests of “relevance”: some-
thing which may be suspected to lie behind, or certainly be the implication of, moves
towards a more “practical,” or, in early twenty-first century UK usage, “vocational”
curriculum. But in certain contexts, this most definitely does mean reviewing ideas
of the “educability” of some children – for example, those who have been excluded or
serially excluded from schools or have been identified as having “social, emotional, or
behavioural” needs – and it does mean pressing “forward with the task of reconceptu-
alising pedagogy,” as Hart et al. (2004, p. 14) say, to ensure access to the canon. This
is true even while needing to respond to pressing social and other needs, which cannot
be ignored and which find expression in the relentless day-to-day environment of the
1036 Riddell

bottom strata school described (Riddell, 2003). The implication, however, is that there
is not one “urban pedagogy,” but a blend appropriate to the circumstances of the school
and its pupils.
Specifically, this means careful thought about the physical environment where this
in the gift of the school (colors, layout, furniture, and background music), and the
expressive order overall (dress, rituals, expectations), so that they reflect first, what is
important for learning once in school and the sorts of relationships between adults and
young people which are supportive of it; and second, the imagery and symbols referred
to in family, community, and peer group to enable the transition from different modes
of thought (and learning).
This needs to go further than symbols, however. The strength of the Pollard with
Filer social model of learning is that it reminds us of the variety of learning outside the
classroom and of the importance of its relationship with that within it, because all of it
is the foundation for learning and the interpretation of subsequent experience. If the
predominant modes of learning in the community are different from those in school,
then they too need to find some place in the school curriculum. Otherwise children,
especially when they are young, will not recognize learning in school for what it is.
Further, if what is considered important to know in the community does not find some
reflection in school, to show its value, school knowledge itself will remain abstract
and “other.”
Moll and Greenberg’s (1992) pioneering research in an impoverished Hispanic
community found that one predominant community mode of learning was by watching
and imitating (adults), and important knowledge areas in the community were based on
the construction industry and the, necessarily frequent in a poor community, mainte-
nance of motor vehicles. Accordingly, they recommended the incorporation of this mode of
learning and these and other “funds of knowledge” into the school curriculum, as start-
ing points for children’s further learning. On this view, because children construct “a
model of the world to aid them in construing their experience,” as Bruner puts it (1996,
p. 56) – not, it must be said, one subject to metacognitive reasoning, at least in its early
stages – they will only derive meaning from new learning experiences within the terms
of this model. This explains the bafflement of some children experienced by all teach-
ers in response to some of their lessons. Expanding this constructed model to encom-
pass other forms of learning (e.g., absorption of information through explanation and
discussion) and knowledge (e.g., algebra, or cultural heritage in a variety of idioms)
becomes the task of pedagogy, inside and outside the classroom. The teacher plans
these transfer routes in and out of classroom learning so that it remains grounded in the
mental and physical reality of the young person.
The final step in constructing urban pedagogies is to provide for and be specific
about the development of the learning skills, modes, and strategies with which stu-
dents need to be acquainted, particularly if they are not likely to be so in other contexts.
They are important aspects of the learning cycle (the Pollard with Filer Model, 1996).
The components of such “learning to learn” tools are described in varying ways; in the
UK they have been included in statutory curriculum documentation for some time
(see, e.g., DfEE & QCA, 1999) and are on the national curriculum website
(www.nc.uk.net, available November 29, 2005). They are referred to as the “thinking
 Urban Learning and the Need 1037

skills” of creative thinking, information processing, enquiry, reasoning, and evaluation,

and are part of the “learning across the curriculum” requirement.
This does not mean that these learning tools are taught specifically or effectively in
most schools, or that there are different opportunities to learn and develop them as part
of enrichment or other activity. There is no systematic evidence either way, but they form
an important component of the stance and strategies with which further learning expe-
riences and challenges are tackled. We do know that there has been a huge expansion
of germane materials for teachers – this “brain learning industry” itself requires a sep-
arate detailed examination. In practice, this means that some schools will use frame-
works for constructing their pedagogies which are comparatively well-founded in
research: Claxton’s (2002) four characteristics of effective learners (resilience,
resourcefulness, reflectiveness and reciprocity), for example. Others will use less well-
supported frameworks: Coffield, Moseley, Hall, and Ecclestone (2004) examined 13
of the most influential and popular frameworks of so-called “learning styles” and
found little of practical value in any of them. If the “urban pedagogies” required in bot-
tom strata schools are to be effective, therefore, then they do need to be soundly based:
it cannot be assumed that young people will be acquiring their own resilience,
resourcefulness, reflectiveness or reciprocity in other learning contexts in family and
community. And even if they have done so, the mental constructions of such charac-
teristics (e.g., from gaming) may well not transfer to, or be capable of being used in,
the learning context of the classroom. Again what elsewhere might be the pedagogical
desirability of being explicit about the objectives of particular pieces of learning,
becomes a necessity in bottom strata schools if young people are to develop self-effi-
cacy in their learning (Riddell, 2003); something far easier for young people from
other social contexts, where their social confidence transfers into their learning behav-
ior in the classroom.

The Implications of Developing Urban Pedagogies

in Bottom Strata Schools
Having physical and teaching environments in school which ease transition from fam-
ily, community and peer group learning contexts and back again, and reflect the
requirements and business of learning; incorporating local modes of learning (urban
pedagogies) and funds of knowledge (urban curricula); and being specific about the
teaching of effective learning skills (pedagogies again); all have the profoundest
implications for bottom strata schools – far more so than for schools serving socially
advantaged communities where not doing this will do less damage long-term to the
students educationally, occupationally, and in terms of their eventual social position.
The first of these implications is that, if it is necessary to enable the physical and
mental transfer from family, community, and peer group to classroom learning,
schools need to know and understand the interests of their pupils and the dominant
imagery and symbols in these other aspects of their lives. They need to understand the
dominant forms of learning in the community, the linguistic patterns in use and what
constitute the local funds of knowledge.
1038 Riddell

These therefore need to be studied and considered carefully. The everyday tacit
learning all teachers “pick up” as they gauge the “character” or “personality” of their
classes (Huberman, 1983, p. 486) and think about why some lessons succeed beyond
expectation and others “bomb out” (Ibid.), is not sufficient by itself. The more profound
and explicit learning required needs to be based on understanding and, because of the
diversity in the complex processes which constitute bottom strata classrooms, cannot
simply be undertaken by the incorporation of generalized research findings (e.g.,
about how African Caribbean boys learn) into school, although this may be a good
starting point. The nuances in local communities (and between individuals and groups
of individuals), which may develop and change over time (Riddell, 2003), demand
constant attention and continually renewed acquaintance.
The second implication is that the diversity in classroom construction and local
community nuances make keeping an open mind about their effects in the classroom
essential, particularly as they too may vary over time; above all, it means being “reflec-
tive.” This is the exact professional opposite of the implementation of given approaches,
structures, or pedagogies irrespective of context which, unless their deeper pedagogical
principles are understood by teachers – that is, how they should be introduced to the
specific circumstances of the school and class – cannot ensure that young people
learn in all circumstances (Fullan, 2001). This is his third and deepest stage of learn-
ing. Reflective teachers also need reflective schools; both learn cyclically (Senge
et al., 2000), because that is what learning is like, and such professional learning
cycles are the fundamental defining characteristic of learning schools, themselves
open-minded as organizations and reflective in the light of the changing experience
of their communities.
The third implication arises from the fact that the greater “distance” between the
experiences and expectations of children and the school is also experienced by the
parents (Dyson & Robson, 1999) and, of course, the community. This does not mean,
as Dyson and Robson point out, that there is a lack of interest in education on parents’
part. Indeed, in the few studies where parents living in poverty, for example, have been
interviewed about their children’s education, whatever problems they have been found
to be experiencing with school, they usually see education as a “way out” and essen-
tial to avoid their children’s living in the same circumstances in a generation’s time
(see e.g., ATD Fourth World, 2000). The implication is that parents and the community
need to be actively “enrolled” (Riddell, 2003) in the mission and purposes of the
school, that is, not just consulted about the vision of the staff, but actively engaged in
its development. Otherwise, and without the credibility this gives the staff, it will prove
difficult for the school to sustain any study of and acquaintance with family and com-
munity modes of learning, linguistic patterns and expectations. The different ways in
which middle and working class parents approach schooling from when their children
are quite young (Lareau, 2000) mean that establishing any dialogue at all to start or
continue this process is more challenging for bottom strata schools. But the reward for
success is that parents think the school is “theirs” and head teachers in particular are
able to move speedily out of their “negative honeymoon period” (Riddell, 2003, p. 57).
Fourth, to aid the construction of physical and mental routes into school learning
and back again, community-based learning activities for young people need to be
 Urban Learning and the Need 1039

developed in conjunction with, and sometimes under the leadership of, the community.
As Dyson and Robson also say, there has been a huge increase in such activities since
1997, often referred to as “study support,” to emphasize their (expected positive) rela-
tionship with classroom learning, attainment, and school attendance (DfES, 2002a).
Their importance, besides being part of the “route” into and out of school learning, is
that they provide learning (or can do so) which complements, extends and strength-
ens that in school, in a way that the learning of middle class children outside school
also often does. Learning time is gained; the “translatable” learning stance and strate-
gies of young people are developed, again in terms of the Pollard with Filer (1996)
model, and their “potential and resources” to aid further learning in the classroom and
elsewhere increased.
Fifth, schools need to collaborate with each other if they are to address adequately
the needs of families with children at a number of schools and ensure consistent, help-
ful and thoughtful expectations are placed on them, particularly during transition. But
there are further reasons to collaborate – it is an important way of sustaining improve-
ments in schools, or reform. MacGilchrist (2007) writes about the difficulties of
ensuring that upward trajectories in attainment continue after about 3 years; we know
from Fullan’s research (2001) that the role of the district is crucial to sustaining
improvement – finding time and resources after programmes and national funding
cease, for example, and providing encouragement to principals. To this must be added
the importance of developing Fullan’s notion of a “professional learning community”
across a number of schools, particularly where senior (and other) staff understand the
circumstances in which their colleagues work at other schools and are able to share their
mutual experiences as a basis for both learning and maintaining morale. In pure com-
mon sense terms, however, no individual school (unless exceptional and hence a dubi-
ous model for development) can be expected to develop in isolation a picture of its
community learning and funds of knowledge, or an urban thinking skills curriculum.
This too has to be done in collaboration – it is simply more efficient.
Sixth, and more broadly than this, schools need to work closely with other public
and voluntary agencies which are, or should be, active in the community and provide
a variety of services and venues. For the most troubled young people, it will be diffi-
cult to develop a “full picture” of them in school unless such collaboration takes place.
Bottom strata schools have many such pupils, a large proportion of them subject to the
statutory procedures of other agencies, for example Social Services and the Police, and
some of them will be in the public care. But even for young people who are not trou-
bled, or socially or materially disadvantaged, schools cannot learn about the commu-
nities they serve without such joint working (young people only spend about 24%
of their time in school by the time they are 16, for example – National Research
Council, 2000); if they do not share experiences and understanding with other agen-
cies, including community and voluntary sector ones, then their community footprint
is much restricted.
Again, such thinking is not new and is represented in the concept of the “full service
school” (see, e.g., Campbell & Whitty, 2002) and UK notions such as the “extended
school” (DfES, 2005a). In the UK, the extended school is intended not only to provide
a focus for services provided by other agencies (e.g., health care and parent education,
1040 Riddell

which could be seen as another manifestation of deficit ideology) but study support as
well; that is the provision of enrichment and complementary curriculum opportunities.
Many schools in urban areas have in any case sought and obtained bases on their prem-
ises under their own initiative for professions employed by other agencies, for example
social workers and police officers (Riddell, 2003).
Wider than this still, and rather than being just confined to learning, the role of
schools is also conceived to be fundamental to the regeneration on a broader front of
some communities, partly because poor education attainment is seen as one of the char-
acteristics of such communities (Social Exclusion Unit, 2001) and partly because they
are such significant local resources. The active engagement of schools in their local
communities is seen by some as vital to reduce their communities’ social exclusion.

Achieving Urban Curricula and Pedagogies

So What Will it Look Like?
Briefly, on the basis of the arguments presented here, the urban school in the lower or
bottom strata of its local schools system will provide time and training for all its staff
to be working and learning in the community – running learning events for adults
and/or children collaboratively, with or in support of members of the community.
Others will be working alongside other agencies such as youth officers, the police and
welfare officers in developing out of school activities to be included in the “76%” of
time available. Sometimes these will be practical community-based activities – sport,
music, caring and performing for elderly people, developing a new playground, work-
ing in a local children’s centre – designed to ensure young people engage actively with
their community and neighbors. Other community-based activities will be part of the
“normal” school curriculum, with staff and young people studying aspects of the
community together, as part of geography, for example, or science, the citizenship cur-
riculum, art or English. Often this will involve travel into different communities –
either neighboring ones or town or city centers – to enable reflection on the contrast
with the home community, the way civic decisions are made (and can be influenced)
and how services in the private, voluntary and public sector are provided. There will be
a major emphasis on joint events with other schools, especially where this makes pos-
sible work with students from contrasting social or aspirational or ethnic backgrounds
(or all three), with an emphasis on following up these contacts electronically, via SMS
messaging and in person.
In school itself, young people (and adults and neighbours) will see images of their
community (and others), of themselves, of work and projects elsewhere to which local
members of the community and graduates of the school have contributed, and the signs
and symbols of their cultural experiences and background, including languages other
than English if appropriate. The decor will be of mixed colours, but allowing of rooms
where the furnishings and surroundings are more comfortable and appropriate for
more reflective activities. In any case, where possible, rooms will allow of a variety of
arrangements so that interactions between teachers and students can be of a varied
 Urban Learning and the Need 1041

nature; different groupings of young people (plus young people and adults) can be
accommodated and lessons of varying degrees of practical, formal or silent activity
enabled. Background music will be possible in all rooms, appropriate to the activity.
The classroom pedagogy itself will vary – often during the same day for particular
pupils or groups of pupils – but will include both direct delivery involving a high
degree of engagement and discussion with young people, often on abstract and chal-
lenging issues; skill acquisition, repetition, and development (e.g., in literacy, numer-
acy, and thinking skills); and more facilitative lessons where young people are coached
in longer term assignments. The balance for young people will depend on their own
progress and interest, which will be tracked and planned with them. Teachers will have
thought hard – on the basis of the school’s developing understanding of the community –
about how the content of their lessons can be rooted in the pupils’ understanding and
experience, including the results of aspirational work with them such as that done
through gifted and talented programmes. The goals and objects of study – including
“thinking skills” – will be prominently displayed and illustrated in the school and will
be often be raised in conversation and meetings with young people by staff at all levels.
Finally, the direction of the school – its planned developments for the medium term –
will be understood and again displayed prominently. It will not be unusual to see work-
ing groups of students, staff and members of the community addressing some of the
hurdles in the face of these planned developments with an enthusiasm only born of
personal investment.
This is neither compensatory education nor preparation for employment.

Can This be Done?

Many urban schools will recognize a number of the elements in this brief description,
some many, and others will agree on the desirability of this “vision” consistent with
their own missions, but feel it cannot be accomplished in the current climate; yet
others will feel it not necessary. A realistic assessment needs to be made of achieving
this, therefore, in the current UK national context and, in particular, to avoid the short
term triumph of the “optimism of the will” over the “pessimism of intellect,” as Grace
(2007) expresses it.
There is no doubt that some urban schools, particularly in the upper strata, will not
need to engage in quite the way described in this chapter. In some major UK conurb-
ations, where parents (mainly middle class) feel pleased to obtain a place at a particu-
lar school for their children and have a clearly developed notion of the instrumentality
of schooling in preserving social position and preparing for a good career, the devel-
opment of urban pedagogies and curricula will not be necessary to maintain schools’
relative position in the quasi-market and in terms of external assessments. Some
schools will nevertheless want to do this, however, as all need to be clear that what they
offer allows all their pupils to flourish.
For those schools which are not so secure, there are a number of matters which have
to be considered if the development of appropriate urban curricula and pedagogies is
to be possible. The first is whether schools are likely to have the “capacity” to be
reflective in the ways suggested and be able to study their local community. Second,
1042 Riddell

there is the issue whether this is at all possible in the era of the third phase of reform –
the detailed prescription of classroom and program activity. Third and finally, in a quasi-
market, is it possible for schools to realistically collaborate in the ways suggested?

Capacity
School capacity has a number of components: there needs to be the time, resources, the
skills and enthusiastic staff. To take the last point first, staff do need to be positively ori-
entated towards this work, because it is hard. This is also harder to measure, and less so to
predict. For these staff, Fullan’s “moral purpose” (1993) needs to encompass change in
disadvantaged communities, a sympathy for their young people and a desire to help them
improve. All that can be said is that some staff will most likely always seek jobs in chal-
lenging schools, either because they are in communities similar to the ones in which they
were brought up, or generally because they want to “make a difference.” What would help,
however, is the promotion by academics, national officials and politicians and the media
of these schools as some of the most worthwhile to work in. Some of the schemes in the
“London Challenge” (discussed by Johnson; DfES, 2003d) may promote such a positive
image. Extra pay will no doubt help, as far as we can tell; although this seems unlikely
nationally, schools do have the discretion to pay more in recognition of some work.
Reducing workload will also help in view of the day to day context and has been a key
theme of “workforce development” (see DfES, 2002c; Johnson, 2007). At the time of
writing, it would appear that some progress is being made.
The questions of time and resources are caught up with each other. On the positive
side, one of the greatest changes in the UK since 1997 has been the availability of large
funding streams targeted primarily, but not exclusively, at urban areas. Excellence in
Cities (DfEE, 1999), the multi-strand scheme made progressively available to English
urban areas mentioned by Johnson (2007), is the most obvious of these, but others had
begun life as projects largely mounted in (urban) areas because of poor performance.
However, unlike in the United States, the local authorities where most urban schools
are located tend to be better funded (because of national grant arrangements) and are
required to pass this funding on to their schools. And some of the currently nationally-
held funds (such as that for Excellence in Cities) will also be gradually devolved by the
end of the decade. So there is some margin, highly significant in some areas; the ques-
tion is whether schools are able to create the capacity for getting into the community
and develop urban pedagogy, rather than spending it on more compensatory schemes
or smaller class sizes – or will want to. The debate will continue, but crucially will
depend on the communication of its importance to school leadership teams, in the
broader sense, and their own commitment. However, it must be said that the notion of
the “learning school” has become prominent in national professional narratives
(Fullan, 2001; Riddell, 2003; Senge et al., 2000).
Finally, there is the issue of skill in reflexivity. Leaving aside the literature, these are
skills that teachers do not use extensively in the community at the moment, although
they have no choice but to exercise them in their own classrooms when things “bomb
out” (see above and Huberman, 1983), even if only tacitly. These skills could be built
on in a different context, therefore, with the right sort of support and provision.
 Urban Learning and the Need 1043

Achieving Reflexivity in Third Phase Reform: The Era of Detailed Prescription

As Johnson (2007) says in this volume, there is no doubt that the desire to implement
nationally a given lesson structure marked a new stage in prescription. And there is no
doubt that implementing some one else’s prescription or programme needs to go through
Fullan’s three phases (2001). There has been some concern in the UK about not enough
teachers achieving the third stage (understanding the pedagogical principles underlying
the change so that they can be modified to the classroom’s specific circumstances) by
the team evaluating the national literacy and numeracy strategies (Earl et al., 2003),
but there has been a clear realization in central government for some time that less pre-
scription is required and more professional trust; schools are now seen as the key
“partners of reform,” there is to be greater flexibility of school funding, including
between the big national programs mentioned, and there is a renewed emphasis on the
need for change to be school-driven (see DfES, 2003a, 2003b, 2004a, 2004b).
The real question will be whether this is felt to be the case in schools (Riddell,
2003). Certainly, the “New Relationship” with schools (DfES, 2004b; DfES & Ofsted,
2004) with “lighter touch” and shorter inspection based on self-evaluation may lead
schools to believe it so and, hence, not feel as great a need to pursue their own view of
national orthodoxy across the curriculum.
However, one of the consequences for bottom strata schools in a performativity-
related environment with league tables and even lighter touch inspection is that their
poorer performance in raw score terms elicits greater interest by outside bodies and, in
particular, graded intervention (Riddell, 2003). Even the “New Relationship” is based
on the principle that “inspection, accountability, and intervention to tackle failure are
essential” (DfES, 2004b, p. 8) and the 2005 Schools White Paper (DfES, 2005c) makes
clear that schools requiring “special measures” will need to make substantial progress
within 12 months, otherwise there will be further intervention, including by the
replacement of the leadership team.
As a consequence, these schools find themselves responding to externally-imposed
short term requirements which will not in themselves generate capacity (Riddell,
2003), or allow of reflection about the sorts of schools they should be long term to
respond to the needs of their communities. This argues for the two stages of leadership
(at least), as advocated by Hopkins (2001) – first to ensure that the school does
respond to the short term imperative, which is important; and second, when it has done
so, helping set the long term directions for the school in the ways described here, and
developing the capacity for putting into place urban curricula and pedagogies. This
seems to reflect some current practice; it should nevertheless not be forgotten that this
process will continue to be damaging for some, and needs to be planned carefully to
avoid long term damage to reflexivity.

Is Collaboration Possible Between Schools and Other Agencies

and Between Schools?
This question has been given added relevance with the publication of the Schools White
paper referred to above (DfES, 2005c) and the important development of “trust schools,”
1044 Riddell

that is, schools responsible to bodies which are specifically set up by parents, business,
communities, churches, or other faith organizations, as opposed to the more traditional
governing body in England and Wales. One of the crucial differences is that these
schools will control their own admissions, that is, will publish the criteria by which
school places will be allocated in the case of over-subscription.
As far as working with other agencies is concerned, there is no doubt that this is the
national expectation. Following a particularly disastrous series of events which led to
the death of a child in the public care, the UK Government published its “Every Child
Matters” reform in 2004 (DfES, 2004a), which will develop joint management respon-
sibility for all services for children. Similarly, a national “prospectus” for extended
schools has been published, with similar expectations for joint working (DfES, 2005a).
Both of these reforms are accompanied by funding; collaboration will develop, there-
fore, but no doubt at different paces, because it is difficult – the reconciling of different
professional cultures is challenging, as Tett (2007) points out.
But what of collaboration between schools? It is likely, as Woods (2007) points out in
this volume, that head teachers will continue to see both competition and collaboration
featuring prominently in their professional lives. And there is no doubt that some features
of the 2005 White Paper – the further differentiation of “products” as Johnson puts it,
and the seeming end to limits on expansion of “popular schools” (Riddell, 2005) could
potentially heighten competition for pupils in some places, especially where schools
decide which children are offered places against the background of falling pupil num-
bers. In some large conurbations, this will make it personally difficult (as it is now) for
some head teachers to sit down together, never mind work together effectively.
However, this is against the background of much longer expectations to collaborate:
for example, as part of Excellence in Cities (DfEE, 1999), secondary head teachers
had to vote on which resources they and their colleagues received (Ibid.); in Education
Action Zones (Power et al., 2005), groups of primary and secondary schools have been
expected to ally themselves with business and design programs to raise attainment; for
the 14–19 reforms (DfES, 2002b), groups of secondary and special schools and further
education colleges together design their 14–19 phase of education so that all young
people can put together an appropriate program, even where this is provided by more
than one institution; and more recently, for “Education Improvement Partnerships”
(DfES, 2003c, 2005b), the expectation is groups of schools work together, often under
the leadership of a more “successful” one, to develop good practice and learn together.
It would seem odd if this history were to disappear overnight, especially where the
provision of extra funding is involved.
As Woods says, therefore, it is not possible to say with any conviction what will
happen over the next few years in the view of these countervailing tendencies. Leaving
aside the governance issue, however, schools have been able to acquire most of the
powers available to trust schools for some time – a change of status by a single vote,
for example, was enshrined in the 2002 Act of Parliament, and foundation schools
have existed since the late 1990s. Notwithstanding such, dramatic changes have not
been seen as yet. And admissions to schools will be more tightly regulated, possibly by
statute. In addition, the White Paper does set out, as part of the new role of speaking
on behalf of parents and children, some requirements on local authorities with respect
 Urban Learning and the Need 1045

to collaboration. They will need to “encourage” voluntary collaboratives for wider

school improvement, behaviour and extended services, “require” failing schools to
collaborate and “specify” how new or replacement schools should work in partnership
with other schools and services (DfES, 2005c, p. 109, 103).

Nine Things to Do to Make a Difference to

Bottom Strata Schools
As with all national-policy-led adjustments to social and political structures, therefore,
how they develop in reality and what we will be saying about them in ten years’ time
will depend at least in part on the role played by local agency. So this chapter con-
cludes with advice to those with hands on the levers of power and influence, or with
significant contributions to make at all levels:
(1) To central government, local authorities, universities, the voluntary and private
sectors, and all schools:
● Promote the mission of schools in the lower strata of our urban school sys-
tems. Theirs is potentially one of greatest contributions to the achievement of
social justice.
● Stop seeing them as a problem and recognize staff experience in them in their
salaries.
(2) To central government, universities, the National College for School Leadership,
local authorities and schools:
● Develop accredited learning packages, as part of national arrangements, to
promote learning schools and the study of community modes of learning and
funds of knowledge.
● Promote non-standard approaches to leading, teaching and learning, including
by recognition in national awards ceremonies.
● Promote the teaching and learning of thinking skills.
(3) To central government:
● End detailed prescription and ensure external inspection does not reinforce it
even by default.
(4) To local authorities:
● Where this has not been done, develop a vision with schools and significant
stakeholders for collaboration between schools, based not just on the need for
better “services” but on its necessary contribution to collective improvement,
including of high performing schools, and the achievement of social justice.
(5) To secondary head teachers:
● Ensure you not lose sight of collaboration for the good of your students,
especially from socially deprived or low aspirational backgrounds.
1046 Riddell

(6) To all teachers:

● Spend some time as part of your career in a bottom strata school.

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54

LEADING SCHOOLS IN HIGH POVERTY

NEIGHBORHOODS: THE NATIONAL COLLEGE
FOR SCHOOL LEADERSHIP AND BEYOND

Pat Thomson
School of Education, The University of Nottingham, U.K.

Hi Pat
I won’t be able to meet up this coming Friday. I’ve broken my ankle playing
badminton (too competitively!) and cannot drive. I’ve had a pretty tough few
weeks one way and another – the more than usual trials and tribulations of being
a head in a SFCC … (School Facing Challenging Circumstances) Can I catch up
in a few weeks time with my draft?
— Dave

I was not surprised to get this email. Ever since I’d become his supervisor David had
struggled to fit the Doctor of Education program into his life. I went to visit him in his
school early on in our supervision relationship so I could meet him in his professional
context, rather than always in mine. When I arrived in the school he met me saying that
he’d considered ringing me to tell me not to come. Pointing to a small pile of forms on
his desk, reports from teachers of “critical incidents” with students, he told me that the
morning had been entirely taken up working through the aftermath of a new drug ship-
ment on the large council estate surrounding the school. The dealers were doing spe-
cial offers, and, while only a tiny minority of the students were involved, it was enough
to take that morning, and the following few days, to sort out.
David and I often spend at least part of our supervision meetings, when they do
happen, talking about the reality of his job. It is integral to his research project and it
overlaps with some of the research that I do. I don’t know how much it matters that
I too once used to do this job and know how it is to have idealistic expectations and
crushing days when it seems nothing is possible. I’m not sure how important it is to his
research that I want to find ways to tell-it-like-it-is without adding to the rampant
stereotypes of hopeless, anti-social young people and families, and out of control
neighborhoods. I continue to find it curious that my own 20 years as head and deputy in
Australian “disadvantaged schools” resonates so strongly with Dave’s current experi-
ences with the casualties of England’s ruthless and rapid de-industrialization. But that
1049
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1049–1078.
© 2007 Springer.
1050 Thomson

is not our only point of commonality. Dave and I both shake our heads at the apparent
incapacity of most of the popularly quoted leadership and management literatures to
really come to grips with the ways in which leading, managing and teaching, in schools
that serve locations made poor, actually occur as everyday social practice.
In this chapter, I examine a set of English texts about leadership in urban schools
and examine the gap between the representations of urban schooling and the experi-
ences of some head-teachers who work in such settings. I suggest that this gap matters
because it sets false expectations of what heads can accomplish while also removing
from view some of the things that matter in making a difference. It is important to state
here that this chapter is not about “what works,” nor is it about “promising directions.”
I argue instead for working towards an adequate recognition of the actual material con-
ditions of leadership in urban settings, better theorizations, more reasonable demands
and judgments made about head-teacher practice, and an expanded policy agenda for
urban school reform. I combine textual analysis with insights drawn from interviews
with head teachers in schools in high-poverty neighborhoods.1
I begin by discussing a quantum of leadership texts sponsored by the National
College for School Leadership (NCSL), and address the terminology used to describe
schools that serve neighborhoods made poor. I then consider sets of NCSL work which
specifically deal with schools like David’s. I suggest why the problems I have signaled
with these approaches matter.

The NCSL and its Work

The National College for School Leadership (NCSL) was officially announced by Prime
Minister Tony Blair in 1998 and launched in 2000. With its home base in Nottingham
and satellite centers scattered all over England, it offers, or increasingly manages the
offering of, a suite of face-to-face and online programs. These include a mandatory head
teacher preparation qualification (NPQH), training for school Bursars and middle-level
leaders, induction for newly appointed heads (HIP) and ongoing professional develop-
ment opportunities for serving heads.
The NCSL also has a research and development wing.
In 2004, at the initiative of the Standing Conference on Research on Educational
Leadership and Management (SCRELM), the NCSL commissioned a survey about the
funding for inquiry into leadership and inquiry in England from 1998 to 2003 (Weindling,
2004). The results showed a dramatic overall increase in the amount of money spent on
the field, the largest amount being in 2002. This is testament to the impact of the pol-
icy emphasis on improving leadership in order to improve schools. As well, and almost
overnight, Weindling asserts, the NCSL became the largest single funder of leadership
and management research activity in England. It also funded an increasing proportion
of the work, moving from roughly one third of the total in 2001 and 2002, to nearer a
half in 2003 (see Figure 1).
It is important to note that Weindling’s survey covered a limited number of participants
largely associated with SCRELM, did not take into account research conducted by NCSL
research associates (practitioners released from their schools to undertake particular
 Leading Schools in High Poverty Neighborhoods 1051

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

Other sources 156.5 40 138.7 206 656.8 306.9

NCSL 122 317.6 246.6
Total 156.5 40 138.7 328 974.4 553.5

Figure 1. Distribution of funding for leadership and management research (from Weindling, 2004)

projects), and did not examine the quality of the research itself. In reality, projects
funded by the NCSL were almost always short-term small projects with little in-depth
investigation or elaborated critical analysis. Indeed to call some of this work research
is a misnomer. But the quality of scholarship was not disconnected from the purpose
of these activities, namely, to provide support for, and a steer on, an established gov-
ernment agenda of improving standards of school performance via raising the test
results at key stages of schooling (Thrupp, 2005a, 2005b; Thrupp & Wilmott, 2003).
Regardless of its quality, the corpus of work is important because of its:
(1) Practical use: it informs and supports the framework for head teacher training,
over which the NCSL has a near monopoly (Bush, 2004). It also influences
selection processes.
(2) Discursive power: it provides a language through which the activities of heads
are not only described but also prescribed and inscribed.
I am particularly concerned with those NCSL texts which address the specific circum-
stances of urban schools (see annexe for the list of those consulted). The fact that there
is such a body of work represents a positive move beyond thinking that all schools and
school leaders’ work are the same across all localities. It is a welcome recognition that
there is something different about leading and managing an urban school located in a
community living with hardship.

Methodological Approach
In this chapter, I treat the NCSL research output as part of a policy assemblage which is
both “text and discourse” (Ball, 1993). Foucault (1991, pp. 59–60) suggests that in spe-
cific periods of time there are socially constructed discursive formations which limit
and form: what is sayable (what it is possible to speak about; what is conserved); what
disappears and what is repeated and circulated; what is remembered (what is recognized
and validated, what is regarded as able to be dismissed; what is reactivated); what is
transformed from foreign cultures or past epochs and what is done with them; and what
is appropriated (what discourses are accessible to particular individuals and groups),
and the institutionalization of discourses and the struggles for control over them. Using
this Foucaultian notion of discourse, questions I asked of the NCSL texts were:
● How are the schools and urban neighborhoods in these texts described?
● What is said to be the problem in these schools and neighborhoods?
● What are their leaders supposed to do?
1052 Thomson

● What evidence base is used?

● What kind of theorization is this?
● What is left out of this problematization?
● How else might this be theorized?
The first point of analysis then is to consider the “problematization” of schools and
neighborhoods offered in NCSL texts.

Urban Schools and Contexts: A Case of

Impoverished Discourse
In the anecdote with which I began this chapter, I introduced the current English policy
term for schools which serve locations and populations that are struggling to make do
in an apparently comfortable time – schools facing challenging circumstance (SFCC).
This term is also used by the NCSL: it does not challenge or reframe the category, thus
signaling its relationship to the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) and its
role in the policy implementation chain.
The Department for Education and Skills defines SFCCs as those where 25% or
fewer of the pupils achieved five or more grades A*–C in GCSE and/or equivalent
examinations. Similar definitions apply to primary schools, using key stage assess-
ments as the benchmark. Here then, there is a move away from taking traditional meas-
ures of poverty such as income or family qualifications, to a measure of achievement
output in schools. In reality, the vast majority of schools that fit the DfES definition
are also schools in which there are a concentration of students from families with
modest educational qualifications and low incomes.2
The shift to the focus on educational “outputs” is significant. Originally part of a
Thatcherite discourse in which any talk of social and economic circumstances was
characterized as “excuse making,” the use of exam and test results as indicators of
“educational disadvantage” is now incorporated into “official” school improvement
policy and practice. The accompanying rationale is that while the circumstances of
schools cannot be dismissed, the important point is to focus on what schools can do.
This is measured by “progress” against learning “targets” as represented by the tests.
There is considerable debate in the academic literatures about how much improvement
against the odds is actually possible (see Slee, Weiner, & Tomlinson, 1998; Thrupp,
1999 for critique of the idea), but the DfES point to differences in student attainment
in apparently “like schools.” These “like” schools calculations are based on statistical
probability bands using student and neighborhood population data (e.g., socioeconomic
status, gender, race and ethnicity, language spoken). Thus, measures of poverty and
wealth are not far removed from the official definition of challenging circumstances,
but they are not necessarily the first point of reference. They do not exist on the surface
of the text which points resolutely to the school and its actions.
There are two textual aspects of the SFCC term worthy of further discussion:
(1) challenging, and (2) context/circumstances.
 Leading Schools in High Poverty Neighborhoods 1053

Challenging
“Challenging” is a most interesting word to use to ascribe to schools which are situated
in high-poverty neighborhoods. It has several possible meanings:
(1) A dare – this implies that those who work in “challenging schools” are dared to
forget about the question of poverty and dared to do better than might be
expected.
(2) A confrontation – this acknowledges that teachers may find themselves confronted
literally and metaphorically by the lives of students and their families.
(3) A risk and a frustration – this a recognition that work in such schools is not easy,
quick or subject to simple solutions. Courage is required.
(4) A summons – as in times when gentlemen challenged each other to a duel, work
in these schools is a call to fight against the odds.
All of these possible meanings sit within the term and readers may interpret them in
any or all of these ways.
“Challenging” has replaced/displaced other previous policy terms, such as depriva-
tion and disadvantage, which are now deemed to be altogether too negative. It has also
removed sociological and ethical language associated with poverty and entitlements
from policy rhetoric in favor of something which is simultaneously more vague but
also focused on the experiences and obligations to act of schools and their staff.

Context/Circumstances
I recently interviewed heads as part of a larger study examining exclusion (Thomson,
Harris, Vincent, & Toalster, 2005). One of the heads was in a school in “special
measures.” A school gets to be in “special measures” if it has first of all been deemed
a school with “serious weaknesses” after inspection by OfSTED. If it fails to improve
after being put into “special measures” then it becomes a “failing school.” Schools in
“special measures” are subject to continued inspection and the threat of closure within
five months, and they also get additional funding and generally entirely new leadership
teams. Being a head in a school in “serious weaknesses” is thus often a high risk career
move if the school cannot be “turned around” (i.e., get the students’ test scores and
exam results up) quickly. Needless to say there are many more SFCCs in these various
categories than other types of schools.
A snippet from the interview I conducted with the head in the school in special
measures is instructive.

Pat: Can you tell me about the students, their families and the neighborhood – the
context of the school, I guess you could say …
Head: Are you a sociologist?
Pat: (pause) I used to work in a school that seems to be like this one, and I’m
interested.
Head: What matters here is that we could do better than we are.
1054 Thomson

I will not dispute the head’s judgment that there were things about the school that
needed attention. My walk around several dirty and vandalized corridors revealed
more than one class in which teachers and students were shouting at each other and
nooks in which there was graffiti suggesting what several teachers should do with
themselves. What interested me was the head’s immediate (and accurate it has to be
said) assumption that a question about context had something to do with a sociological
interest in class and poverty – and that this was somehow problematic or not to be
talked about.
Another head in a similarly located school which was doing much better in the
GCSE and OfSTED stakes, thus bearing out the point that the first school could do
better, apologized for telling me about the school community, saying

I’m not making excuses here, but the context is important. It does matter. It makes
a difference to what we can do. We are stuck at 32% A*–C and we want to get to
40 but we just don’t know what we have to do to get there. On any other measure
you might think about we are doing really, really well.

Both of these head’s responses, one not wanting to engage with context and the other
apologetic for introducing it into the conversation, are testament to the power and
pervasiveness of the official discourse that discussion of context equates to excuse-
making. But the latter head raises obliquely a critique of the dominant success measures
used, pointing to other things that are important but not counted.
Unlike these heads’ responses, NSCL reports often do elaborate on the context of
SFCCs. Keys and colleagues (2003, p. 4) for example, note that challenging circum-
stances includes “social deprivation” in the local neighborhood:

Children … drawn from families on low incomes (with parents either in low-paid
manual/service jobs or unemployed), in poor housing, and from families with little
experience of education beyond compulsory schooling. In some cases, families
were found to be exceptionally troubled. The communities served by the schools
were often affected by elements of deprivation, such as bleak surroundings, poor
facilities, poor health, dislocation and disaffection, and high levels of drug and
alcohol abuse. Crime rates in the areas were often high.

The report does not go on to say why or how this mattered. The detail is used to point
to the power of the practices exercised by the leaders to “overcome” the context.
In contrast, Englefield (2002), an NCSL research associate and a practitioner,
makes the case that what heads can do is connected with context. He analyses one local
authority’s test results and shows a match between results and a school’s position in a
ranked order of “need.”

the impact upon the schools of these features, particularly in the area of academic
outcomes, was obviously pivotal in the identification of the level of success of the
school. It is clear nationally that there is a strong correlation between primary
schools in a challenging context and those schools with lower than average academic
achievement, as defined by the Key Stage 2 National Assessment Tests. (2002, p. 3)
 Leading Schools in High Poverty Neighborhoods 1055

In words that resonate with the second head I interviewed, Englefield mounts a
passionate case for alternative forms of judgment of the success of urban schools.
However, despite noting the material realities of urban neighborhoods, neither
Englefield nor any other of the NCSL studies in question (see annexe) explain how it
is that these contextual circumstances actually make an impact on students’ achieve-
ment. The connection is simply asserted or made via statistical correlation. It is as if
the context is a kind of malevolent container in which the school is located, a container
which mysteriously causes the school to falter in its mission and against which the
leader must struggle.
One of the NSCL texts advances what it is that leaders must do. In the introduction
to A model of school leadership in challenging urban environments (National College
for School Leadership, 2005b), a model being developed as the basis for both the
selection and professional development of heads in inner cities, contextual factors are
laid out with supporting statistics.

Schools in neighborhood renewal areas (NRAs), for example, have three times as
many children in poverty as the national average. On average their communities
have 30% higher mortality rates and thee times as much burglary. Schools in
NRAs often face very low attainment on entry and may have high numbers of
pupils on the at-risk register. (2005b, p. 5)

The text sheets home to heads and other school leaders the task of redressing these
issues via school improvement.

There are limits to the power of government to solve these problems from the
centre. Central reform efforts find it hard to respond to local circumstances and can
diminish the motivation of professionals by reducing their freedom to act.
Sustained improvement in schools must be led by schools themselves. (2005b, p. 5)

The slide here from contextual explanation to school improvement is telling. Despite the
cited statistics, the job of heads is to focus on their schools. Poverty, health and burglary
are somehow to be ignored in favor of learning the national curriculum. Citing a speech
by then Minister David Miliband (2004), the paragraph concludes that the task of
central government is to “build capacity” in schools. “Capacity” here refers to the number
of teachers able to “deliver” the mandated curriculum to pupils and raise the test results.
The text also suggests that central policy influence must be reduced. This is disin-
genuous. All schools in England are tightly bound by a range of central policy prescrip-
tions, some of which (e.g., admissions policies) operate differentially to disadvantage
specific schools. But the emphasis in this text on local agency and responsibility for
implementation is entirely in keeping with the official government rhetoric of devolu-
tion, in which the role of government is to set policy, guidelines and targets, and audit the
performance of separate devolved units. In this situation, individual schools, hospitals
and welfare services have considerable responsibility and, some suggest, insufficient
power to actually do what is needed. It must be noted of course, that under conditions of
devolution interesting opportunities for new ways of working democratically with the
1056 Thomson

local community are potentially opened up (Bell, Halpin, & Neill, 1996; Strathern, 2000;
Whitty, Power, & Halpin, 1998) but the point of doing this nor how it might be done
are not explored by these NCSL texts.
Not all of the NCSL texts ignore the power of central policy. As the earlier NCSL
text written by Keys, Sharp, Greene, and Grayson (2003, p. 4) suggests:

Other challenges may arise from the school’s history of underachievement and
the operation of “market forces.” These include: low levels of pupil attainment on
entry; high proportions of pupils excluded from other schools; the existence of
other, more popular schools in the area; the threat of closure; and a lack of public
confidence in the school.

Keys et al. (2003) do note an important area of policy that directly affects what local
schools can do – the unqualified policy support for parent choice. Researchers (Ball,
Bowe, & Gewirtz, 1996; Edwards & Whitty, 1992; Gewirtz, Ball, & Bowe, 1995) sug-
gest that while local authorities may be able to mediate some of the effects of school
markets there is certainly pressure placed on schools in high poverty locations in ways
that distract from the educational effort. Keys et al. thus draw attention to what central
policy might do to make a difference to urban schools, but do not make this explicit.
But why and how does failure to explain the connection between urban context and
urban schools matter?

Problems and Solutions

Carol Bacchi (1999), in a study examining policies which attempt to produce greater
equality between women and men, argues that every policy “solution” contains an
implied “question.” She proposes that it is not only possible to ask “What is the problem
for which this policy is the answer?” as a means of deconstructing existing policies, but
it is also possible to improve policy by taking great care with problems posed during the
formulation of policy. She suggests that it is critical that those engaged in policy-making
spend time interrogating the taken-for-granted ways in which they categorize and ana-
lyze social phenomena, since these are not neutral practices, but discursive (Bacchi,
2000). Names and frames contain within them predetermined courses of action.
While the NCSL documents do not constitute a policy per se, they do belong to a
broader policy discourse about urban schools. The problematization contained within
them does imply solutions which are educational and, as noted, are largely in the hands
of local school staff and the school leadership.
In our recent study noted earlier (Thomson et al., 2005), heads, deputies and teach-
ers produced a common set of suggestions and remedies related to the nature of the
“context” (see Figure 2). These are (perhaps not surprisingly) almost precisely what is
prescribed by and funded through current Third Way English education policy. These
solutions referred directly to perceived problems.
Few of our interviewees considered that the apparent problems of living with a sole
parent or blended family might not be about family structure but be caused by low
 Leading Schools in High Poverty Neighborhoods 1057

Problem School based solution

Children come from broken homes School based welfare services

Parenting is poor Parenting classes
The community has low aspirations Student mentoring and career
counseling
The community watches too much TV Send books home
The children get no discipline at home Contracts with parents
Children can’t/won’t learn Ability grouping
Children bored and disruptive Remedial classes and courses

Figure 2. Contextual problems and solutions

levels of welfare income support and stresses produced from continually being in debt.
None of them entertained the possibility that at least some of the judgments they made
were derived from middle class norms and therefore somewhat problematic. Comparable
to the syntax of the phrase “schools facing challenging circumstances” which works to
locate problems outside of the school and to assert that learning problems could only be
caused by the deficiencies of families and communities,3 the staffs of these urban
schools saw themselves as the providers of solutions to problems residing in the com-
munities. Like the NCSL texts, staff did not countenance the idea that the community
might see a different set of problems and might also have the capacity to offer solutions.
The continued dismissal of the strengths and assets of the people who constitute
“context” is redolent of an ongoing paternalism and colonialism which dates back to
pre-Victorian England. It justifies continued welfarism and fails to recognize, value
and build on local institutional, organizational and leadership capacities within com-
munities (McKnight & Kretzmann, 1996). It is assumed that it is professionals who
must provide for the community, rather than the community being assisted to sort
things out for itself (Gilchrist, 2004; McKnight, 1995).
There are three important consequences of this benevolent welfarist SFCC problem
and solution posing which I now outline.

Lack of Evidence
There is little basis in national or international research for some of the “problems”
noted by heads and in the wider policy discourse of SFCCs.
Parents are painted as uncaring and inadequate. However, research suggests that the
vast majority of working class parents are not uncaring or hostile to education
(e.g., Connell, Ashenden, Kessler, & Dowsett, 1982; Crozier & Reay, 2004; David,
Edwards, Hughes, & Ribbens, 1993; Devine, 2004; Furstenberg, Cook, Eccles, Elder, &
Sameroff, 1999; Reay, 1998). Like any other parent, those struggling to make ends meet
also want the best for their children, including a good education, even though they
might be skeptical about the capacity of schooling to achieve this. Thus, teacher judg-
ments about poor parenting equate to crude generalizations which ignore cultural dif-
ferences and local ways of “making do” (Duncan & Brooks-Gunn, 1997; Ellsworth &
Ames, 1998; Sanderson & Thomson, 2003).
1058 Thomson

Children living in neighborhoods made poor are said to be illiterate and their homes
devoid of literacy resources. But research suggests that working class children have
word, number, image and knowledge resources and practices equal but different to
those of middle class peers (e.g., Comber, Badger, Barnett, Nixon, & Pitt, 2001; Dyson,
1993; Freebody, Ludwig, & Gunn, 1995; Hill, Comber, Louden, Reid, & Rivalland,
1998; Moll, 1992). This body of work argues that parents are unable to do the kind of
complementary education work on which success at school largely depends (Griffith &
Smith, 2005) because the school does not recognize these resources and practices.
What is required therefore is a shift in school approaches to home-school and class-
room pedagogies (Cairney, 2002; Comber, Thomson, & Wells, 2001; Daspit & Weaver,
2000; Finn, 1999).
Failing to take account of such evidence, schools arrive at “solutions” that perpetuate
rather than redress inequities.

Lack of Explanation for the Contextual Phenomena

Paying attention to the ways in which the context and the school are connected is
important. But because the problematization offered by SFCC is one in which it is
individual families and their children that are at fault and require remediation, the con-
nections between the neighborhood and the school are “misrecognised.”
Just as the heads in our study suggested, it is the case that in urban schools there are
numbers of children and families under pressure: some will be in crisis, some will
exhibit anger, depression and alienation. But rather than these being idiosyncratic and
personal attributes and responses, they are in reality patterned. Social structures
become embodied both in people and in school practices. Seeing the embodied and
institutionalized patterns in the contextual phenomena draws attention to some of the
things that teachers and schools need to do, and it also reveals other forms of public
policy intervention which would make the jobs of urban schools different and easier.
My own research (Thomson, 1999, 2000, 2002; Thomson & Comber, 2003) sug-
gests strongly that what schools can do to address various combinations of embodied
socio-structural issues is framed and limited by the “school mix”4 and the resources
available in the neighborhood. In this next section I draw attention to the ways in which
the context and school “problems” are produced and show how this sociological expla-
nation highlights public policy issues that are not normally seen as connected with
education. I refer to school responses in the following section.

The School Mix

Urban schools have pupils whose families are affected by:

Changes in the labor market

Family unemployment/underemployment/tenuous employment (the local working out
of global economic shifts and macro and microeconomic reform policies of the
national and state governments) play out in schools in a range of ways – many students
have no money for educational expenses; some children are the only ones in their
 Leading Schools in High Poverty Neighborhoods 1059

household who have to get up regularly everyday and frequently don’t; some parents
show acute levels of anxiety and depression arising from their lack of security – this is
manifest in health problems and angry outbursts in schools. There are young people
who firmly believe that they will not find any work at all, and they see little point in
compliance to school rules nor in application to curriculum. This produces significant
“behaviour” problems which are seldom adequately addressed by vocational pro-
grams. There are also often regular and disillusioned unemployed visitors to schools,
urging their younger counterparts to join them in the mall. Many students also have to
work part time and these wages are often a necessary addition to the family income;
casual work requirements of employers however often conflict with homework, and
regular attendance requirements.
There are implications here for government policies around taxation, job creation
and urban regeneration. An integration of adult retraining with urban education could
also be a beneficial policy direction.

Changes in families
The increase in the numbers of diverse families many of whom are dependent on gov-
ernment income support, particularly those for lone parents and those designated as
the “working poor” with young children, are manifest in urban schools. Significant
numbers of children have to deal with the pressures of living in domestic situations
which are not only unstable but also strained from serious financial worries. Urban
schools report regular incidences of “staying with grandma,” and children moving
between family members. There is often significant family and student transience and
some children exhibit evidence of considerable insecurity and anxiety. This requires
regular time away from instruction, and involves classroom teachers and administra-
tors alike. Teachers struggle with the task of establishing pedagogical relationships
with children new to their class, only to see many of them leave within a short space of
time to begin in yet another school.
There are public policy issues here related to levels of income support, management
of credit and debt, and housing.

Concentration of families in crisis

Low income neighbourhoods often become trapped in vicious downward spirals, in
which those who are able to move out, do, and those who have no choice stay put.
Small businesses close, and those who move into the area do so because it is all they
can afford. Such areas often have a large quantum of housing funded from the public
purse, some of which may be available for emergency shelter. These schools have to
spend more time on pastoral and welfare activities than others – even the presence of
good interagency services still requires additional school time to process and manage.
Such neighbourhoods also often become home to continuing intakes of refugees flee-
ing intolerable political situations. Schools in such localities face additional demands
for translation and interpreting and support in a range of welfare and immigration
related activities (see also Thomson, Ellison, Byrom, & Bulman, 2004), and there are
sometimes significant shortfalls between the resources available and the demand
for services.
1060 Thomson

While the current government policy emphasis on integrated children’s services

will go some way to meeting with welfare issues, there is much more that might be
done via housing, physical and mental health and immigration policy that might ease
the situation in urban schools.

Resources Available to the School in the Neighborhood

The capacity of each school to run the mandated, as well as desirable co-curricular
programs and to provide equally and equitably for students, is tied to neighborhood
resources. The following are important:

Community infrastructure
Schools and students rely on local health and welfare services, public library provision,
youth services, migrant support programs, recreation facilities and organizations and
public transport. These are part of the neighborhood assets (McKnight, 1995) that
support not only learning in and out of school but also general well-being. Urban
neighborhoods may have few of these facilities, the lucky few have them in abundance.
Urban regeneration programs in the most deprived areas often provide such ameni-
ties, but there are still many “unregenerated” locations which have such provisions.
Greater effort in such neighborhoods will play out in schools.

Employment and employment networks

Schools depend on numbers of small, medium and large business to provide not only
jobs for parents and school leavers, but also work placements and mentoring for
pupils. Pupils also look to local employment networks to help them get part time work
and jobs post school (cf. Newman, 1999; Willis, 1977). One of the characteristics of
de-industrialized areas is the fracturing of employment networks, and it is a continued
source of anxiety for many parents that they cannot assist their children to get work in
ways that their families and friends did for them (cf. Fine & Weis, 1998; Newman,
1999). Local businesses also supply civic leadership in the local area. They make con-
tributions to the local micro-economy through local purchasing arrangements creating
more work opportunities as they do so. The long term downturn of manufacturing and
small business in urban locations means that local schools are variously able to call on
such leadership for governance.
Again, employment programs, retraining and adult education, and various forms of
social and cooperative enterprise sponsorship would play out as benefits for urban
schools.
In sum then the equation of poverty with individual social isolation and powerlessness
misrecognises the residential and economic sequestration of entire estates (Gibson
et al., 1996; Lister, 2004; Pacione, 1997) produced by the interplay of housing mar-
kets, transport policies and local authority policies and demography (Lupton, 2003).
The assumption that it is individualized poverty that is the problem, renders invisible
the argument that social and economic inequality is what is at stake (Wilkinson, 2005).
Furthermore, as noted earlier, the failure to recognize that working class communities,
 Leading Schools in High Poverty Neighborhoods 1061

despite being plunged into poverty by the abrupt closure of mines, factories and mills,
still have knowledge, leaders and skills means that communities remain as categories of
“need” rather than as potential sources of “solutions” (de Carvalho, 1997; Moll, Tapia, &
Whitmore, 1993).
Understanding the patterning that produces the difficulties in urban schools leads to
understanding the ways in which public policy agendas might better support urban edu-
cation. It also suggests schools can benefit from getting to understand their local cir-
cumstances rather than assume that what they see is the result of individual deficiencies
or homogenized cultures of poverty. This kind of sociological analysis should also lead
to a more nuanced and better theorized notion of what the task of urban leaders must be.
But, as I will now suggest, the third problem with SFCC discourse is that it does not
sufficiently pay sufficient attention to the implications for leadership of the structural
issues that produce specific school mixes and neighborhoods.

Leadership, Leadership, Leadership

The establishment of the NCSL heralded an unprecedented policy emphasis on the
importance of school leadership. One of the first initiatives was to establish a set of
standards for head teachers, around which training programs could be based. The Hay
McBer model (2000) proposed a set of personal/professional characteristics for heads
in different settings. These were said to work holistically but not prescriptively. This
was followed by a review of major training programs and an accompanying Leadership
Development Framework (LDF) (National College for School Leadership, 2002a),
which added ten key propositions to underpin training: these included the necessity for
leadership to be values driven, learning focused, distributed throughout the school and
oriented to building capacity. These are points which appear in multiple NCSL texts.
Nested within this overall LDF and standards framework, the NCSL offers two dis-
tinct approaches to the task of explaining what heads in high-poverty schools must do.
The first is drawn from school improvement approaches and focuses on actions and/or
practices while the second is based on a notion of “qualities” that leaders possess and
refers directly back to the Hay McBer foundational text. There some overlaps between
the two sets of SFCC texts. I discuss each in turn.

Improving SFCC Leaders

NSCL work on SFCC draws on the field of school improvement (SI). SI is both an
international research field and an official policy discourse. As an area of research it is
co-located with school effectiveness (SE), and it sometimes said to be the means by
which SE is accomplished (Stoll & Fink, 1996). SI has a focus on school practice and
on “what works.” Many of its key proponents are active as consultants to schools and,
as in the case of NCSL itself, there is inevitably a connection between the research
these SI advocates conduct and what they do in their consultancy businesses.
Two of the key planks of SI are its commitment to process, and a growing belief that
there is no one single model of school change or indeed school leadership. Each school is
1062 Thomson

unique, particularly those which are SFCC. Nevertheless, SI scholars hold that some
generalizations about SI are possible. In Figure 3, some SI texts are compared. Harris
and Chapman’s (2002) research on leadership in SFCC for the NCSL is used as the ful-
crum against which two other NCSL texts and a comparison of two SI programs is made.

IQEA/MSIP NCSL NCS NCSL

comparison Leithwood and Harris and Chapman Keys et al.
(Harris, 2000) Reihl (2003) (2000) (2003)

Setting direction – Vision and Create shared

vision and Values vision
meanings
Devolved Leadership Distributed Involve staff in
leadership across the school Leadership leadership
Collaboration
Focus on specific Monitor Leading Improve
teaching and performance, Learning curriculum,
learning goals outcomes and learning and
expectations teaching quality
Respond to Raise
diverse students achievement
Teacher Developing Investment in Time for CPD
development and people staff
professional development
growth
Relationships
Build social Community Involve others in
capital of Building school
students and improvement
families
Improve the
environment
Summative Respond
evaluation productively to
external
requirements and
environment
Temporary Developing the
structures organization –
Formative structures and
evaluation culture
Raise standard of
pupil behavior
External agency External support
from advisors
and LEA
Funding

Figure 3. Comparison of SI texts

 Leading Schools in High Poverty Neighborhoods 1063

Figure 3 shows areas of substantial agreement between each of the SI approaches.

The three NCSL texts for example all talk of vision. All four discuss the importance of
high teacher expectations and a strong push for improved teaching and learning. Here
however, I will focus on only two issues of agreed importance, teacher development
and shared leadership.

Teacher development
SI argues for the professional learning of staff and their opportunity to lead school
development. There can be no doubt that having the best possible teachers makes a
difference to working class students.
SI makes improvements to students’ learning the purpose of staff training. SI teacher
development does not simply mean the transmission of “best practice” developed else-
where. Some SI researchers advocate the extensive use of action research as a means of
staff development, growing professional knowledge at the same time as changing actual
practice in classrooms (cf. CUREE, 2003a, 2003b; Hopkins et al., 1994; Hopkins, 2001).
This is a welcome shift from seeing teaching more as a set of scripted presentations as
in high ticket policy initiatives such as the National Literacy Strategy.
But there are some significant omissions from the SI-NCSL approach:

● The focus on learning equates to dealing with the targets set through the National
Curriculum rather than suggesting that teachers might mediate such imposts
through alternative conceptualizations of knowledge which productively use
the understandings and experiences of children living in urban neighborhoods.
The sociological and pedagogical research literatures noted earlier create strong
requirements for teachers and leaders who are expert in matters of literacy,
numeracy and pedagogy: they suggest that teachers and leaders need to become
ethnographers of their local neighborhoods.
● There is little here of the debates that vex urban school heads about class size
(Achilles, 1999; Blatchford, 2003), or about ability grouping (Hart, Dixon,
Drummond, & McIntyre, 2004; Oakes, Wells, Jones, & Datnow, 1997) and noth-
ing to assist them to help their staffs manage and mediate testing, league tables
and the educational “triage” demanded by 5 A*–Cs (Gillbourn & Youdell, 2000).
● There is nothing about how to do more with less, nor how to manage competition
from a new smart “city academy”5 with an impressive signature building just up
the road.
● There is no reminder of the history of interagency projects and what might be
learnt from them.
● Head teacher supply and retention is also an issue in urban schools (see Howson,
2004 for the connection between student achievement and turnover). But questions
of retention and succession planning do not figure as a matter for successful SFCC
leaders according to these SI texts, even thought leadership turnover is recognized
as a key barrier to improvement (Fullan, 2005; Hargreaves & Fink, 2006).

And there is a startling lack of attention to problems of teacher supply and teacher
quality. This is a live issue in urban schools. One head told me (Thomson et al., 2005)
1064 Thomson

in interview “They look at our GCSE results and see where we are and decide they just
don’t want to come.” Another regaled me with stories about the time when his school
was in the throes of a new building program after amalgamating with another school
(both were considered at 600 students to be too small). As he put it, “So there we were,
first day, 600 new pupils walking down the drive, the foundations of the new building
not even started and 14 teachers short.” There was little doubt that this shortage was
a major contributor to the school being placed in “special measures” a mere two
years later.
While it is the case that there are now more teachers in the system than a few years
ago, and there is debate about whether there is a crisis in teacher supply or not (See,
Gorard & White, 2004), there is no evidence to suggest anything other than it being
harder for schools in with particular populations to get their full complement of well-
qualified and willing staff (Ansell, 2004). Each location brings with it its own issues.
Riley (2004, p. 6) notes the problems with retention:

Leadership in London is characterized by pace, complexity and movement, the

juxtaposition of great poverty and wealth. A transient pupil population is typically
matched by a transient teacher population. The high costs of London living, as
well as the demands of the job generate staff mobility and teacher shortages.

And in contrast, a head in a former Midlands mining community told me “We’re just a
town. We’re too far away from the things that young teachers want to do at night. Why
come here when you could go somewhere more exciting?” (Thomson et al., 2005)
Professional development is strongly connected to the question of retention of staff
in urban schools, as noted, but this connection is not explained or specified. One has
to ask of these SI texts, teacher development about what? Staff in urban settings must
first of all understand the children and families that they are to serve. The teaching task
is not one of “delivery” or of “personalisation” of a given curriculum. It is one of adap-
tation and of transformation. Staff must thus have a large repertoire of pedagogies for
connecting students’ own resources with the mandated curriculum, for embedding lit-
eracy and numeracy learning across the curriculum, and for offering a rich array of
tasks and groupings which allow students to learn with and from each other. They also
need to know how to work with children and young people whose families are under
pressure: they need sound counseling and pastoral care practices. The kinds of profes-
sional development that matters in urban education is partly known and documented,
but this “content” is dodged in the SI NCSL literatures in favor of “process.”6

Shared leadership
All of the NCSL SFCC and SI texts share a view that leadership must be “distributed”
across the school, rather than reside in the person of the head. This is in part a rejec-
tion of the idea of the charismatic school leader. It is also driven by the notions that:
staff have good ideas and unique perspectives to contribute to improvement; change is
impossible without “buy in” from staff; and sharing jobs around means more gets
done. SFCC and SI-NCSL has a pragmatic basis for leadership distribution, as well
 Leading Schools in High Poverty Neighborhoods 1065

making a political move against the autocratic styles of headship implied in policy
moves, such as the appointment of “super-heads” to allegedly failing schools.
Some SI scholars go further with the idea of distribution. They suggest that distributed
leadership means that leadership is not a property of any single person but rather exists
through and as shared activity (Crowther, 1997; Frost & Harris, 2003; Lambert et al.,
1995; McPherson, Elliott, Aspland, & Brooker, 1999; Moller & Katzenmayer, 1996).
SI researchers use this perspective to argue for building collaborative teams and for
giving teachers, time, recognition and responsibilities. They find in their research with
schools that it is one of the key components of successful change.
There are critiques of this position and they relate in part to the ways in which
leadership is highlighted to the detriment of management.
Researchers in the US (Spillane, Halverson, & Diamond, 2003; Spillane &
Zoltner-Sherer, 2004) and Australia (Gronn, 2003) have, with a more hands off approach
to the study of school leadership and school change and a greater immersion in theory,
been able to demonstrate something of what is actually involved in “distribution.”
Halverson (2003) for example, focuses on the role of policies, practices and programs as
the activities which do the work of initiating and sustaining distribution. Spillane et al.
(2003) highlight structures, such as meeting agendas and timetables, which serve to con-
struct and regulate activity through framing and supporting the ways in which people
come together regularly to accomplish particular tasks. It is systems such as these which
are potentially associated with what Leithwood and Reihl (2003) call building organiza-
tional structure and culture – and what many heads would simply call management.
Money, time, meetings, information, policies, rewards and sanctions are a head
teacher’s major change levers in the school. While changing school culture, as high-
lighted by the SI and SFCC leadership literatures is important, this goes nowhere
unless there is attention to the systems that hold the school together.
Working on management issues is often a key activity for heads in schools that are
judged to be in “serious weaknesses” or in “special measures.” NCSL associate Brown
(2002) looked at the first 100 days of a head in a such a situation and noted how much
of her time had to be spent simply making the school functional by addressing secre-
tarial support, plant and resourcing. The distinct lack of attention to these issues in
SI-NCSL literatures means that heads could be left without stimulus in thinking about
how to shift the infrastructure which holds the school together. The NCSL has however
also produced a document which does give some strategies for heads in SFCC
(National College for School Leadership, 2002b) although these are not theorized in
the ways that Spillane et al. (2003) would suggest.
Nevertheless, Hatcher (2005) has queried the rationale for and the very possibility
of distributive leadership. He suggests that SI scholars, including those who use activity
theory, have tried to separate leadership out from management. Leadership becomes a
democratic practice while school management remains as the exercise of hierarchical
power. In SI shared leadership, power now renamed influence, can be distributed, even
though the school remains subject to highly centralized institutional practices, such as
testing, performance management and inspection which is managed institutionally by the
school senior administration. This “loose coupling,” Hatcher suggests, is theoretically
unsustainable since the trajectory of power within and without the school over-determines
1066 Thomson

all other practices. Nor does it match the reality of schools in which heads “circumscribe
leadership and subordinate it to managerial authority” (p. 260). Hatcher joins with
Wright (2001) and Thrupp and Wilmott (2003) in suggesting that there has been a
“capture of leadership by the managerialist agenda” ( p. 261). He proposes a shift to
democratic participation as a right rather than as a privilege, and to self management
rather than devolution. Hatcher thus replaces managerialism with participatory
management which takes account of the realpolitik of current policy.
This kind of debate finds no place within the NCSL. There is no trace of it within
the SFCC texts. This leaves urban heads, who struggle with the risks of giving away
responsibilities to teachers when it is they who might lose their jobs, to wrestle alone
with the dilemmas of democracy and power.

Urban Leader Standards

Urban leadership texts (Brighouse, 2005; National College for School Leadership,
2005a, 2005b) were designed to support the specific needs of local authorities and
schools in inner cities. Piloted initially in London, they are being extended to 12 other
localities in England. The texts consist of details of a “model of school leadership in
challenging urban environments” and guidance and a toolkit for governors using the
model for selection purposes.
Existing heads can choose to offer themselves for assessment and be awarded the
title of chartered urban leader. This occurs through an assessment centre in which can-
didates undertake a series of exercises watched and judged by a panel of assessors. The
same assessment center can be used to evaluate potential heads, in which case they
receive detailed feedback, and are given one year during which they undertake targeted
professional development, to meet the standards. The standards can also be used as the
basis for selection of heads by governing bodies, and as a professional development
and talent-spotting rubric.
The “qualities” that form the standards are a mix of traits inherent to the urban
leader (e.g., resilience, courage) and things that they do (e.g., influencing people, fil-
tering, judging and acting). They differ from the Hay McBer standards on which they
are based in that they include courage and resilience and community engagement. But
more importantly, the two texts also use different language. The urban leader charter is
more educational and less managerial in its rhetoric than Hay McBer. It also backs its
broad categories through sets of positive indicators which refer to the specificity of
headship in schools with high poverty concentrations. For example, the qualities of
courage and conviction are said to be indicated positively by leaders:

standing up for beliefs and defending them in the face of opposition and entrenched
interest, articulating a compelling sense of justice and urgency, and communicating
their sense of moral purpose to inspire others with their convictions and by example.
(National College for School Leadership, 2005b, p. 12)

Nevertheless, there are similarities between Hay McBer and the chartered urban leader
categories (see Figure 4).
 Leading Schools in High Poverty Neighborhoods 1067

Chartered urban leader Hay McBer

Enduring resilience
Courage and conviction
Focus and simplicity
Community engagement
Open and connected leadership
Leading learning
Filtering, judging and acting
Accountability and consistency
Purposeful influencing
Personal values and passionate conviction
Creating the vision
Getting people on board
Planning for delivery and
monitoring and improvement
Planning for delivery and monitoring and
improvement
Planning for delivery and monitoring and
improvement
Gathering information and gaining
understanding

Figure 4. Urban leadership and Hay McBer

The urban leader standards were developed with serving head teachers and drew on
NCSL sponsored and associated research. I have no doubt that the professional devel-
opment enjoyed by those heads who developed the standards was considerable.
However, how much the results can support future professional development of others
remains a moot point (cf. Bogotch, 2002).
It is by no means clear that urban heads are best “trained” outside of their schools in
ways that the NCSL texts indicate. An evaluation of the Scottish Qualification for
Headship (SQH) (Reeves, Turner, Morris, & Forde, 2005) suggests that leadership pro-
fessional development is a complex practice. What candidates for the SQH made of the
leadership and management resources on offer was closely related to their workplace
and to their own experiences. Changing candidates’ behavior was framed and con-
strained by the willingness of others to change at the same time. The SQH evaluation
suggests that, in order to meet its goals of enhancing recruitment as well as actual
urban leadership, the NCSL might need to move beyond heads and governors to con-
sider the totality of the setting in which potential and existing leaders work. As Reeves
et al. (2005) have it this means “opening up spaces to allow sustained professional
growth on the part of both the participants and their colleagues” (p. 271). This suggests
that the most situated professional development is likely to occur not by heads work-
ing together out of school, but on site, in the company of parents, students and staff.
Ultimately, the standards as they stand, regardless of any concern about their potential
disciplinary or “cloning” potentials via selection and professional development
(Anderson, 2001; Blackmore, Thomson, & Barty, 2006), are long on process and short
on content. As such, they provide bald and atomized representations of the work of
leading and managing urban schools that are barely recognizable to many who actually
do the job.
1068 Thomson

Better Representations of the Work are Needed

David, whose email began this chapter, is appointed to a school in which GCSE results
have improved. In addition to running the school, he is now the manager of an urban
renewal project through which a number of government agencies are to be amalga-
mated on an extended site. He is excited about this and has taken on hours of additional
work each week in order to make it happen. But David is having difficulty with the
school community. Too often for his liking, angry parents storm into the school. Too
often at meetings he is accused of being “too posh” to understand what it is like for
people living on the estate. He worries about this a lot.
David is struggling with something that the standards do not address – the question
of power and the powerful position of heads in particular. On the estate David is a rep-
resentative of a government which has singularly failed to provide employment oppor-
tunities, despite the rhetoric of regeneration. He is also the most visible and obvious
representative of the middle class “helping professional” who has the capacity to trigger
interventions that might result in loss of income, the removal of children, or the impo-
sition of behaviour orders. And, regardless of his own humble origins, he is seen, by
virtue of his education, as the embodiment of a middle class which describes inner city
residents as an homogenous and unsavory “other.” Despite possessing the qualities
of courage, resilience and conviction, David’s capacity to engage this community is
constrained – but not by any lack of skills. Rather, the unhappy interactions he experi-
ences are a product of the historical relations between a working class community and
institutional and social structures/cultures. David understands this, and while this
helps, it makes the actual everyday tasks no easier. He does not know how long he can
continue in the job. I suspect that the experiences of many heads are like those of
David who recently remarked that he had found the SI literatures helpful for the first
year of his headship, but then they ran out.
For David, the standards may well simply work as a mark of failure – they suggest
that a head who gives up does so because she/he lacks some fundamental capacity or
personal quality. But this is not the case. Texts which seek to address urban, town or
rural leadership in high-poverty locations must surely address the irresolvable tensions
and contradictions that derive from these broader social relations. Failure to address
social and economic injustices and questions of power in favor of looking only at what
schools and their leaders can do actually does no favors for those who work to make
a positive difference. David looks at these texts and feels himself deficient – this is
neither productive nor helpful.
Autobiographies of successful heads (Gilbert, 2004; O’Connor, Hales, Davies, &
Tomlinson, 1999; Stubbs, 2003; Winkley, 2002) show how the process and content of
urban leadership come together. In these more populist texts, there is the recognizable
complex tangle of school, the everyday lives of children and their families and social,
political, cultural and economic forces. There is recognition that educational policy
alone is insufficient to make the kinds of changes that will bring lasting benefits to
high-poverty neighborhoods. And there is the sense of agency that SI hopes to foster
but here it is directed towards specific person centered goals – not DfES designated or
organizational ones. There is a purpose for leadership which is profoundly ethical, and
 Leading Schools in High Poverty Neighborhoods 1069

just. Writing about the process of getting a school out of “special measures” Alison
Peacock (2005) points to the importance of “a sense of fun, some joy.”

The teachers were exhausted. I gave them non-teaching time and quality feedback
so that they knew they had a voice and were being listened to. Wherever possible
their requests for new resources were responded to and the school began to feel
more loved.
The children were demotivated. Determined to show them that things could be
different, we brought in drama specialists, artists, a teenage rock band, anyone we
could think of to enliven the atmosphere. Everyone needed to know that this
school could be an exciting place to be. These visits gave the staff the opportunity
to witness their children responding differently and provided rich CPD opportu-
nities that were nothing to do with criticism of their teaching or providing targets
for improvement. (Peacock, 2005, p. 6)

Peacock’s example shows clearly how leading and managing must be thought and done
together, and how an emphasis on the feelings and beings of the teachers and children
were an important means of addressing teacher’s deficit views of children, and the
children’s sense of alienation.
These kinds of snapshots of leading and managing in inner urban schools show that
questions of how, why and what are integrated into an everyday – and achievable –
practice. What Peacock does is not the work of charisma but it is about taking on the
work of integrating justice and care (Held, 1995) within constraints, relations of power,
and neighborhoods made poor by combinations of economy, demography and policy.

A Better Problematization is Needed

Appreciating that inequality is part of the logic of schooling, that it is produced and
reproduced through a complex tangle of bodies, space/time division, selected knowl-
edge and subjects, pedagogies, student groupings and assessment practices, and that
this inequitable state of affairs has a long history (Apple, 1982; Bourdieu & Passeron,
1977; Connell et al., 1982), can go some way towards creating a more pragmatic and
grounded sense of what is possible in short time-frames. This kind of appreciation
does not suggest that it is impossible to act at the local level, but rather that what can
be done is not only constrained, but also likely to be hard work.
There is a leadership and management corpus which takes this kind of socio-cultural
approach and which has begun to develop approaches to the work of heads and other
educational leaders in communities facing trying times. Such work marries purpose,
process and content and does not create false divisions between them. For example:
● Shields (2003) examines the cultural diversity of students and teachers. She takes
the view that heads must develop cultural expertise that is both intellectual and
lived. Moblising Bahktin, Freiere, Gadamer and Habermas, she argues for a head-
ship that is as theoretically sophisticated as it is practically sensitive. She suggests
1070 Thomson

that heads need to understand debates about justice and multiculturalism and to
explicitly position themselves and their actions in the school in an ethico-political
manner. She promotes the idea of grounded dialogue and thinking of the school
as a public sphere (Shields & Edwards, 2005).
● Ryan (2003, 2005) argues not for distributed leadership but for anti-hierarchical
schools in which the different contributions of people with different skills and
perspectives are honored. He outlines levels of potential involvement, the differ-
ent roles that students, parents and teachers might take, and possible areas of par-
ticipation. He suggests that questions of inclusion and diversity, again related to
the populations of urban schools, are keys to successful reform.
● The Sage Handbook of Educational Leadership (English, 2003) contains several
chapters that outline alternative approaches to leading and managing schools in
high poverty locations. The chapter by Gold, Simon and Brown (2005) for exam-
ple, contains case studies of community organizing in education. Gold et al. (2005)
have developed an indicators framework which measures the development of trust
across asymmetrical lines of power. They call this a shift from parent involvement
to parent engagement. They advocate teachers becoming “community organisers”
who work to support action on broader fronts as well as through education.
● Lyman and Villani (2004) stress the importance of understanding the economic
and political causes of poverty, their imbrication with localities and race, and the
need for heads to become advocates for democracy and human rights.
● Miron and Lauria (2005) suggest that schools in inner cities need to focus on the
political identities of their students and how these are formed in and through
schooling. Through examination of successful and unsuccessful inner city
schools, they focus on the question of collective (gendered, raced, classed) iden-
tity. Schools can, they suggest, help students to build positive and resistant iden-
tities in which educational success equates to success against oppressive social
structures.
In each of these texts, and unlike the NCSL body of writing, researchers have started
from a theorized view of the (re)production of poverty, the role of schooling, an
explicit conceptualization of justice, a grounded view of everyday life in inner urban
schools and a realistic view of leading and managing.
These are directions which the NCSL could pursue.

Conclusion
In this chapter, I have focused on texts produced by the National College for School
Leadership. I have argued that the work on school facing challenging circumstances is
part of a large policy discourse which demonizes inner urban children, families and
neighborhoods while individualizing their behaviors and needs and ignoring their
strengths and assets. Through an examination of a corpus of texts about leadership in
SFCC I demonstrated that the context of schools was either ignored or misrecognised.
Focusing on the social patterning of inner urban contexts allows both the broader
 Leading Schools in High Poverty Neighborhoods 1071

public policy implications and the possibilities and directions for school leadership
and management to be seen more clearly. I showed that the NCSL texts did not address
these issues and instead separated out leadership from management, and split process,
content and purpose from each other. I concluded that more robust theorizations
of inner urban contexts were possible, and suggested that better representations of
the work of leaders were needed, along with more nuanced and holistic leadership
scholarship.
The NCSL has recently been under review and its activities scaled down. It still has
a role however in research and in the naming and framing of leadership development
across the country. Whether it continues to pursue a DfES dominated agenda or sets
out now to influence policy by challenging some of the dominant dismissals of the
realities or urban heads and their schools remains to be seen.

Postscript
David has now given up doctoral study. He just can’t find the time beyond his job to
get to his field work.

Annexe: NCSL Texts Consulted

Leadership in Schools Facing Challenging Circumstances Series
Ansell, D. (2003). Improving schools facing challenging circumstances. Perspectives from leading thinkers.*
Englefield, S. (2002). Leading to success: judging success in primary schools in challenging circumstances.*
Harris and Chapman (2002). Effective leadership in schools facing challenging circumstances.
Keys, W., Sharp, C., Greene, K., & Grayson, H. (2003). Successful leadership of schools in urban and chal-
lenging contexts.
NCSL. (2002). Making the difference. Successful leadership in challenging contexts.

Urban Leadership Series

Brighouse, T. (undated). Urban leadership: A toolkit for governors.
NCSL. (2005). A model of school leadership in challenging urban environments.
NCSL. (2005). Chartered urban leader status.

Research Engaged School Project in Process

CUREE. (undated). Leading the research engaged school case studies.*
CUREE. (undated). Leading the research-engaged school: Why and how school leaders engage with educa-
tional research.*

Miscellaneous Texts
Brown, P. (2002). The first 100 days. An enquiry into the first 100 days of headship in a failing school.*
Hay McBer. (2000). Models of Excellence for school leaders.*
1072 Thomson

Leithwood, K., & Reihl. (2003). What do we know about successful school leadership?
National College for School Leadership. (2002). Leadership Development Framework.

* Research associate report

All texts are available on the NSCL website www.ncsl.org.uk

Notes
1. I began to accumulate these interviews in Australia in 1997 as part of doctoral study; I have continued
to add to them. With the addition of 21 English heads, there are now 73 individual transcripts which
have been thematized and coded (Silverman, 1993).
2. Interestingly, the inspection agency, the Office for Standards in Education (OfSTED) have extended the
SFCC definition to include all schools with 35% or more pupils on free school meals – a direct meas-
ure of family income (2002).
3. The existence of such deficit discourse is not new. It has been noted regularly in English research on
parents, schools and young people for example, (Bullen, Kenway, & Hay, 2000; Crozier, 2000; Reay,
1998; Vincent & Tomlinson, 1997). It is also apparent in other climes, for example, in the US (see Fine,
1995; Valencia, 1997) and in Australia (e.g., Bessant, 1995; Comber, 1997).
4. See Connell et al. (1982) and Thrupp (1999) for the argument about the importance of school mix.
5. City Academies are an initiative of the third term Blair government through which “failing schools”
are closed to make way for new schools sponsored by private enterprise: city academies have
more freedoms than others including the capacity to develop new curriculum. See Ball (2005) for a
critique.
6. Some SI researchers do much more in their own work than in their NCSL commissioned texts. See
Harris (Harris, James, Gunraj, Clarke, & Harris, 2006) and Chapman (2005) for example, who do get
beyond descriptions of process and onto some questions of content.

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55

URBAN SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT

Barbara MacGilchrist
Institute of Education, University of London, U.K.

… we don’t really know how much more difficult it is for schools serving disad-
vantaged communities to improve because much of the improvement research has
ignored this dimension – that it is more difficult, however, seems unquestionable.
(Gray, 2001, p. 33)

Introduction
Urban school improvement is a complex issue that has exercised those involved in
school effectiveness and school improvement research worldwide. A clear message
from this international research community is that there are no “quick fixes” (Stoll &
Myers, 1998) and that breaking the historic link between social class, disadvantage and
educational outcomes remains a central challenge.
Urban settings in the United Kingdom (UK) have noticeably changed, particularly
in the last two decades. They now comprise a complex mix of social, ethnic and reli-
gious groupings in which socio-economically disadvantaged communities facing seri-
ous issues related to poverty, health, unemployment, poor housing and crime are
juxtaposed with wealthy, highly advantaged, socially mobile communities. The gentri-
fication of some parts of inner cities, for example, in London, Liverpool, Birmingham
and Glasgow, has exacerbated this situation.
The schools serving these communities also represent a complex mix of educational
institutions. This is particularly the case in England where, due to recent government
policy, schools in urban settings have changed or are changing rapidly. They currently
comprise a mix of community schools, foundation schools, city technology colleges,
specialist schools, academies, denominational schools, grammar schools and private
schools all within close proximity with one another and sometimes with overlapping
catchment areas. In a political environment which emphasizes choice, diversity and
marketization, the socially mobile, unlike their disadvantaged counterparts, have taken
1079
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1079–1104.
© 2007 Springer.
1080 MacGilchrist

full advantage of the opportunity to choose the school of their choice. Not surprisingly,
this has had a significant impact on the social mix of pupils in any particular school.
The need to raise standards across the UK education system as a whole, and in
schools serving disadvantaged communities in particular, many of which are in urban
areas, has been the focus of attention for several decades. When benchmarked against
other countries there was evidence at the turn of the century that standards were
improving. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
international study (OECD, 2002) of the test results of 265,000 15 year olds in 2000
found that British pupils had noticeably improved their ranking in the world league
tables for mathematics, reading and science. However, the study revealed a worrying
gap between the performance of rich and poor pupils. Whilst the UK’s performance
overall was good, the OECD warned that there was still a class divide in the education
system. Only 5 of the 32 countries involved in the study had a wider gap between chil-
dren from professional homes and those from deprived backgrounds. Following a
review of initiatives to improve schools, in particular, schools serving disadvantaged
areas, Reynolds and Teddlie (2001) concluded that:

The most persistent finding of all post-war attempts at education reform is that
social class inequality in educational qualifications has been largely unchanged
by educational improvements on both quantity and quality dimensions. (p. 333)

Approaches to school improvement in the UK and ways of tackling underachievement

have been influenced in recent years by some of the findings that have emerged from
school effectiveness and school improvement research. There has been a tendency for
policy makers to cherry pick those findings and assume that “what works” in schools
deemed to be effective in terms of their test and examination results can be superim-
posed on ineffective schools, many of which are serving disadvantaged communities
in urban areas.
To understand current approaches to urban school improvement this chapter traces
the origins and development of school effectiveness and school improvement research
in the UK, and in England in particular, from their genesis back in the 1960s to the
present day. It identifies some of the main themes that have emerged from the school
effectiveness literature and pays particular attention to significant longitudinal studies
of schools in urban areas. As a backdrop to this analysis, it traces changes in govern-
ment educational policy over the same time period and highlights specific initiatives to
raise standards and improve schools many of which have been targeted at schools in
urban settings. It then draws out some of the key lessons learnt about urban school
improvement. As a result of this analysis, it argues that the way these two research
paradigms have developed, and their somewhat unquestioning interrelationship with
government policy on school improvement, have prevented, albeit with some notable
exceptions, the aspirations of the school improvement movement from being achieved.
The reasons for this are explored including paying attention to those who have criti-
cized school effectiveness and school improvement research for not recognizing the
powerful impact of the social and cultural settings from which pupils in any given
school are drawn.
 Urban School Improvement 1081

The chapter concludes by arguing that current approaches to school improvement

in urban settings need a radical re-think as does the current definition of an effective
school. It then suggests that there is potentially an opportunity in England at the turn
of the twenty-first century to have a joined-up holistic approach to breaking the link
between social class, disadvantage and educational outcomes that could bring about
sustained improvements over time. It suggests four building blocks for achieving this.
These concern: the government’s Children’s Agenda; the New Deal for Communities
program; the importance of high quality early childhood education; and the need to
rethink the curriculum and assessment arrangements in the 14–19 phase of schooling.
It explores some of the factors that need to be overcome for these strategies to be
effective in urban settings.

The Origins of School Effectiveness Research

School effectiveness research found its origins in the 1960s. It grew out of a concern
for equality of educational opportunity and a desire to use schooling to combat social
and racial divisions. At that time, a longitudinal study in the UK by Douglas (1964)
provided evidence about the link between pupils’ background and their progress and
attainment in school. For a period of ten years the study followed the progress of all the
children born in the same week in March 1946. Using the Registrar General’s
categories for social class, the research found that for middle class children the com-
bination of home and school experience led to improvements in progress and attain-
ment. For children from working class families who were already coming to school
disadvantaged compared with their middle class peer group, the school did not make
up that disadvantage and by age 8 considerable differences in school performance,
particularly with regard to reading were found. When the cohort was re-tested at
age 11 the differences had increased. It was found that whilst it was difficult to sepa-
rate out the significance of the influence of home and school, there was evidence to
show that in the schools with “a good academic record,” children from working class
as well as middle class backgrounds were academically more successful. The implica-
tion was that if a school was a “good” school, then this could have a more significant
influence on achievement regardless of home background.
Research into the impact and effectiveness of schools had a faltering start. The
first two major school effectiveness studies in the United States of America (US) by
Coleman et al. (1966) and Jencks et al. (1972) concluded that the influence of home
background was far greater than that of the school. The Plowden (1967) report in
the United Kingdom (UK) added weight to this argument as did those who were
claiming that hereditary influences were strong (Jensen, 1969). By the late 1970s
however, the social determinist view was being challenged and a consensus began
to emerge that schools can and do make a difference. School effectiveness resear-
chers (Rutter, Maughan, Mortimore, & Ouston, 1979) began to compare schools
with similar intakes to ascertain if some were more effective than others and to
identify the characteristics of schools that were making a difference (Edmonds &
Frederiksen, 1979).
1082 MacGilchrist

The groundbreaking study by Rutter et al. (1979) paved the way for the school effec-
tiveness movement in the UK. The study set out to compare the effectiveness of 12
inner city secondary schools in a London Borough with high levels of social depriva-
tion. It looked at differences between the schools using a variety of student outcome
measures including academic achievement, delinquency, attendance and behaviour.
The research identified a range of factors such as academic emphasis, incentives and
rewards and general learning conditions and concluded that schools that had a combi-
nation of these factors created an ‘ethos’ that made a positive difference to pupil out-
comes. Rutter et al. acknowledged that another variable which concerned the balance
of intake in each of the schools could be a factor influencing pupil outcomes.

The presence of a relatively high concentration of pupils in the upper ability

groups may work to the advantage not only of the pupils themselves but also to
their peers. In a similar way, a largely disadvantaged intake might depress out-
comes in some cumulative way over and above the effects of a disadvantaged
background on the individual pupil. (Rutter et al., 1979, p. 154)

However, in the event, it was the “ethos” variable that became equated with effective-
ness. Thrupp (2001) has criticized this research for “eventually privileging ethos over
balance of intake” (p. 23) and there is no doubt that the published findings led the
school effectiveness community down a certain path.
Politically 1979 also heralded a change in government. A Conservative govern-
ment came into power and remained so for the next 18 years. The previous Labour
government had already initiated a debate (Callaghan, 1976) about education. The
need for a centrally controlled curriculum and for schools to be opened up to public
scrutiny became the focus of attention. The outcome was the 1988 Education
Reform Act which heralded the introduction in England and Wales of a National
Curriculum and new mandatory assessment arrangements for primary children and
pupils in the early years of secondary schooling. At the same time, the Act also intro-
duced Local Management of Schools whereby schools were required to take more
control over their day-to-day management. A subsequent outcome was the Education
(Schools) Act in 1992 which established the Office for Standards in Education
(Ofsted) in England and Wales. The remit of Ofsted was to inspect every school on a
four-year cycle and to produce a published report on each school in which, for exam-
ple, the quality of leadership and teaching and the outcome of pupil test and exami-
nation results would be made publicly available. It was anticipated that in an open
market situation, parental choice of schools, influenced by Ofsted reports, would
drive up standards.
In the meantime, a growing amount of international research evidence (Mortimore,
Sammons, Stoll, Lewis, & Ecob, 1988; Scheerens, 1997; Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000)
became available confirming that there is a school “effect.” One such research in the
UK was the longitudinal junior school study by Mortimore et al. (1988). The research
focused on approximately 2000 children in 50 inner London schools and traced their
progress over the four years of junior schooling from age 7. At the end of the junior
years the research team measured the children’s educational outcomes which included
 Urban School Improvement 1083

a mix of test results and non-cognitive outcomes such as behavior. The research team
were particularly interested in establishing:

… whether some schools were more effective than others in promoting pupils’
learning and development, once account had been taken of variations in the
characteristics of pupils in the intakes to schools. (p. 3)

The study attempted to control for background factors using free schools meals, for
example, as a proxy for poverty.
It was found that over the four-year period disadvantaged pupils made more
progress in more effective schools than similar pupils in the least effective schools.
Twelve factors over which schools had control such as “purposeful leadership by the
headteacher,” “intellectually challenging teaching” and the creation of a “positive
climate” were identified in the effective schools.
The study mapped pupil progress and attainment across the dimensions of class,
ethnicity, sex and age. The research revealed significant differences in children’s
attainment outcomes during the junior years and found, for example, that children’s
level of reading attainment at age 7 was a good predictor of their level of attainment at
age 11. At age 7, those children whose parents worked in non-manual jobs were nearly
10 months ahead in reading than pupils from unskilled manual homes. By the end
of the junior years, the gap had widened. Overall, the study found that of age, sex, race
and social class, it was the social class dimension that accounted for the main dif-
ference in attainment between groups of pupils. Thomas and Mortimore (1994) calcu-
lated the potential significance of these findings for pupils at the end of their time in
school. They considered that the results could mean a difference for the average pupil
of seven grade Cs instead of six grade Es for the General Certificate in Secondary
Education (GCSE).
Another longitudinal study by Tizard, Blatchford, Burke, Farquhar, and Plewis
(1988), also conducted in inner London, examined the influences of home and school
on young children’s educational attainment and progress between the ages of 4 to 7. The
study was particularly interested in identifying factors that might account for gender
and ethnicity differences in pupil outcomes. The research concluded that there were cer-
tain school factors that exerted a greater influence on progress than home background.
Two in particular were identified as being especially important: the range of literacy and
numeracy taught and teachers’ expectations. The research team found that the school a
child attended proved to be an overriding factor in terms of the amount of progress a
child made.
In a third UK study, Smith and Tomlinson (1989) followed 3000 children over a five
year period who transferred from their primary schools at age 11 to 20 multi-racial com-
prehensive schools in the early 1980s. All the schools were urban and were located in
different parts of England. The main purpose of the study was to measure differences
between schools in the examination results achieved by the pupils at age 16 after tak-
ing account of differences in the attainment and background of the children at their
point of transfer. The results confirmed the findings of the Rutter et al. research. It was
found that children who were deemed to be comparable in terms of background and
1084 MacGilchrist

attainment at age 11 achieved very different results depending on the school they attended
with some schools being noticeably more effective than others for both white and minor-
ity ethnic pupils.
As a result of the emerging research evidence at that time, an effective school was
defined as:

… one in which pupils progress further than might be expected from considera-
tion of its intake. (Mortimore, 1991, p. 9)

How much effect a school can have on pupil outcomes and what accounts for these effects
have been the subject of much subsequent research. A complex picture has emerged.
The junior school study (Mortimore et al., 1988) confirmed that, in general, an
effective school tended to have a positive impact on all the pupils whereas an ineffec-
tive school tended to have a negative impact. However, they also found that whilst in
absolute terms the effective schools raised the overall achievement levels of the
children, they did not narrow the relative gap between the achievement levels of the
disadvantaged and privileged groups. Pupils from advantaged backgrounds still out
performed those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Mortimore and Whitty (2000) in
commenting on the findings said that:

It would appear that, if all primary schools were to improve so that they performed
at the level of the most effective, the difference between the overall achievement of
the most advantaged social groups and that of the disadvantaged might actually
increase. (p. 22)

Beneath the finding that schools can make a difference lies an even more complicated
picture. Some studies have found that schools can have different effects on pupils of
different abilities and on pupils from different social, ethnic and gender groups
(Nuttall, Goldstein, Prosser, & Rasbash, 1989; Sammons, Thomas, & Mortimore, 1997;
Willms & Kerr, 1987) and that the interrelationship between social class, ethnicity
and gender is complex (Gillborn, 2002; Gillborn & Gipps, 1996; MacBeath, 1999).
Longitudinal studies following pupils from primary to secondary school have also shown
that progress among different groups varies over time, with some ethnic groups falling
behind in primary school, but beginning to catch up at secondary school (Sammons,
1995). MacBeath and Mortimore (2001) noted that: “the longer that pupils stay in
school, the more pronounced becomes the influence of social class” (p. 12). They
asked the question:

Is this a school effect or a background effect? That is, does the social background
that pupils bring with them exert itself more strongly over time, or is a school con-
structed in such a way as to accentuate the difference progressively? (p. 12)

Teddlie and Reynolds (2000) in their review of the international school effectiveness
literature, and in their response to critics of the school effectiveness movement (Slee,
Tomlinson, & Weiner, 1998; Thrupp, 1999), concluded that more attention in the future
 Urban School Improvement 1085

needs to be paid to a wider range of contextual factors than has been the case in the past.
Thrupp (2001) in his critique of school effectiveness research stressed the importance
of recognising that whilst schools can make some difference, there is strong evidence
that the social background of pupils has a powerful influence on academic achievement.
During the 1980s school effectiveness research began to have an impact on school
improvement research. Initially, however, the two paradigms worked in parallel with
one another.

The Origins of School Improvement Research

The school improvement movement found its origins in the 1970s. It grew out of a
concern to identify those factors and processes within and beyond schools that can be
changed or introduced in such a way as to bring about improvement. To begin with,
school improvement projects and programs developed in an uncoordinated way within
individual schools and districts. However, in the 1980s, spurred on by the emerging find-
ings from school effectiveness research about the “school effect,” a more coordinated
approach to school improvement gathered momentum. Local education authorities and
school districts began to develop a more coherent strategy for school improvement pro-
grams and individual countries came together to work on common projects (van Velzen,
Miles, Ekholm, Hameyer, & Robin, 1985). By the mid 1980s, school improvement was
being defined as:

A systematic, sustained effort aimed at change in learning conditions and other

related conditions in one or more schools with the ultimate aim of accomplishing
educational goals more effectively. (van Velzen et al., 1985, p. 34)

One of the first significant urban school improvement studies to emerge was an
American study that focused on improving urban high schools (Louis & Miles, 1990).
At that time, in common with the UK, there was serious concern in the US about
underachievement in cities and there were moves to encourage school-based decision
making and to bring about improvements in the curriculum and the way it was taught.
In the context of knowledge about the characteristics of effective schools, Louis and
Miles wanted to find out how successful urban school improvement really worked.
They paid particular attention to the leadership and management of change.
They conducted five in-depth case studies of high schools in five different cities that
were improving. They also did a national survey of the principals of large city high
schools whose schools had been engaged in serious school improvement efforts. Louis
and Miles identified the characteristics of effective change and highlighted the impor-
tance of “articulating a vision,” “getting shared vision ownership” and “using evolution-
ary planning.” They drew attention to the particular “deep-coping” strategies needed to
manage in an urban setting. A mixed picture emerged. Of the five schools, two were
found to have been successful in bringing about noticeable improvements, two were
only partially successful and one was unsuccessful because, as Louis and Miles put it,
“the odds against success were too high” (p. 148). This research was one of many to
1086 MacGilchrist

follow that endeavoured, through the study of successful, effective schools, to identify
what worked and disseminate the findings to practitioners and policy makers alike.

The Coming Together of School Effectiveness

and School Improvement
During the 1990s, school improvement researchers and those engaged in school
improvement at a local level, be they in schools or in local education districts, were
becoming increasingly influenced by findings emanating from studies of effective
schools. There was evidence emerging that effective schools appeared to have a number
of common characteristics. In 1995, Sammons et al. were commissioned by the Office
for Standards in Education in England to undertake a review of international school
effectiveness literature, particularly from the UK, US and the Netherlands. They were
asked to assess whether or not, despite the many differences in approaches to education
from one country to the next, it was possible to find distinctive features that successful
schools have in common. The definition of “success” that underpinned the review
focused in the main on improvements in test and examination performance which
reflected the fact that school effectiveness studies had tended to concentrate on a narrow
set of measures. The review confirmed that there appear to be at least 11 characteristics
such as, high quality leadership, high expectations and effective teaching that are present
in those schools where pupils perform particularly well. How schools can develop these
characteristics became the focus of attention for those engaged in school improvement.
This focus of attention encouraged the coming together of school effectiveness and
school improvement research (Gray, Goldstein, & Jesson, 1996) that was already
beginning to take place (Hopkins, 1996; Reynolds, Hopkins, & Stoll, 1993). It resulted
in a redefinition of school improvement. In 1996, Hopkins defined it as:

A strategy for educational change that enhances student outcomes as well as

strengthening the school’s capacity for managing change. (p. 32)

In this definition, school improvement processes were linked directly with pupil
outcomes.
Politically, during the 1990s school improvement began to take centre stage in the
UK. In the first half of the decade central control over the curriculum continued whilst
accountability at school level was strengthened. Secondary schools began to be held
publicly accountable for their examination results regardless of the communities they
served. In 1991 the government published a Parents’ Charter in which the publication
of performance tables for secondary schools was heralded as part of the drive to give
parents choices in the market place. From 1992 examination results were published on
an annual basis. The “league tables” as they became known, were seen as a way of lev-
ering up standards. They were aligned with the government’s policy on a market econ-
omy in which competition and enterprise were encouraged. The league tables were
based on raw scores and were not adjusted to take account of a school’s intake. They
attracted and continue to attract high levels of media interest. Poor results, particularly
 Urban School Improvement 1087

in schools in urban areas were highlighted. Attention was focused on the poor results
achieved by comprehensive schools, many of which were in urban areas, compared with
grammar and private schools. The future of comprehensive education was questioned
by the government and the media alike.
During the same time period, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector (HMCI) began publish-
ing an annual report based on the findings of Ofsted school inspections. The first report
was published in 1993 (Ofsted, 1993) and included, as all subsequent reports have done,
the names of schools deemed to be effective particularly in terms of examination
results. From 1996 onwards (Ofsted, 1996) HMCI’s annual reports also named the
schools which had come out of special measures and defined them as improving
schools. A high percentage of these latter schools were in urban areas. It became the
expectation that following an intensive period of intervention by Her Majesty’s
Inspectors, such schools would be turned around in less than two years. Those unable to
do so were threatened with closure or a fresh start with new leadership and a new name.
In his study of schools in “special measures,” Gray (2000) found that they responded to
intensive intervention with a short burst of improvement in test or examination results
but their rates of improvement in subsequent years rapidly tailed off. The “naming and
shaming” of schools was a school improvement strategy that attracted high profile,
national media coverage.
By the mid 1990s an effective school was being defined as one which:

Adds extra value to its students’ outcomes in comparison with schools serving
similar intakes. (Sammons, Hillman, & Mortimore, 1995, p. 3)

The definition encouraged a focus on the effect schools can have on pupils’ progress
as well as their outcomes. This coincided with concerns being raised by school effec-
tiveness researchers and practitioners about the validity of the league tables (Foxman,
1997; Goldstein & Spiegelhalter, 1996). There was particular concern about the fact
that raw outcome results made it impossible to assess the “value added” by a school in
terms of the academic progress made by the pupils since entry. Many schools in urban
areas were claiming that whilst on the surface their results were poor, in real terms
many of the pupils had made significant progress over their time in the school.
Assessing the value-added by a school has proved to be complex. Value-added
measures began to be used by researchers to demonstrate how effective a school was
in promoting pupils’ academic attainment. There was a recognition, however, that such
results needed to have a “health warning” attached to them. It was pointed out, for
example, that they could mask a high turnover of pupils (Goldstein, 1996). Also,
because of the limited number of pupils normally included in the sample, there are
inherent limitations built into the technique when using it to make comparisons
between schools. It was argued that a multi-level modeling statistical approach could
be used as a screening device to identify very low performing or very high performing
schools. However, it was not able to provide finely graded differences between schools
(Goldstein & Spiegelhalter, 1996). It was thought that about three years of attainment
data could signal a trend with a fair degree of confidence. This was at a time when
researchers had no access to substantial longitudinal data on pupil performance.
1088 MacGilchrist

From the mid 1990s, policy makers began to draw more and more on the findings of
school effectiveness and school improvement research. A study that attracted much
attention at that time emanated from a National Commission. In the early 1990s a UK
National Commission on Education was established to consider all phases of educa-
tion and training throughout the UK and to identify and examine key issues likely to
arise over the next 25 years. The Commission’s report which was entitled “Learning to
Succeed” (National Commission on Education, 1993) identified underachievement in
deprived areas, particularly in inner cities, as a serious problem. The Commission was
of the view that in situations of multiple disadvantage the “dice are loaded” against
educational success.
As part of the follow-up to this report a study was commissioned to investigate
how schools in disadvantaged areas can and do succeed against the odds (National
Commission on Education, 1996). Between them a group of education experts, busi-
ness figures and people from the wider community visited 11 successful primary, sec-
ondary and special schools located in cities across the UK and wrote up case studies
on each. The lessons learnt concentrated on visions of success, whole-school policies
and practice, the inclusive nature of the schools and their leadership and management.
It was stated that the major lesson of the study is that “every school has the opportunity
to succeed against the odds” (p. 362). It concluded that:

At the very heart of the professionalism of the headteacher and all other teachers
lies that sense of the need to set in motion processes which lead to achievement
of a goal: the learning of pupils, and hence their growth towards the fulfilment of
their true capabilities. The fascination of these studies lies in the way they demon-
strate how the goal, can be achieved, no matter what the obstacles. (p. 363)

The conclusion drawn that every school can succeed and, by implication, “buck the
trend” of underachievement in urban areas, set the bar high for urban schools and
policy makers were quick to capitalise on these findings. The previous research find-
ings on the persistent relationship between social class and educational achievement
tended to be put on one side. The notion that schools can make a difference was the
main driver for improvement.
In 1997 a New Labour government came into power and within a few months of tak-
ing up office had published a White Paper on “Excellence in Schools” (DfEE, 1997a)
setting out the government’s proposals for raising standards. Equality of opportunity
and high standards for all underpinned the Paper.

To overcome economic and social disadvantage and to make equality of opportu-

nity a reality, we must strive to eliminate, and never excuse, under-achievement in
the most deprived parts of our country. (p. 3)

Attention was focussed in particular on raising levels of achievement in primary

schools in England. In 1997, according to the results of the Standard Assessment Tasks
(SATs), introduced by the previous government, at least 25% of primary children were
leaving school at age 11 unable to read at a level that would enable them to access the
 Urban School Improvement 1089

secondary school curriculum. A similar percentage of primary children at age 11 were

underachieving in numeracy. Attention was drawn to the fact that many of these children
were from disadvantaged urban communities.
To address these problems, an ambitious system-wide school improvement programme
was introduced in the form of National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies. These strate-
gies had several components. They concerned the setting of national annual targets with
built-in year-on-year improvement expected. Each local education authority (LEA) was
set an annual target and in turn the LEAs set individual annual targets for the schools in
their district. Again, the expectation was one of year-on-year improvement in test results
at LEA and school level. National guidelines for all schools on how to teach literacy and
numeracy were published with the expectation that this guidance would be followed and
its implementation monitored by Ofsted. A national compulsory training programme for
schools on how to “deliver” the strategies was implemented. From 1997 performance
tables based on SATs results were published annually and the “naming and shaming”
of primary schools with poor SATs results began.
The government commissioned a number of studies of improving schools (DfEE,
1997b; Gray, 2000). The emphasis was on “what works” and underachieving and fail-
ing schools were encouraged to adopt the practices being used by successful schools.
Successful urban schools were held up as examples of good practice for less successful
urban schools to emulate.
Standards-based reform of the education system in which individual schools and dis-
tricts were held publicly accountable for test and examination outcomes became a funda-
mental part of education policy in England (Earl et al., 2003) and also in the US (Elmore,
2000; Hill, 2001). Caldwell and Spinks (1998) described this change in approach to
educational reform as having an unrelenting focus on learning outcomes.
It was during this period that the academic performance of pupils became a key success
criterion for an improving school. By this time, school effectiveness and school improve-
ment research had all but merged. By 1999, an improving school was being defined as:

One which secures year-on-year improvements in the outcomes of successive

cohorts of “similar” pupils … in other words, it increases in its effectiveness over
time (p. 48) and what matters is how much progress they (schools) make from their
respective starting points. (Gray et al., 1999, p. 11)

By the late 1990s, as longitudinal school performance outcome data became available,
the expectation that schools can improve their test and examination results year-on-
year, became challenged. In a substantial school improvement research, Gray et al.
(1999) premised their study of 12 secondary schools on the notion of an improving
school being one that increases its effectiveness over time. It was the first study of its
kind to define school improvement in this way. Gray et al. set out to study the schools’
rates of improvement in their effectiveness over time using value-added data. They also
examined some of the factors and strategies associated with changes in performance.
Five of the 12 schools were urban.
The research team were looking at naturally occurring improvement, not improve-
ments linked directly with external intervention. They used a combination of qualitative
1090 MacGilchrist

and quantitative methods drawn from both school effectiveness and school improve-
ment research methodology. They also used knowledge from these two paradigms to
identify factors that might have contributed to the changes and improvement processes
in the 12 schools. They looked at changes in a school’s effectiveness over time, that is,
from one cohort to the next, something rarely done in previous studies, and they were
interested in rates of change over time.
They placed the schools in terms of their value-added performance data at the begin-
ning of the study at one of three levels of effectiveness: above average, average or below
average and looked to see whether the schools had made rapid, steady or slow progress.
They found that up to three years of continuous improvement at the same level seemed
to be the norm after which a school tended to reach a plateau or regressed. For a school
to move up a level of effectiveness, however, required four or five years of sustained
improvement. In practice, they found that a five-year run of continuous improvement
was quite exceptional. They concluded that there was limited evidence of sustained
improvement over time.
Subsequent studies using longitudinal pupil data have added weight to these find-
ings. Gray, Goldstein, and Thomas (2001), for example, focused on trying to establish
not only the extent to which sustained trends in effectiveness can be identified, but also
the extent to which such trends can reliably predict the future performance of schools.
What was particularly significant about this study was that, unlike previous studies,
which were small-scale and local, this one used a very large nationally representative
sample. Using data provided by the Department for Education and Employment, the
sample comprised nearly 700,000 pupils representing 4 successive cohorts in 2,500
institutions. Performance in the years leading up to Advanced/Advanced Subsidiary
(A/AS) levels was the focus and the context nationally was one of very stable A/AS
results in England from year-to-year. They found that only in a very small minority of
cases did schools have consistent trajectories either up or down. Such trends as were
identified appeared to be relatively short lived and to come in bursts and very rarely
went beyond three years.
The Gray et al., 1999 study also provided useful insights into the context and change
processes within the schools. The research team found clear evidence of differential
rates of improvement across the schools. Three different approaches to improvement
were identified. Nearly all the schools used short-term tactics to improve examination
results, for example, providing additional support for borderline GCSE C/D candidates.
Not surprisingly, such responses did not lead to sustained improvement over time. In
contrast, those schools improving more rapidly showed evidence of also using a more
strategic approach to improvement. For example, they were involved in developing
whole-school policies and were using a planned approach to development to enable them
to focus on areas in need of improvement. They were trying to have a co-coordinated
approach to improvement with varying success. Only two schools were also engaged in
capacity building. They had gone beyond incremental approaches to change and were
trying to focus on ways of improving learning and teaching in classrooms. However, in
only one of the schools did the research team feel that the practices in place were suffi-
ciently embedded for them to be confident that the school really did have the capacity to
improve in the longer term.
 Urban School Improvement 1091

The research team looked at the power of contextual factors. They surmised that it
may well be the case that schools serving particularly disadvantaged socio-economic
communities experience constraints that are additional to any shared with schools that
have comparably low attaining intakes. They identified a range of contextual factors
that appeared to have a particular impact on rates of improvement. These included: head
teachers having to cope with a mix of personalities and attitudes on the staff; the age
profile of staff; the turnover of staff; and the competition in the local market place
affecting the social mix of the intake. They argued that the next wave of school improve-
ment or “third age” as they called it needs to focus on classrooms and the improvement
of learning and teaching.
From the evidence emerging, school improvement as it is currently defined appears
to come more often than not in short bursts, and capacity building, especially in
schools serving disadvantaged areas, is particularly challenging. This raises questions
as to what the contextual factors are that are creating this situation – are they long term,
medium term or short term? Is the social mix of pupils a determining factor? Can
particular school improvement strategies buck these trends? Are there systemic
changes beyond schools that can make a difference?
To help answer these questions it is useful, before drawing together the current les-
sons learnt about urban school improvement to draw on one more longitudinal urban
school improvement study and to highlight recent initiatives since New Labour came
into office aimed at helping to combat underachievement in urban areas in England.
The longitudinal urban school study concerns a return visit five years later to the 11
“success against the odds” schools described earlier (National Commission on Education,
1996) and the writing up of subsequent case studies (Maden, 2001). The research team
were interested in how the schools had maintained and sustained the momentum for
improvement. What was noticeable about this return visit was that the “odds” had
changed during the period, so had the nature of the “successes” not least because there
had been a change in government. As Gray commented in the introduction to the case
studies, “improving against the odds is now the name of the game” (p. 2). He was of
the view that schools serving disadvantaged areas still have the odds stacked against
them, despite external attempts both to intervene and support. He urged caution in
respect of attempts to weaken the link between disadvantage and educational perform-
ance in which there is a tendency for unrealistic expectations to be placed on schools
to achieve this.

More recent studies have shown that there is often a collective effect of “social”
mix over and above that which would be indicated by individuals’ characteristics
alone. (Gray in Maden, 2001, p. 33)

Gray commented that schools in challenging circumstances appear to have to work even
harder than other schools to bring about improvement, a finding supported by a
subsequent analysis of the research evidence on improving schools in socio-economically
disadvantaged areas (Muijs, Harris, Chapman, Stoll, & Russ, 2004). Gray, in drawing on
some of the research evidence already described concluded that: “To succeed in sustain-
ing improvement is the exception rather than the rule” (p. 26). By implication, this
1092 MacGilchrist

makes sustaining improvement in urban schools even more challenging. Gray rehearsed
some of the particular difficulties schools serving disadvantaged areas can have such as,
high teacher turnover, difficulties in teacher recruitment and retention, getting the pupils
to attend and then to engage in learning, creating a safe, orderly environment and coping
with challenging pupil behavior.
In her commentary on the case studies, Maden described how they showed that “what
had happened to the 11 schools in the previous five years revealed significant variations
in the amount and kind of success and improvement experienced” (p. 309). The case
studies illustrated the relationship and the tension between a school’s internal context
and actions and the external context locally and nationally. They also highlighted the
efforts the schools had to make simply to maintain current levels of improvement and
the challenges they faced in trying to continue to build their capacity for improvement.
Maden concluded that: “We do not know enough about sustaining and maintaining
school success and ‘capacity’ in such (urban) settings” (p. 337).
The case studies were able to throw light on the impact of some of the specific ini-
tiatives introduced by New Labour to raise standards in urban areas. These included
attempts by Ofsted to provide schools with value added data in recognition of the con-
cerns raised earlier in this chapter about judging schools on raw outcome data rather
than on progress made by pupils during their time in a particular school. Since the late
1990s Ofsted has provided annual performance and assessment reports (PANDAs) for
every school. These set out in great detail an analysis of the school’s SATs and/or
examination results against the national average and “benchmark” the school against
schools of a similar kind using free school meals to group schools. They also assess
progress in relation to pupils’ prior attainment. PANDAs were seen as an attempt to
take account of a school’s context but are a rough and ready measure. They are partic-
ularly problematical for schools serving disadvantaged communities because of the
definition of “similar schools.” All schools with more than 50% of children entitled to
free school meals are considered “similar schools” despite the evidence of the cumu-
lative effect of a higher percentage of disadvantaged pupils attending a school.
From their first White Paper (DfEE, 1997a) onwards, New Labour made it clear that
raising standards was a top priority. At one level the government was encouraging and
expecting all schools, irrespective of their type or pupil intake, to improve and imme-
diately established a Standards and Effectiveness Unit (SEU) in the Department for
Education and Employment within a few months of coming into office. An unprece-
dented systemic approach to educational change was rolled out. The SEU injected a
sense of urgency for improvement across the education sector as a whole, exemplified
as described earlier by the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies and related tar-
get setting in primary schools which were subsequently introduced into the early years
of secondary schooling. Poverty was not accepted as a reason for school failure and
“zero tolerance” of failure, as described by Brighouse and Fullick in their chapter,
became the order of the day.
At another level however, there was a recognition of the need to reduce the odds
against success by tackling socio-economic disadvantage in urban (and rural) areas
and a raft of initiatives were introduced. These initiatives included “Education Action
Zones” targeted at urban areas of educational underperformance and “Excellence in
 Urban School Improvement 1093

Cities,” the aim of which was to raise standards and aspirations in inner city schools.
The mixed and somewhat predictable results of these initiatives are described in detail
in other chapters in this section (see Johnson, Woods and Brighouse and Fullick).
Drawing on the experience of the US, Sure Start programs were introduced from
2000. The aim was to improve services to families and pre-school young children in
areas of need to combat social exclusion, raise standards and reduce inequality in health
and social care. The government also decided to continue with the Single Regeneration
Budget introduced in the early 1990s by the Conservative government. This budget
provided funding for multi-agency regeneration projects to improve employment
prospects, the physical environment and public services, including education, in disad-
vantaged neighborhoods. Resource allocation was related to an index of local depriva-
tion. In 1999 the New Deal for Communities (NDC) program was launched by the
government involving an investment of £2 billion over 10 years targeted at 39 of the
most deprived neighborhoods in England. Community-centered boards were estab-
lished with the aim of investing in sustainable projects to tackle the problems of multi-
ple deprivation. In a report on the progress of the NDC program (National Audit Office,
2004) whilst some positive progress was identified a number of concerns were raised
not least about operational problems around the difficulties of bringing different groups
together to create robust, accountable partnerships.
In the five “success against the odds” case studies (Maden, 2001) there was evidence
of the schools located in England taking advantage of these different initiatives and using
them to further their own improvement endeavors. However, given the fragmented nature
of these initiatives and the complex funding streams and timescales attached to them, it is
not surprising that their impact was limited. Since the follow-up study, the government has
focused on transforming secondary schools in urban areas through an ambitious rolling
program of establishing specialist schools and, more recently, academies. This has created
a situation in which the schools which are not part of this program are in danger of
becoming ghettoized which in turn can further disadvantage those who are not socially
mobile. Woods, in his chapter, cites evidence to the effect that specialist schools and acad-
emies have been selective in their intakes and colonized in the main by middle class
pupils. In the absence of standard admissions criteria across the diverse types of second-
ary schools situated in urban areas and in a system driven by competition and accounta-
bility, such findings are understandable. They make the London Challenge initiative
described by Brighouse and Fullick even more of a challenge not least because much of it
is based on bringing together initiatives that have had questionable success in the past.
The recognition more recently of the need to have targeted support and intervention in
schools in challenging circumstances does acknowledge that a one-size fits all model
of school improvement is simply not appropriate for schools in urban areas. The tension
between diversity, choice and market forces has resulted in the stratification of schools,
as described in the chapter by Riddell, with a noticeable middle class/working class
divide. It is not surprising therefore that despite all the initiatives described in this and
other chapters in this section, the gap between the “haves” and the “have nots” in the UK
has widened. Too many schools in urban areas have a social mix that is going against the
grain of school improvement efforts judged externally by pupil performance in tests and
examination results.
1094 MacGilchrist

Mortimore and Whitty (2000) point to the fact that the concepts of meritocracy and
competition that underpin the UK test and examination system have disadvantaged
pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Just as poverty is a relative concept, we are faced with a situation in which

educational success also appears to be partly relative. (p. 22)

A good example of this is the 2004 SATs results for primary pupils at age 11. While all
pupils did better in 2004 than in 1998, those from higher income families made more
progress than those on free school meals, even though schools in deprived areas
improved more than those in wealthier neighborhoods. This is hardly surprising. In 1997,
Mortimore and Whitty, in the first edition of their paper in which they asked the question
“Can school improvement overcome the effects of disadvantage?,” sent a warning to
New Labour. They pointed out that research indicated that, if all schools were brought up
to the level of the best, the class gap in performance could be even starker than it is now.
They urged the government to take positive action to address this problem.
Mortimore and Whitty subsequently went on to argue that the UK education system
is built on a culture of “exclusiveness” and that efforts to reverse this have not borne
fruit. It could be argued that the current definition of school improvement is, by its
very nature, elitist in that it perpetuates the concept of meritocracy built into the pub-
lic examination system in England whereby the expectation is that anyone with talent
can do well and “rise to the top” (Mortimore & Whitty, 2000). It keeps a dispropor-
tionate focus on the school as the main locus for improving the life chances of children
from working class backgrounds. In common with Bernstein (1970), MacBeath and
Mortimore (2001) have highlighted the failure of such a system for the majority and
the way notions of choice and competition have exacerbated the situation.

School education cannot compensate for society and that in making high demands
of teachers and raising our expectations of schools we must have scrupulous
respect for the evidence on socio-economic inequality and the changing nature of
family and community life. (p. 2)

So what are the lessons that can be learnt about urban school improvement? Muijs
et al. (2004) in their review of the evidence related to improving schools in disadvan-
taged areas concluded that the specific contextual circumstances of such schools:

… suggest that different improvement strategies are required for schools in

difficult or challenging circumstances than for those in more advantaged
circumstances. (p. 151)

They used a three-pronged theoretical framework to help make sense of school

improvement in disadvantaged areas. The first was contingency theory “based on the
premise that what makes an organization effective is dependent on situational factors”
(p. 151) both internal and external. They recognized that the socio-economic context
could be the most crucial factor. The second theoretical framework was a compensatory
 Urban School Improvement 1095

model whereby schools in disadvantaged areas need to compensate for the lack of
resources in pupils’ homes. The third was the hypothesis of additivity of school and
background factor effects. This hypothesis was built on research evidence that indicated
that even after controlling for pupil background factors, schools in disadvantaged areas
still do worse than schools in advantaged areas.
Muijs et al. (2004) undertook their analysis with an implicit acceptance of the cur-
rent definition of an effective school. From the analysis of the research evidence, they
identified nine factors:
● A focus on teaching and learning.
● Leadership.
● Creating an information rich environment.
● Creating a positive school culture.
● Building a learning community.
● Continuous professional development.
● Involving parents.
● External support.
● Resources.
It could be argued that such factors are equally important for schools in advantaged
areas. However, the research evidence analyzed by Muijs et al. (2004) appears to indicate
that these nine factors are important in improving schools in disadvantaged areas. Like
others already alluded to, Muijs et al. acknowledged the challenge of sustainability of
improvement in disadvantaged settings. They argued however that “there is an emerging
evidence base to suggest that there are certain strategies schools can adopt that are
successful” (p. 168). In respect of the theoretical models, some evidence was found to
give some support to the contingency theory and the compensatory model. Little support
was found for the additivity hypothesis. Muijs et al. concluded that more research is
needed to develop and test theories and to examine the relative strength of the nine
factors identified using more sophisticated research techniques and longitudinal data.
What was disappointing about this review was the limited acknowledgement of the
power of external factors. Evidence from school effectiveness studies indicates that the
size of the school effect on pupil attainment can be up to 15% (Teddlie & Reynolds,
2000). Whilst this is important, more attention needs to be paid to the 85% impact of
background factors by working to improve the social, cultural and economic capital of
disadvantaged communities to help create a more level playing field. Whilst there has
been an acknowledgement that much more attention needs to be paid to contextual
factors (Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000), to date school effectiveness and school improve-
ment research (SESI) have only given them limited attention and structural and cultural
inequalities in the communities schools serve have been downplayed. Thrupp (2001)
argues that family background is not a “given,” rather it is socially constructed and can
be made worse or better depending on changing circumstances. He claims that it is:

… the failure to question this underlying social inequality and the nature of
policy that impacts on it which inevitably leads school effectiveness researchers
to over emphasise school solutions. (p. 19)
1096 MacGilchrist

He then goes on to argue that the social mix of pupils in a school is critically impor-
tant, citing his own study of this issue (Thrupp, 1999). He argues that the study puts a
different perspective on school culture in that it provides evidence that schools with
predominantly middle class intakes have “strongly supportive student cultures” which
allow them to teach an academic, examination-based curriculum in contrast to schools
with predominantly working class intakes. “… school effectiveness in an academic
sense appears to rest upon the cultural resources and responses of students from
middle class families” (p. 27). Thrupp then goes on to criticize the SESI research
community for allowing politicians in the UK to use and abuse their research findings.

General Lessons about Urban School Improvement

From the findings of school effectiveness and school improvement research identified
in this chapter, from the critics of such research, and from an examination of govern-
ment strategies focused on improving schools serving disadvantaged communities,
some general lessons about urban school improvement can be drawn out.
(1) In absolute terms, urban schools can make a difference and some schools can
succeed against the odds due to the intensity of effort by those working in and
with them, but in relative terms advantaged pupils still out perform their disad-
vantaged peers. There remains a relationship between social disadvantage and
educational underachievement that up until now a range of different school
improvement strategies has been unable to break. Therefore the approach to
school improvement in urban settings needs a radical rethink.
(2) The findings of the analysis of longitudinal data on pupil achievement reveals
that the expectation that all schools, let alone schools in disadvantaged areas,
can improve their test and examination results year-on-year is no longer tenable.
This in turn, means that the current definition of an improving school needs to
be challenged and changed.
(3) Sustaining improvement over time in urban schools is particularly challenging
because of the disproportionate effect that contextual factors can have on pupil out-
comes. More coordinated and concentrated efforts to improve the social, cultural
and economic capital of disadvantaged communities are required in an educational
context that emphasizes collaboration and co-operation not competition.
These general lessons indicate that the current “stick and carrot” approach to urban
school improvement needs to be rethought because it has not worked. On the one hand,
schools in challenging circumstances, as they are currently described, have been
expected to continuously improve pupil attainment outcomes. At the same time they
have been bombarded with a plethora of interventionist initiatives centrally and
locally, often with different funding streams and timescales, which, whilst being well
intentioned, have had limited impact on the core business of schools, namely, learning
and teaching. Sustained improvement from within through pressure from without has
not been achieved.
 Urban School Improvement 1097

Lupton (2005) is critical of the current “managerialist” approach to school improve-

ment in urban settings. She argues as others have done (Mortimore & Whitty, 2000) that:

A concern with social justice demands school improvement strategies that are
based on an understanding of the critical importance of what goes on outside the
school for the quality of education that is delivered within it. (p. 603)

She goes on to argue that “high-poverty contexts exert downward pressures on quality”
(p. 589) and that quality in schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods can only be
assured through policies that focus on improving and changing the context within
which the schools operate.

Building Blocks for Urban School Improvement

The present government in England is endeavoring to put in place within-school and
beyond-school building blocks to raise standards in an attempt to try and mitigate the
impact of disadvantage on levels of achievement. However, these building blocks have
yet to become embedded in such a way that they provide a coherent, solid foundation
for improvement in which all the key players have a sense of ownership and are willing
and able to work together.
There are four building blocks in particular that are worthy of attention. The first con-
cerns the government’s highly ambitious children’s agenda entitled “Every Child
Matters” (Treasury, 2003). The long term vision of the program is to create coordinated
children’s trusts that will integrate education, childcare, health and social care, including
family support services, for children aged 0–19. The aim is to do this through the estab-
lishment of children’s centers, extended schools and improved services for young people
along with better support for parents provided by appropriately qualified staff and a more
effective interplay between universal and specialist services. It is a “wrap around care”
approach to children with the aim of enabling them to: stay safe; be healthy; enjoy and
achieve; make a positive contribution; and achieve economic well being.
Standards and well being are seen to go hand in hand and schools are seen to be in a
pivotal position. The potential tension between a highly accountable outcomes based
system and the notion of inclusion embedded in the children’s agenda is not being
addressed. The timescale for this transformation through the integration of children’s
services is tight. There is also a real challenge in engaging schools in this process not least
because there is no requirement on schools to co-operate with other services. In theory
this agenda could remove past barriers to learning for children in disadvantaged areas
but translating the vision into a reality will not be easy if past efforts to get different agen-
cies to collaborate with one another and change deep seated practices are to go by.
The second related building block concerns the New Deal for Communities pro-
gram referred to earlier. The early progress report on this new approach to regenera-
tion indicates that the NDC program is helping to tackle the problems of deprived
communities and has the potential for future success. However, this program is being
1098 MacGilchrist

driven by a different arm of government from the children’s agenda and is already
encountering a number of the difficulties often associated with top down initiatives
that are then expected to be locally driven. However, if this initiative is integrated at a
local level with the implementation of the children’s agenda, then the learning of
young people in those communities could and should be enhanced. As Robinson
(1997) has commented:

A serious programme to alleviate child poverty might do far more for boosting
attainment and literacy than any modest intervention in schooling. (p. 17)

Given that more than half of the children in London live below the poverty line, the
imperative for this kind of program is obvious.
The third building block focuses on the importance of high quality early childhood
education. The government is currently funding a longitudinal study on the Effective
Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE). The initial focus of the study was the
effects of pre-school education and care on children’s development between the ages
of 3 and 7. The study involving 3,000 children examined the characteristics of effec-
tive practice and the pedagogy that underpinned it. Having tracked children’s progress
to the end of key stage 1, the study (Sylva, Melhuish, Sammons, Siraj-Blatchford, &
Taggart, 2004) concluded that:

Whilst not eliminating disadvantage, pre-school can help to ameliorate the effects
of social disadvantage and can provide children with a better start to school.
Therefore, investing in good quality pre-school provision can be seen as an effec-
tive means of achieving targets concerning social exclusion and breaking cycles
of disadvantage. (p. iii)

High quality pre-school provision was found to make a difference to the intellectual and
social behavioral development of young children and this difference was sustained to
the end of key stage 1 (age 7), particularly in respect of academic attainment. Children
from disadvantaged backgrounds significantly benefited especially if they had access
to pre-school provision from the age of 3. Nursery schools and integrated centers com-
bining education with care that had a high proportion of trained teachers were found to
be the most effective in promoting better intellectual outcomes for children. The study
demonstrated that early intervention makes a difference. Other studies support these
findings (US Department of Health and Human Service, 2004; Melhuish, 2004).
An important element of the EPPE research was to study the influences of the home
on children’s social and intellectual development. It was found that the quality of the
home learning environment was more important for intellectual and social develop-
ment than parental occupation, education or income: “What parents do is more impor-
tant than who parents are” (p. ii). The work of Athey (1990) supports this finding.
The EPPE project is the first large scale British study of the effects of pre-school expe-
rience and family support for children’s learning at home. The findings have made a sig-
nificant contribution to “evidence-based” policy in the early years in England. A number
of the findings have now become integral to the children’s agenda, in particular, the
 Urban School Improvement 1099

development of integrated children’s centers. The research is now continuing to assess

the effects of early education through key stage 2 to the age of 11 which for most chil-
dren in England is their point of transfer to secondary education. This building block is
rooted in evidence and as long as the children’s centers are staffed by high quality early
years teachers, then it could and should play a key role in promoting and sustaining
achievement before children begin compulsory schooling at age 5.
The fourth building block concerns the need to have a radical rethink of the curricu-
lum within school and, as Mortimore and Whitty (2000) have suggested, a radical
rethink of the approach to assessment. In 2004 a government commissioned working
group on the reform of the 14–19 curriculum and qualifications issued its final report
(Tomlinson, 2004). The report acknowledged that whilst the present system has some
strengths it also has some significant weaknesses. It pointed to the fact that too few
young people continue learning beyond compulsory schooling, that too few young
people are properly equipped for work and that too few vocational qualifications meet the
needs of learners and employers. The report also went on to stress that there is too much
assessment and that the system is confusing and unclear. The report went onto state that:
If we are to avoid wasting the talents of so many young people, and to meet the
challenges and aspirations of a new generation, we must:
● Tackle the reasons why young people under achieve and leave education early, by
providing lessons and courses that stretch and engage all learners including the
most able.
● Equip all young people with the basic skills and attributes they need to succeed in
life, and which our economy and society need for the future. This means ensuring
that they can think creatively for themselves as well as being competent in math-
ematics, English and computing and other generic skills. (pp. 1–2)
The Tomlinson report proposed “a new diploma framework which would allow young
people to progress at their own pace, stretching the most able and helping less able stu-
dents to reach their potential” (p. 2). Despite the powerful arguments within the report
and the support that the findings found within the professional community, the gov-
ernment has not been prepared to radically rethink the curriculum and assessment in
the final stages of compulsory schooling and beyond. Instead, work-related learning
programs and diplomas are being introduced with undue haste and against a back-
ground of a continuing emphasis on league tables. Ofsted (2005a, 2005b) has already
begun to identify significant weaknesses in this approach. Holding on to the current
nineteenth century elitist system has held sway over recognizing that there is a grow-
ing number of disaffected young people for whom school learning bears no relation to
their learning beyond the school gate.

Conclusion
The conclusion drawn from the analysis of urban school improvement is that what is
needed is a joined-up, holistic approach to urban education in which long term sus-
tained improvement as opposed to short term, short lived gains is achieved. Such an
1100 MacGilchrist

approach needs to have learning not just performance against a narrow set of attain-
ment measures at its heart. The focus needs to be on improving learning opportunities
for children and young people in which the “school” is a key player but not the only
one. There is a need to move away from seeing within school improvement as the main
answer to raising standards. Such a move needs to take place within the context of a
serious debate about what is meant by effective schooling in and for the twenty first
century. The time has come to cut loose from the vestiges of nineteenth century
schooling (Lawton, 1996, 2003; Senge, 2000) to enable young people to maximize
their life chances as citizens in the future.
School improvement in urban settings requires therefore a change of focus and
locus such as that represented by the four building blocks identified earlier. It requires
a focus on maximizing the learning process as well as outcomes in which schooling
plays an important part in an individual’s lifelong learning journey but not the only
part. It requires a recognition that learning takes place in a wide range of settings and
that to maximize school learning, improvement efforts need to focus simultaneously
on pre-school learning and out of school learning locations. As has been argued:

Drawing people into the community of learning is one of the most effective ways
of tackling social exclusion. (Kennedy, 1997 p. 3)

Mortimore and Whitty (2000), as indicated earlier, argue that the UK education system is
built on a culture of exclusiveness not inclusiveness despite the rhetoric. They are of the
view that how to change this culture probably represents the greatest challenge for gov-
ernment. This chapter has endeavored to point the way to meeting this challenge and thus
breaking the historic link between social class, disadvantage and educational outcomes.

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56

URBAN SCHOOLS: PERFORMANCE,

COMPETITION AND COLLABORATION

Philip A. Woods
School of Education, University of Aberdeen, U.K.

This chapter briefly sets current educational policy on urban education in England in
the context of policy developments over the past 25 years, highlighting certain conti-
nuities and disjunctures in the journey from Thatcherism to contemporary New
Labour. (For a broader discussion of the history of education in the UK, see
McCulloch, 2007.) It then examines approaches to urban education through a consid-
eration of competition and collaboration as interlinked dimensions of the Department
for Education and Skill’s (DfES’s) diversity policy. Discussion is illustrated by refer-
ence to specific programs tried or currently in operation.

Policy on Urban Education

In the 1980s, policy on public services in England began to look towards the market
and the private sector as models of governance and of how to pursue excellence and
improvement. The introduction of choice, diversity and market forces into services
such as health and education was the Thatcherite Conservative Government’s “big
idea” to make services more responsive and effective and to diminish the role of the
state. At the same time, it increased the direct control and influence of central govern-
ment over education. The role of local education authorities (LEAs) – the local level of
democratic oversight of education – became subservient in England to national frame-
works set down by central government through Parliament. Market-like freedoms were
accompanied by more central regulation. Devolution of management and budgets to
schools, and giving parents the formal right to choose schools, accompanied by
enhanced central systems of inspection and curriculum direction, shaped education to
become “both much less subject to local democratic control and generally part of a
more ‘state-centric’ system of public services” (Ball, 1994, p. 83).
This paradoxical development is reflective of a tension in contemporary society
between forces which “combine to produce a world which seems to be becoming
1105
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1105–1122.
© 2007 Springer.
1106 Woods

controlled and standardized, while also more fragmented” (Bottery, 2005, p. 55).
Regulation and autonomy exert frictional influences which collide and intermingle.
These continued, as the UK Government changed from Conservative to Labour, to be
polar forces pervading central policy. Indeed, they appear in the roots of the so-called
“third way” approach characteristic of New Labour. If the label “third way” is less
prominent now than in the years immediately following the Labour Government’s
election to power in 1997, it still aptly describes a defining ideological aspiration of
New Labour. Tony Blair’s (1998, p. 15) vision for the role of government illustrates
how a “third way” orientation sees itself discriminating between good and bad strands
within the respective extremes of control and freedom and attempting to combine the
good from each in new ways:

There will be no return to the old centralised command and control systems, which
stifled innovation and responsibility, and we reject the creation of bureaucratic and
pointless internal markets. Instead we favour partnerships at local level, with
investment tied to targets and measured outcomes, with national standards but
local freedom to manage and innovate.

This remains a pretty good description of current UK government policy on public

services, though the reference to internal markets as pointless underplays the role of
choice and competitive pressures in public services. New Labour never did overturn
the market-like features introduced into education in the late 1980s, such as parental
rights to choice, diversity of schools, local management of schools and student-led
funding (Power & Whitty, 1999; Woods, Bagley, & Glatter, 1998), and, as will be seen,
they still continue to exert a significant influence on the character of urban education.
The most recent proposals for educational reform re-emphasize New Labour’s belief
that parental choice of school acts as a “powerful driver of improved standards” (Prime
Minister Blair, in DfES, 2005a, p. 3).
Equally consistent is the positive and supportive stance towards the private market
as a mode of production and governance. Policy on public services, particularly edu-
cation, displays a deep-seated market servitism (Woods, 2002): that is, a disposition to
celebrate and privilege the market and to align people’s personal development, atti-
tudes, values and behavior to the perceived needs of the private economy. A direct
connection is made to school education.

If we are to have enterprise in our boardrooms it must start in classrooms.

(Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sunday Telegraph 26th June 2005)

Forming part of the backdrop to this stance are four key factors which, whilst not con-
fined to the UK, are integral to understanding how the particular approach to public
services that characterizes the UK has arisen. One is the resilience and expansion of
the capitalist economy. Capitalism has shown a capability to absorb government inter-
ventions aimed at ameliorating some of the worst effects of the free market. This has
blunted radical opposition and, at the same time, enabled capitalism to survive and
exercise its capacity for growth, productivity and innovative power. A second factor is
the weakening of an encompassing alternative vision of society. In part, this is the
 Performance, Competition and Collaboration 1107

result of the capitalist economy’s resilience and expansion, just noted, as well as the
collapse of revolutionary socialist alternatives in countries such as the former USSR
and its satellites in Eastern Europe.
A third is the growth in the diversity of modern Britain, particularly in urban areas. By
2001, almost one in ten of the UK population described themselves as belonging to an
ethnic minority group, with the greatest concentrations in urban areas, including 29% of
the population of London. Gillborn (2007), in his examination of the significance of race
and inequality in the English education system, notes that the proportion of British resi-
dents from backgrounds outside the UK increased by around 48% between 1991 and
2001. The degree of cultural homogeneity has also lessened, typified by the significant
proportions of the population – again mainly in urban areas – adhering to faiths and
beliefs that are not Christian. Above all, changes in employment patterns (which meant
that by 2004, due to the decline of manufacturing industries, less than a fifth of men in
the UK were employed in manufacturing), trends towards smaller households, and trans-
formed levels and patterns of consumer spending have altered dramatically traditional
urban and industrial communities, which no longer provide the social platform for the
collective politics of earlier times.1
The fourth factor is the persistence of sharp and stubborn inequalities, and of
poverty, which characterize Britain’s urban landscape. These urban realities continue
to demand a search for effective progressive policies wherever there is a concern to
build a cohesive, participatory and socially just society. In education, students from
higher professional families in England and Wales are more than twice as likely to gain
the national benchmark 5 A*–C GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education)2
passes than students from families in “routine” (“unskilled”) occupations (77%, com-
pared with 32%, in 2002). Moreover, the gap is stubbornly persistent. Certain ethnic
groups (Black Caribbean, Black African and Pakistani for example) also attain signif-
icantly fewer, good educational qualifications than other groups. The highest under-
achievement is amongst Black Caribbean boys, who also have the highest rate of
permanent exclusion from schools. Gillborn’s (2007) searching analysis of race and
education highlights how enduring and substantial these inequalities are.3
One response to these interlinking factors – which has gained sway in the Labour lead-
ership in the UK – is to champion a radical reshaping of traditional socialism: a new, or
third, way. From this perspective, the inequalities that pervade British society, and which
are especially acute in urban areas, will only be challenged by public services that work
in a fundamentally different way from the old style of public welfare. In particular, it is
argued, services which are collectively provided need to be infused with the capacity for
innovation and continuous improvement that is associated with the market economy (see,
e.g., Osborne & Gaebler, 1992). Hence there has been a concern to modernize public
institutions and their leadership (Woods & Woods, 2004, 2005). A “synergy between
public and private sectors” is called for, “utilizing the dynamism of markets but with
the public interest in mind” (Giddens, 1998, p. 100). Two defining features of the new,
more entrepreneurial institution emerging from the trend (which is influencing public
welfare organizations) away from rigid, bureaucratic organizations in the private sector
are a flatter hierarchy and shorter time horizons (Sennett, 2006, p. 181). More entrepre-
neurialism is needed because, as some argue, “Schools are more like businesses and their
leaders are more like business leaders” (Hentschke & Caldwell, 2005, p. 146).
1108 Woods

An aptitude and appetite for greater enterprise is to feature, as seen from this
perspective, in three ways. Firstly, they are to be a characteristic of public services,
reflected in how people and institutions in them conduct themselves. Secondly, they are
to be an outcome of these services – in the case of education, through the kind of learn-
ing that is generated amongst students. Thirdly, such re-invigorated services are
intended to have a disproportionate positive impact on the disadvantaged and thereby
reduce inequality and the cycle of deprivation which results in children born into poor
families reproducing this deprivation in their adulthood and in their own families.
Giddens (2000), for example, places emphasis on striving to achieve equality of oppor-
tunity and, most crucially, on welfare systems tackling the processes that create social
exclusion. This means enabling the excluded or would-be excluded to have access to
resources and life chances that will enable them to develop the human and social capi-
tal which, in turn, gives them the opportunity to participate fully in society and the free
market economy. Education is a key part of this strategy. Most especially, re-invigorating
urban education is crucial to distributing chances to children in deprived communities
and families which place them on the path to inclusion. A new egalitarianism, it is
argued, can be forged which progresses towards equality in a way which is consistent
with the demands of a post-modern economy and society (Giddens & Diamond, 2005).

Competition and Collaboration

In this context, it is not surprising that competition and collaboration in education, as
evolving policy themes in the UK, are not seen as “either/or” policy prescriptions.
Rather, they are interwoven within the approach to urban education.
Macbeath, McCreath, and Aitchison (1995, p. 4) concluded over a decade ago that,
whilst there was considerable competition between schools at that time, inter-institutional
competition was not the daily reality for most practitioners and that “forms of collab-
oration continue and emerge.” They proffered three reasons for this: parts of the educa-
tion service inevitably overlap; collaboration assists competitiveness (learning from
others helps you as a school); practitioners and parents tend to be in favor of collaborative
approaches. These kinds of incentives to collaboration persist.
What has changed in the past decade is that the idea of partnerships and collabora-
tion has become considerably more prominent in the dominant policy discourse
(Evans, Castle, Cooper, Glatter, & Woods, 2005). Partnerships and collaboration have
come to be viewed as powerful levers for improving school performance. They prom-
ise a “partnership dividend” which includes higher rates of school improvement, a
broader curriculum, sharing of resources and enhanced motivation amongst school
staff (DfES, 2005b, p. 2). Moreover, the benefits being looked for are extending beyond
distinctively educational outcomes to meeting the wider needs of children as partner-
ships and collaboration are encouraged which include a range of agencies. Multi-
agency collaboration which includes other services for children and local authorities is
seen as a vehicle for achieving the broader outcomes for children set out by Government
(DfES, 2004a): “being healthy, staying safe, enjoying and achieving, making a positive
contribution and achieving economic well-being in life” (DfES, 2005b, p. 3). Some
 Performance, Competition and Collaboration 1109

of the challenges and emerging practice of multi-agency working in urban contexts are
analyzed by Tett (2007).
Educational policy in England places collaboration within a set of interrelating
themes which come under the heading of diversity policy (Woods, Castle et al., 2005):
● Positive “school personality” effect: A school having its own explicit and distinc-
tive character is seen as having an important positive influence on its capacity to
achieve its educational aims (DfES, 2001).
● Specialization: The aim is to give successful schools “the freedom they need to
excel and innovate” (DfES, 2001, para 1.6) and increasingly enable all schools to
play to their strengths.
● Collaboration and sharing: The system is intended to be one in which schools
“constantly learn from each other” (DfES, 2001, para 5.6) by forging and partici-
pating in education improvement partnerships (DfES, 2005b).
● System improvement: Attention has shifted from exclusive concentration on
school improvement to an emphasis on interdependent schools working together
to improve all schools in a local area (DfES, 2004b, 2005b).
● Opportunities and choice: Through specialization and collaboration students are
to be given wider educational opportunities and course options (DfES, 2004b).
● Personalized learning: Enhanced opportunities and choice are to be part of an
educational strategy of personalization, so that the “system fits to the individual”
(DfES, 2004b, p. 4) by meeting students’ differentiated needs and preferences.
● New entrants: Entry of new providers of schooling, such as independently managed
academy schools, is facilitated, with the intention of introducing innovation, fresh
expertise and a competitive stimulus to existing providers (DfES, 2001, 2004b).
● Inclusion: The multiple strands of diversity policy, summarized above, are to benefit
all students and address the achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged
students (DfES, 2001, 2004b).
These comprise a melding of market-like elements and collaborative culture and prac-
tice. At least, that is the aim. There are in fact tensions within this set. Not least is that
between schools as relatively autonomous institutions dependent on student numbers
for funding, and hence vulnerable to competitive pressures, and schools as collaborat-
ing institutions with as much interest in helping and sharing with other schools as in
improving themselves. This tension may be exacerbated if current plans are imple-
mented to encourage all state (primary and secondary) schools in England to become
self-governing “Trust schools,” each with its own Trust (which may include commu-
nity groups, charities, faith groups, schools in the private sector, etc.): such schools
“will be, in effect, independent state schools” (DfES, 2005a, p. 28).

Competitive Pressures
In urban areas the potential is strongest for incentives to compete to turn into actual com-
petition between schools. However, the relationship between socio-geographical context
and inter-school relations is not an automatic one. A study of over 300 secondary schools
1110 Woods

in contrasting English LEAs found only a weak relationship between head teachers’ per-
ceptions of choice and population density of the areas in which their schools were
located (Levacic & Woods, 2000). In other words, local variables, such as the history,
culture and policies of the LEA, mediate between structural factors and competitive
behavior. The degree and nature of inter-school competition is significantly influenced
by the dynamics of local areas (see, e.g., Bagley, 2006; Gewirtz, Ball, & Bowe, 1995;
Fitz, Tayler, & Gorard, 2002; Taylor, 2001; Woods et al., 1998). Nevertheless, there is lit-
tle doubt that some degree of competition is experienced by the large majority of schools
in England. A study of secondary schools in geographically contrasting LEAs concluded
that more than eight out of ten were in a competitive context (Taylor, 2001). It also found
that urban school hierarchies were more complex.
Complexity is a recurring theme in trying to understand competition in education.
The generation of competitive pressures and market-like relations is not a simple, linear
process, but, as we have seen, is heavily mediated. Thus the result – the quasi-market in
schools – is a variable phenomenon. And tracing the effects of competitive pressures
amongst schools is equally complex.
Perhaps one of the more straightforward effects is at the level of inter-institutional
relations, where competitive pressures tend to hinder collaboration. There are indica-
tions from research that secondary schools are less likely to collaborate with neigh-
boring secondaries than with primary schools (Bell & West, 2003; Penney, 2004).
Where head teachers view local relations between schools as highly competitive, they
are also more likely to report little or no co-operation between local schools (Levacic,
Woods, Hardman, & Woods, 1998). However – affirming that the effect of competition
is not a linear one – the same study by Levacic and colleagues found that a large major-
ity of head teachers report both competition and co-operation to be characteristic of
their local schools’ relations. Conceptually this phenomenon is crystallized in the
notion of co-opetiton, which has its origins in studies of private markets that suggest
that the optimal business strategy is a mix of competition and co-operation (Adnett &
Davies, 2003).4
The impact of competition on socio-economic segregation between schools and on
academic attainment is even more complicated to unravel than that on inter-school
relations.
On segregation, whilst, on the measure used by Taylor, Fitz, and Gorard (2005),
socio-economic segregation amongst schools declined during the years under
Thatcherite policies (from 1988 to 1997), it has increased slightly since 1997 under New
Labour. Using a different form of modeling, Goldstein and Noden (2003) conclude
that segregation between schools increased between 1994 and 1999. Moreover, there
are indications that the specialist schools program has been accompanied by substan-
tial proportions of schools becoming more privileged, that is, allocating fewer school
places to students eligible for free school meals. Amongst all secondary schools, 29%
were found by Taylor et al. (2005) to have become more privileged in this sense
between 1994/1995 and 1990/2000, including 37% of specialist schools.
The means of measuring change in segregation between schools is the subject of
some controversy (see, e.g., Goldstein & Noden, 2003, 2004; Gorard, 2004). However,
in whatever way it is measured statistically, the personal and social realities of school
 Performance, Competition and Collaboration 1111

choice are often harsh and enduring in their consequences. Where they have a sense of
rejection by the “better” schools and are confined to the “demonised” schools – an
experience especially apparent in the complex school hierarchies in urban areas –
children are emotionally affected. Imprinted in them is a sense of being classified as
part of society’s “waste” (Lucey & Reay, 2002a; Reay & Lucey, 2004). Emotional
effects are not exclusive to working class and disadvantaged families. Many middle
class parents and their children are beset by intense anxieties in their quest to ensure
that a place is gained at the “better” schools and to avoid the “bottom strata schools”
(Riddell, 2007). In Lucey and Reay’s (2002b, p. 334) evocative phrase, “the spectre of
failure blows through these policies like a chill wind, for they are based on an excel-
lence that relies on exclusion and differentiation between pupils.”
On academic attainment, there are differences of view concerning the impact of com-
petition and how it can or might be measured (Gorard, 1999). Overall, Levacic and
Woods (2000) concluded from a study of more than 300 English secondary schools that
evidence for a positive impact of competition on school performance was very weak.
This reinforces findings of more qualitative studies, such as that by Woods et al. (1998),
that the effects of competitive pressures on educational attainment are not straightfor-
ward. A study of two towns by Davies, Adnett, and Mangan (2002) also captures some
of the complexity that occurs at local level. Competitive tactics by a secondary school
in one town was found to initiate:

an emphasis on promotion in competitive behaviour that quite possibly has a neg-

ative effect on educational outcomes at GCSE level, yet it may also have height-
ened competition in the 16–19 market leading to an improvement there. (Davies
et al., 2002, p. 105)

On the other hand, in another town, collaboration between schools on education for
16–19 year olds:

may not have been helpful in terms of attainment standards at A level, but it appears
to have encouraged a competitive focus in the 11–16 market that is raising stan-
dards. (ibid.)

In other words, competition between schools, according to local circumstances, may or

may not have the effect of increasing school performance (as measured by examination
results). Overall, we may conclude that evidence for competitive pressures acting gen-
erally to generate significant gains in educational achievement is weak.
Encouragement of specialization and distinct types of school in urban areas, as a
means of raising educational standards, is an integral part of the creation of quasi-
markets in schooling. It is also integral to the “third way” diversity policy outlined above
which is attempting to create a dynamic, collaborative culture. Specialization and differ-
ence amongst schools illustrates the diverse strands that run through current policy in
England. In one light, specialization amongst schools can be viewed as a component of
a neo-liberal agenda – when new entrants, such as academy schools, are viewed as pro-
viding a competitive stimulus and specialist schools enjoy a competitive advantage in
1112 Woods

local areas. In another light, it can be viewed as a means of invigorating the public
sector (by encouraging the influx of new ideas) and promoting social cohesion (by
extending the opportunity to have state-funded education in a faith ethos to newer faith
groups, such as Muslim communities, as New Labour has done). Nevertheless, in
whatever way these moves to enhance diversity and specialization are viewed, there is
evidence, as has been noted, that increasing diversity in the form of specialist schools
tends to increase segregation and selection (Taylor et al., 2005, pp. 60–61).
It might be argued that any negative effects of specialization in terms of segrega-
tion and sharpened school hierarchies are offset by gains in educational achievement.
However, the latter are by no means evident. There have been claims that specialist
schools are performing significantly better and that this is the result of attaining
specialist status (e.g., Jesson 2003, 2004). More sophisticated analyses of data on
specialist schools by Levacic and Jenkins (2004), however, found that there is little
evidence of specialist status having a transforming effect on educational attainment.
There are data that show some specialist schools – such as those that have had this sta-
tus the longest and more recent specialist technology and sports schools – performing
better than non-specialist schools. But for others, such as specialist arts and language
schools, no difference was found. Overall Levacic and Jenkins (2004, p. 30) conclude
that the apparent effects of specialist status “are modest in size, not uniform across
specialisms, and dependent on the assumption of no selection bias in specialist school
recruitment.” If specialist schools are tending to recruit more of the advantaged, mid-
dle class students – for which, noted above, there is evidence to suggest that this may
be the case – then even the modest gains that they appear to have may not be the result
of their specialist ethos. Caution in concluding that schools with a special ethos and
additional resources (like specialist schools) produce dramatically better perform-
ance is reinforced by the experience of grant-maintained schools. These were pro-
moted between 1988 and 1997 and given more funding and autonomy, yet detailed
analysis of their results relative to “standard” schools showed no difference (Levacic &
Hardman, 1999).
It is too early to reach conclusions about another strand of policy which is espe-
cially, though not exclusively, focused on deprived urban areas – that of facilitating
new entrants. The most prominent feature of this policy currently is the academy
schools program under which private sponsors contribute £2 million of the capital of a
new school, in return for the opportunity to have a formal role in its governance and to
influence its development and ethos, and central government contributes around £23 mil-
lion capital expenditure and all the running costs. These are seen as building upon the city
technology colleges initiative in England and developing the idea of charter schools in
the US. A total of 200 or more academy schools are anticipated to be up and running
by 2010. Whilst academy schools attract strong praise from their proponents – the then
Secretary of State for Education described academies as “beginning to make solid
progress in raising educational standards” (Kelly, 2005, p. 5) – there is no evidence to
date that the performance of the first three which opened in 2002 is generally any bet-
ter for equivalent students than the schools they replaced (Gorard, 2005) and the
research available to date on all the operating academies (17 in 2004/2005) has to be
treated as suggesting tentative conclusions only (Woods, Woods, & Gunter, 2007).
 Performance, Competition and Collaboration 1113

Partnerships and Collaboration

The mix of competition and collaboration is particularly marked in deprived urban
areas. This is because the quasi-market features that allow parental choice of school,
student-led funding, diversity of provision and so on are preserved nationally, whilst the
dimensions of diversity policy – including partnerships and collaboration – are given a
particular impetus where schools and local areas are perceived as under-performing.
Hence, a number of specific strategies have been or are being tried in disadvantaged
urban areas. Prominent in the early years of New Labour were education action zones
(EAZs) – partnerships between secondary and primary schools, together with their
LEA, local businesses, public bodies and other local organizations. The intention was
that they would tackle underachievement and social exclusion in disadvantaged areas
by developing and applying innovative methods and strategies and radical solutions. In
response to an invitation to bid for EAZ status and funding, over 70 EAZs were estab-
lished in two rounds (1998/1999 and 2000) to operate for a period of three years, usu-
ally extended to five. After that period, EAZs are being transformed into different
kinds of partnership, under the umbrella of the Excellence in Cities (EiCs) scheme
for example.
Like EAZs, EiCs are a central initiative intended to address educational under-
achievement and social exclusion in disadvantaged urban areas. It is a more prescrip-
tive and targeted program than the EAZ scheme, with central government identifying
geographical areas for its implementation and requiring schools to use their additional
funding to develop particular activities, such as learning mentors, provision for gifted
and talented children and providing learning support units. The EiC program has been
phased in since 1999 and currently involves around 1,000 secondary and more than
1,000 primary schools in 57 LEAs.5
Other forms of partnership and collaboration include learning partnerships (voluntary
groupings of learner providers across the school, further education and adult learning
sectors), federations (groups of schools with joint governance arrangements), networked
learning communities (collaborative groups involving schools, local authorities, univer-
sities and others, linking up via ICT), the Leadership Incentive Grant (a DfES scheme
intended to generate collaboration between schools to strengthen leadership), Leading
Edge partnerships (another DfES scheme, in which high-performing schools work with
other schools to improve standards), Diversity Pathfinders (a set of innovative forms of
collaboration and specialization given small amounts of contributory DfES funding) and
collegiate academies of schools (groups of schools that develop a collective identity and
commitment to education throughout a local area whilst retaining their institutional
identities).6 This diverse array of forms of partnership and collaboration are seen by the
DfES (2005b) as falling under the umbrella heading of education improvement partner-
ships (EIPs).
EAZs have not been the success hoped for by government (Halpin, Dickson, Power,
Whitty, & Gewirtz, 2004; Reid & Brain, 2003). An official assessment of EAZs by the
Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) concluded that their “effect has been
stronger in tackling disaffection and promoting inclusion than in raising standards of
achievement, especially in secondary schools” (Ofsted, 2003, p. 4). One of the problems
1114 Woods

with EAZs was the diffuseness of the agenda they were set up to pursue which led to a
loss of focus. More radical critiques pointed to their failure to tackle fundamental
social and economic inequalities that disadvantage the urban communities served by
EAZs. Awareness of the importance of wider socio-economic characteristics of areas
served by schools is, in fact, discernible in the policy discourse on educational
improvement. There is a growing emphasis, evident in diversity policy, on systemic
improvement and community transformation, as opposed to a concentration solely on
school improvement (West-Burnham, 2003). The challenge of raising aspirations is
seen as particularly acute in many deprived urban areas and the aim of tackling this
surfaces in the various strands of diversity policy, including collaborative school
groupings and the academy schools program.
Assessment of EiCs has been more positive than that of EAZs. Ofsted (2003)
concluded from its assessment that the EiC program has strengthened co-operation
between schools, that schools are committed to and positive about the program, and
that its specific elements, especially learning mentors, are offering better support to
disaffected, underachieving and vulnerable students. There is evidence too that the EiC
scheme is having a positive impact on student performance. Machin, McNally, and
Meghir (2004), in a study of secondary schools in 47 EiC partnerships begun in 1999
and 2000 (compared with non-EiC schools), found that school attendance had
increased and that attainment in mathematics and English had improved. Improvement
was greatest in mathematics, and the positive effect in mathematics was larger for boys
than girls. Machin and colleagues also point out, however, that the size of the improve-
ment in performance was modest.
EiCs are also cited as having a positive influence on collaboration – for example,
encouraging specialist schools to collaborate (Bell & West, 2003, p. 286). EiCs can be
seen, then, as a relatively effective means of reducing barriers to collaboration by
mediating between the structural factors that provide incentives to compete and actual
behavior. To this extent they are national initiatives which have shown some success in
intervening in local competitive dynamics.
Through the policy priority on partnerships and collaboration, there is again the
interplay between regulation and freedom, between control and diversity. Measuring the
success of individual institutions by means of high profile, public and specific meas-
ures, such as test and examination results as in England, inhibits in two ways. Firstly, it
tends to narrow the focus of what is considered to be the performance and outcomes
that matter. Secondly, it tends to limit the perceived pool of potential partners. With
EAZs, for example, there is evidence that wider social and health agendas were
restricted by schools’ concentration on educational results important for their league
table placings and that, as a result, much inter-agency work remained school focused
(Halpin et al., 2004). Although it is intended that specialist schools share good practice
and work to help improve other local schools, practice falls short of expectations. It is
seen as the most challenging area of their work by Government (Bell & West, 2003).
Collaboration between specialist and non-specialist schools has not been absent, with,
for example, head teachers of most of the non-specialist schools in Bell and West’s
(2003) study reporting that there was collaborative activity. Only a minority, however,
considered that it had a beneficial effect on their school. A low perception of benefits
 Performance, Competition and Collaboration 1115

would be consistent with Levacic and Jenkins’ (2004, p. 30) study of specialist schools,
which found “no evidence as yet of specialist schools adding value to pupils in
non-specialist schools.”

Discussion
The stranding together of choice and other market-like features on the one hand, and
collaboration on the other, is intended to generate a transformation of urban education
and tackle the deep-seated social inequalities that lead to and are fuelled by the gap in
educational opportunities and attainment in urban schools. The overwhelming impres-
sion from what is known about the policy initiatives that have operationalized this
reforming agenda so far is that, whilst there may be instances of success, overall gains in
measurable performance are at best modest. In addition, deeply embedded socio-
economic differences in status, influence and resources act to maintain and even sharpen
numerous local school hierarchies. Socio-economic segregation between schools seems,
as we have seen, to be growing. Certainly, large numbers of schools serving disadvan-
taged students and families are caught in a “malign dyadic relationship” in which school
character and performance and perceptions of that character and performance exacer-
bate each other and which, together with a range of cumulative problems (such as
difficult and disruptive learning environments and local deprivation), creates a power-
ful barrier to educational improvement and closure of the achievement gap (Woods &
Levacic, 2002, p. 245).
To a point, national policy in England has shown some sensitivity and responsiveness
to the frustratingly slow pace of change and the lessons learnt from policy initiatives to
date. EAZs, found to be disappointing, are giving way to an array of forms of collabo-
ration, some more focused (the EiCs) and some more flexible within the “broad church”
of partnerships under the broad heading of EIPs (DfES 2005b). Some of these may lead
to improved educational opportunities and attainment for the disadvantaged. Academy
schools, although controversial, are intended to be a new attempt directly to challenge
and break the malign dyadic relationship which entraps many schools serving the most
deprived urban areas. There is a willingness in national policy to encourage and cham-
pion innovation (Glatter, Castle, Copper, Evans, & Woods, 2005), exactly because the
problems have been so intractable. Indeed, enabling schools to “drive innovation” is a
recurring theme infusing proposals to turn existing schools into independent state Trust
schools (DfES, 2005a).
Often, however, the policy rhetoric overlooks the mundane realities that mediate and
obstruct the neat vision of progress. There is a tension between control on the one
hand, and encouragement to be flexible and to take the risks inherent in trying the
untried, on the other. Where local collaboration is an officially sanctioned policy,
schools may end up following a conservative agenda because of the continuance of
central regulation and inspection (Reid & Brain, 2003). Even (apparently free) com-
petitive contexts can lead to tendencies to conform and eschew innovation (Woods
et al., 1998). On top of that, innovation may not always translate into beneficial academic
outcomes for students. In a study of one town, Davies et al. (2002, p. 104) conclude that
1116 Woods

a mixture of curriculum innovation and promotional activity by schools was associated

“with comparatively weak academic outcomes for students and comparatively strong
outcomes for schools in terms of increased roll.” There are also issues to do with dem-
ocratic accountability where schools, like academies, are freed from central govern-
ment control but include private and charitable sponsors in their governance. Sponsors
are not accountable to the local area in the same way that elected local representatives
are (Woods et al., 2007).
Loosening of central controls may have positive effects. Nothing is assured, but it
may have some benefits for educational attainment in disadvantaged urban areas. It
also opens spaces for local public action. If relations between schools, and between
schools and other agencies important for children’s education and well-being, are
strongly mediated by local factors, then a local capacity for public action (e.g., in the
form of the local authority) – sensitive and responsive to local realities – is an essen-
tial feature of progressive educational change. Davies et al. (2002, p. 105), for exam-
ple, conclude that the “logic of our analysis argues for a strong local role in the design
as well as the execution of policy.” And, despite the diminished powers of LEAs, there
is evidence that their leadership at a local level is a significant factor in facilitating sus-
tained collaborative relationships between schools: the strategic vision and practical
support of the LEA have been important catalysts in a number of areas where innova-
tive examples of collaborative school clusters have been initiated and developed
(Woods et al., 2007).
A more fundamental issue is the degree to which the developing education system
in English urban areas is a harmonious melding of market elements and a collaborative
culture. Infused through the development of educational policy since the 1980s is pri-
vate participation in education. This refers both to the involvement of individuals,
companies and the voluntary sector in urban education (through city technology col-
leges, academy schools and public-private partnerships, for example) and to the influ-
ence of models, ideas and the culture of the commercial sector. Developments such as
these are having an impact on the views and conduct of those who work in education
(see e.g., Bagley, 2006; Ball, 2005; Gewirtz et al., 1995; Woods & Woods, 2004,
2005). But is it creating a basic change in the organizing principle of urban education?
To put it another way, do co-existing competitive and collaborative influences repre-
sent an unproblematic confluence of contrasting relationships, or does one or the other
possess the greater social force over social agents in urban settings?
Reid and Brain (2003, p. 198) describe the resultant local complex of relations as a
“network market,” that is, a core of neo-liberal market-like features modified by “pro-
motion of principles of collaboration” ( p. 199). The emphasis in this definition of the
network market is on collaboration as a modifying influence on the essential mainstay
of educational governance, namely market relations. Underlining the relevance of this
perspective is the cautionary experience of one urban area over the decade from 1994
to 2004. The area had been part of a research study on choice and competition in the
early 1990s and found to constitute a highly competitive arena for secondary schools
(Woods et al., 1998). Research was undertaken in 2004 to find out whether and how
competitive relations had changed (Bagley, 2006). Despite the transformation in the
national policy discourse and initiatives to promote collaboration, competition had in
 Performance, Competition and Collaboration 1117

fact intensified. This was due to the mixture of influences affecting schools – nation-
ally, policies which retained the elements of a quasi-market, and, locally, the closure
and re-building of the area’s “bottom strata” secondary school, resulting in its becom-
ing more attractive to parents.
Entrepreneurialism, as alluded to in the discussion of the policy context, is a key link-
ing theme, and one analytical response to how the education system in urban England
has developed is to critically engage with this concept. Conceptual and theoretical work
is needed on the meanings and implications of different ways of understanding entre-
preneurialism, not least in relation to urban educational settings that are susceptible to
the formation of intense markets and complex hierarchies in schooling.7 Hentschke and
Caldwell (2005, p. 148) articulate the call for greater entrepreneurialism as a need for
public enterprise, defined as a propensity in new kinds of public organization to take
“unusual risks” in creating new enterprises to address unmet needs and new markets.
The idea of public enterprise recalls the essential dual character the public-market cre-
ated in local areas in England (Woods & Bagley, 1996; Woods et al., 1998), namely that
it contains both a political dimension and an individualistic dimension. The point, how-
ever, is to recognize that in itself the public-market as a hybrid concept lacks a clear
organizing principle. To make it work in a progressive way, it needs a continual striving
to integrate into the public-market active, local, democratic institutions that can engage
in the work of determining public goals and achieving a balance with individual and
institutional autonomy (Woods et al., 1998).
This duality – involving a democratic dimension committed to the public good and
an individualistic dimension – delineates the terrain of a particular kind of public
entrepreneurialism. There are numerous ideas on what public entrepreneurialism is
about (Bartlett & Dibben, 2002), but a conceptualization that I and colleagues have
suggested in studying the academies program in England describes public entrepre-
neurialism as:

the application of entrepreneurial flexibility and creativity in order to sustain and

advance public ethos, values and aims, which include public sector values of pub-
lic welfare and equality of treatment, public accountability and commitment to
professional and social aims and values wider than those of any specific organi-
sation. (Woods et al., 2007, p. 20)

Seeing entrepreneurialism in this way has at least two implications. One concerns how
the governance of urban education systems is understood. Such governance is less
about a smooth convergence of collective and individualistic dimensions but inher-
ently involves conflict between principles, between interests and between collective
aspirations and individualistic motives (of people and organizations), conflict that has
to be mediated in and addressed by the public realm. Policies which emphasize the
individualistic status of schools – through granting specialist or academy status, for
example – reinforce tendencies that pull against the collaborative intentions of policies
such as the EiC initiative. Whilst schools having individual identities and differing
organizational characteristics and cultures is not in itself inappropriate, the context in
which this is accepted or encouraged needs to be one in which the core principle of the
1118 Woods

governance of the schools system is a democratic and collaborative one – in other

words, the reverse of the “network market.” This would require a decisive shift in
national policy in England for urban education. One of the ways that such a shift would
be made manifest is through a stronger role for local, democratically accountable
forums. At the moment, the role of LEAs, whilst still capable of exercising significant
influence (as noted), is weighted more to being an agent of central government – a
“branch office” of the DfES (Levacic, 1999, p. 8) – than an independent democratic
authority counterbalancing both central government and the negative effects market
forces which impinge upon local education. Strengthening the local democratic basis
for education needs to be an explicit and high priority policy, with the specific aims,
inter alia, of ensuring that the voices and aspirations of disadvantaged communities
are properly represented and facilitating the deliberative, creative dialogues necessary
to forge local and specific strategies which significantly enhance the opportunities for
all students and communities to gain the best education.
And this takes us to the second implication, which concerns how educational out-
comes, and the very meaning of performance, are conceived and judged. What com-
prises the “best education?” One of the intended consequences of a more enterprising
educational culture is to alter the outcomes of the school system: to form individuals
with the attitudes, aptitude and skills for enterprise in a globally competitive world. But
if we conceive of innovation and change in the framework of public entrepreneurialism,
there are implications for our understanding of what constitutes valued learning. Public
entrepreneurialism demands far more than the qualifications and skills measured by the
performative culture. Whilst recognizing the need for abilities that are required by
the economy, it is not dominated by a mission to instill the values of competitive indi-
vidualism. Public entrepreneurialism implies that young people in urban communities
develop democratic capabilities and skills which enable them to be active participants
within local and national public spaces and a culture that values diversity and dialogue.8
A critical engagement with the meanings of entrepreneurialism unlocks educational
questions about urban schooling and the relationship of these to its governance. Policy
initiatives aimed at transforming urban education are not simply means to an end, but
have consequences for the content and meaning of education. Accordingly, they need
to be framed with this in mind. If we choose to seriously embrace public entrepre-
neurialism, the implication is that urban policy initiatives should reflect participatory
democracy as a core organizing principle – not only because this is the appropriate
context within which to lead, manage and provide education but also because this same
principle should imbue the educational experience and learning of urban youth.

Notes
1. The source for the social trends and statistics identified in this paragraph, unless the text references
them elsewhere, is the Office for National Statistics (2005).
2. As they come to the end of their compulsory education, most students in England are entered for GCSE
examinations in a number of subjects. Success in GCSE subjects is the premier measure of academic
attainment at age 16, with grades C or above being generally treated as good passes. For more detail,
(see Gillborn, 2007: note 5).
 Performance, Competition and Collaboration 1119

3. The source for the claims and statistics identified in this paragraph is the Office for National Statistics
(2004).
4. The term “co-opetition” comes from Brandenberger and Nalebuff (1997).
5. In addition, there are a further 34 LEAs involved in Excellence Clusters, intended to apply the EiC pro-
gramme in small pockets of deprivation, which were first launched in 2001, with further clusters started
in subsequent years. The source for figures on EiC partnerships and Excellence Clusters is the DfES
website: http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/sie/eic/EiCOverview, accessed 4th December 2005.
6. See DfES (2005b), plus Brighouse (2002) and DfES (2003) (on collegiate academies) and Woods,
Castle et al. (2005) (on Diversity Pathfinders).
7. For the beginnings of an exploration of types of entrepreneurialism in relation to preliminary research
on academies, see Woods et al. (2007).
8. A fuller discussion of the capabilities and skills which need to be developed by educators and students,
in the context of the theory and the practical challenges and potential of developmental democracy, is
presented in Woods (2005).

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57

THE GOVERNANCE OF URBAN EDUCATION

IN THE UK: A PUBLIC, PRIVATE OR
PARTNERSHIP FUTURE?

Carol Campbell* and Geoff Whitty†

*
Formally Institute of Education, University of London, U.K.;
†
Institute of Education, University of London, U.K.

Introduction
As is clear from many of the contributions to this section of the Handbook, a key
theme of much of the debate about the future of urban education in the UK, and
more especially in England, has been the possibility of harnessing private sector
expertise and resources to compensate for a perceived failure of local democracy
and state provision in this field. As Prime Minister Blair put it in addressing local
government representatives early in his premiership:

If you [local government] are unwilling to work to the modern agenda, then the
government will have to look to other partners.

At one extreme, there are those, who regard state involvement in education as a 150
year experiment that has failed and that the private sector should now have its chance
to demonstrate that markets and social justice can be reconciled (Tooley, 2000). At
the other extreme, there are those who argue that, had authorities in England and
Wales not been systematically under-resourced and undermined by governments
since 1979, they would have been able to concentrate better on meeting the very real
social and educational challenges that have faced them (Waterman, 2004). In
between are those who see the private sector as having a role in the renewal of urban
education, but as merely one stakeholder alongside a variety of public and voluntary
(third sector) players (Power, 2000). The current reality is that the private sector is
increasingly involved at all levels of the system, but the nature and extent of its
future role remains contested.
Before discussing private sector involvement in urban education, we need to say
something about how we understand “privatisation” in the UK. For example, it is
important to distinguish between private sector involvement in service provision and
privatization of the policy making process. Thus, contracting out of the management
1123
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1123–1138.
© 2007 Springer.
1124 Campbell and Whitty

and provision of local authority services need not entail their removal from local dem-
ocratic control. Indeed, there have been few, if any, clear examples of the latter in the
UK to date, although adoption of the former approach in the short-term may prepare
the ground for the latter in the longer term.

Modes of Private Sector Involvement

At its simplest level, the organization of welfare services, including education, can be
represented in terms of the relationship between sources of funding and provision
(Figure 1). Rudolf Klein suggests that “the ‘pure’ model of comprehensive state
welfare” is located in Cell 1, and has applied to most (though not all) mass education
systems, where both funding and provision have traditionally been located firmly in
the public sector.
This might seem to suggest that privatization involves a straightforward movement
out of Cell 1 into Cell 4. However, this presents rather too static a picture to capture the
complex set of potentially privatizing processes involved in recent reforms in educa-
tion. Steel and Heald (1984) argue that privatization is a multi-faceted set of processes,
which could entail one or more of a number of shifts away from the “pure” welfare
state model:
● charging for public services previously paid for out of taxation (Klein’s Cell 2);
● letting the private sector run a service that continues to be paid for out of taxation
(Cell 3);
● selling public services and transferring their functions to the private sector (Cell 4);
● liberalizing arrangements that previously prevented the private sector from com-
peting with state-provided services (Cells 3/4 competing with Cells 1/2).
Even in the 1980s, Pring (1987) noted an increase in the purchasing at public expense
of educational services provided in private schools, contracting out of services to
private providers, an increasing requirement upon parents in state schools to pay for
services that had hitherto been provided free at the point of consumption and the intro-
duction of student loans into the higher education system. The pace has, of course,
quickened since then, especially under New Labour.

FINANCE (FUNDING)

Public Private

Public 1 2
PRODUCTION
(PROVISION)
Private 3 4

Figure 1. Modes of welfare provision and funding (after Klein, 1984)

 The Governance of Urban Education in the UK 1125

Marketization is more widespread than privatization and is clearly not coterminous

with it. As is discussed in Woods’, Riddell’s and Johnson’s chapters, marketization in
the UK has involved the introduction of quasi-market forces to education through poli-
cies of parental choice, local management of schools, diversity of school provision,
and funding linked to student numbers. In practice, although there are differences
between privatization and marketization, they are more likely to complement rather
than compete with each other. And some aspects of marketization contribute to priva-
tization in an ideological if not a strictly economic sense, even where quasi-markets
are confined to public sector providers. Aspects of ideological privatization include:

● fostering the belief that the private sector approach is superior to that traditionally
adopted in the public sector;
● requiring public sector institutions to operate more like those in the private sector;
● encouraging private (individual/family) decision-making in place of political and
professional judgments.

Thus, even those reforms that merely foster competition between public sector pro-
viders may move provision away from the traditional welfare state model, while tech-
nically remaining within Klein’s Cell 1. While they might strictly be regarded as
elements of marketization, they could also be considered “creeping privatisation,” a
prelude to privatization in the fuller sense of the privately funded and privately pro-
vided education.
Burchardt, Hills, & Propper (1999) have built some of these considerations into a
more complicated map of welfare than that suggested by Klein. Their “wheel of
welfare” shows different combinations of public and private provision, public and
private finance and public and private decision-making (Figure 2). Onto this, they map
various directions of movement out of the “all public” sector characterized by public
provision, public finance and public decision (similar to Klein’s Cell 1). These move-
ments include outright privatization, contracting out, the marketing of public services,
the introduction of user charges and the use of vouchers.
Most of the sorts of initiatives we discuss in this paper fall within segments 1a and
3a and, even where they entail private sector involvement, cannot be considered full-
blown privatization in a conventional sense. Nevertheless, New Labour’s “third way”
policies, public-private partnerships and a “what works rather than who does it”
approach to education, may have long term consequences for the governance and pro-
vision of urban education that we need to be aware of. While Burchardt et al.’s (1999)
schematic contributes to classifying and conceptualizing the different combinations
and forms of public and private activity, in both policy and practice in the UK there
have been some blurring of the boundaries. As Woods comments in his chapter, the
rise of “coopetition” and “public entrepreneuralism” requires rethinking the gover-
nance of urban education in ways that extend beyond questions of whether the inputs
and outcomes are public or private to fundamental questions about governance
including who is setting the agenda and who is benefiting from these arrangements
in practice.
1126 Campbell and Whitty

Public Public
provision and provision
public 1b 2b but private
finance finance
1a 2a

3a 4a

3b 4b
Private
provision Private
but public provision
finance and private
finance

KEY
Inner Circle – public decision

1a e.g., “pure public” services

2a e.g., publicly provided services paid for by user charges
3a e.g., contracted-out services purchased by the state
4a e.g., contracted-out services paid for by consumer

Outer Circle – private decision

1b e.g., publicly provided services bought with vouchers

2b e.g., publicly provided services bought by individuals
3b e.g., privately provided services bought with vouchers, tax reliefs or grants
4b e.g., “free market” services

Figure 2. Classification of public and private welfare activity (after Burchardt et al., 1999)

Sustainability Issues
Some of these consequences have been well rehearsed in the media and in the policy
literature. For example, there are important lessons about conflict of interest and the
dangers of creeping privatization to be learned from the experience of the Thatcher
government’s privately sponsored City Technology Colleges (Whitty, Edwards, &
Gewirtz, 1993) and some recent allegations1 surrounding New Labour’s equivalent,
the Academies program (Woods, Woods, & Gunter, 2005). Similar issues were raised
by corporate involvement in New Labour’s first major initiative in urban education,
Education Action Zones (Hallgarten & Watling, 2001; Power, Dickson, Gewirtz,
Halpin, & Whitty, 2002).
Our main concerns here are about the extent to which the private sector offers com-
mitment to the “public good” and about its long term capacity to support educational
improvement. A few years ago, we came across a brochure entitled The Business of
Education: An Analysis of Business Developments in the Education and Training
Marketplace (Capital Strategies, 2000). This made it clear why companies that had no
 The Governance of Urban Education in the UK 1127

historic involvement in education were now finding it attractive. The brochure predicted
a rise in the value of business opportunities from outsourcing in education from £2.5
billion to nearly £5 billion in the next few years. It reported that one new company was
entering the market because it was becoming clear that:

this government is genuinely committed to the use of the private sector in the
delivery of public services … and there are currently few players with the capac-
ity or track record to participate in this potentially massive market … . There is
currently a window of opportunity to buy and build a substantial outsourcing busi-
ness with an initial focus on education but with the clear future intention of mov-
ing into other government sectors.

Given that private companies are not necessarily driven by the imperative of the public
good, this raises the issue of what might happen to private sector involvement in educa-
tion when other areas of investment become more attractive. Or, indeed, when education
turns out to be a more demanding operating environment than envisaged by novice pri-
vate sector operators, as happened in the case of W. S. Atkins who withdrew from a con-
tract to provide education services in the inner city borough of Southwark in London.
Furthermore, as some Public Finance Initiative (PFI) schemes of capital investment have
demonstrated, even what may seem to be a “win-win” situation in the short-term, may
not look the same later on due to contractual and procedural complexities.
We also know that the human resource capacity in the private companies for work in
education is at present so limited that most of the people who are actually involved are
former local authority public sector employees and sometimes some of the best of those.
In the short-term, this might mean that the private companies employing them success-
fully turn round failing provision, but in the longer term it can undermine public sector
capacity. Successful public sector employees who move into high-profile jobs in the pri-
vate sector contribute to this process and it may therefore be more helpful to find ways of
enabling such people to assist others from within the public sector. Furthermore, the
potential and actual role of such individuals raises questions about the importance of indi-
vidual and collective capacity regardless of whether the organization is public or private.
The Audit Commission (2002), for example, argued that the root cause of all public serv-
ice failures was due to inadequate leadership which can be conceived at both an individ-
ual and systemic level within local authorities. If public sector capacity is undermined by
the flow of key individuals with high skills and expertise to the private sector for educa-
tion, what will happen in the longer term when the private sector moves on to seek eas-
ier profits elsewhere? This is one reason why it is important to maintain a strong public
sector and, to that extent, the New Labour notion that it is what works rather than who
does it that matters may prove to be misguided in the longer term.
Indeed, while there is a possibility that there will be increasing levels of private
involvement and privatization in urban education over time, there is also a danger that
the private sector might pull out or leave the public sector with an impossible legacy.
The consequent risk to the quality of education may thus not be so much now, but later
on. There are those who ask whether any of that matters if private sector involvement
raises achievement now. Up to a point this is a valid argument, provided we ensure
1128 Campbell and Whitty

equity by closing performance gaps between groups of students as well as raising

achievement overall. However, the risks of privatization and even creeping privatization
are considerable for the long-term sustainability of the public education system and,
indeed, evidence on short-term benefits also remains limited. One must question both
the short-term and long-term prospects for privatization benefiting student achieve-
ment and system sustainability. Furthermore, there remain fundamental questions
about public values and local democracy in the provision of local education systems
that may be threatened by privatization. Indeed, such public values and goals were
integral to the founding arguments for the creation of local authority responsibility for
local education systems.
The case for extensive private sector involvement in urban education has certainly
not been made. Indeed, examples of interventions that have led to improvement have
not all entailed private sector involvement. As we shall argue later, interventions
involving within-public sector or broad stakeholder approaches to improvement may
offer more chance of sustainability. In no case is it clear that that private sector involve-
ment has been the decisive factor. This is not to argue against partnership working that
includes the private sector, provided there are adequate safeguards, but nor does it
support the abandonment of local democratic control or the public service ethos within
education.
It is in this context that we consider it important to examine the viability of alternatives
to private sector involvement and privatization of education in its more extensive forms.
We are not concerned to defend the public sector status quo as such, but to remember and
celebrate its positive features in a context where it is too often just assumed by politicians
and the media that private is by definition best. In the longer term, untried private solu-
tions to present problems might actually do more harm than good.

Supporting Local Capacity in and Through Local Authorities

We want to focus particularly on the role of local authorities (LAs) in supporting local
capacity for improvement in partnership with other stakeholders. LAs are effectively
the “middle tier” in educational provision and reform with a role in both implementing
national central government direction and supporting local school improvement. We
use the term LAs, rather than the more conventional notion of LEAs (local education
authorities), because the New Labour government’s Every Child Matters agenda has
sought to combine the resources of local education and social services departments to
meet the holistic needs of children through joined-up services (Department for
Education and Skills [DfES], 2003).
For the previous 20 years, the role of LAs in education had been under sustained
attack from Conservative and Labour central governments. The combined process of a
centralization of policy direction and a decentralization of responsibilities for manag-
ing education and delivering improvement targets at school level has challenged, and in
some instances, by-passed the role of LAs in the governance of education (Campbell &
Power, 2002). The room for maneuver for LAs has been considerably constrained by the
accountability regimes and performance monitoring established by central government
 The Governance of Urban Education in the UK 1129

with questions about the capacity of LAs coming to the fore when there is a perceived
failure in local education (Riley, Docking, & Rowles, 2000).
There is, however, growing evidence (some of it in this section of the Handbook) of
the limitations of the decentralization/centralization strategy, and of the important role
for LAs to ensure educational improvement is systematic and coherent at the local level,
rather than based on the isolated success or failures of an individual school’s actions
(Fullan, 2004, 2005; Whitty, Power, & Halpin, 1998). It appears that the key factor in
the educational difference made by the LA is its capacity to provide a context for, and
support of, school-level capacity to improve. According to Fullan (2005), developing
new capacities for systemic reform at LA/district and school levels are vital for future
successes involving both restructuring and reculturing the education system.
In contrast to debates about decentralization and centralization, building capacity
for systemic reform is not about either schools or LAs – it is fundamentally about
both and about their working together to lead and deliver improvement around a col-
lective commitment to raise the bar and close the gap for student attainment. LAs can
create connections across the local education system – as Togneri and Anderson
(2003, p. 49) concluded in their study of school districts creating improvement in
challenging circumstances, such “districts can make a difference” by ensuring a move
“beyond islands of excellent schools to systems of success.”
While evidence of a direct link between LA effects and student outcomes remain
inconclusive, it is evident that LAs can be more or less effective in their role, operation
and impact and this can influence school improvement efforts (Ofsted, 2002). Based
on an analysis of findings from 101 then LEA inspections, Ofsted concluded that
effective LEAs had the following features:
● political and professional leadership;
● secure systems of strategic and educational planning;
● focus and management of school improvement;
● common commitment to improving educational standards;
● continuous improvement;
● local authority gave prominence and priority to education;
● very secure infrastructure (including school places and resources);
● reliability and sensitivity of their support to schools (Ofsted, 2002, p. 10).
While some interpretations of the pragmatic functions provided by a middle tier in
education (Audit Commission, 1998) could suggest that this tier could be either pri-
vate or public, the importance of political leadership identified by Ofsted suggests the
ongoing importance of local democratic responsibilities. The integral relationship
between local education and local government was certainly a founding and enduring
principle of LEAs in the past. Bogdanor (1994) argued that local democratic control
should ensure “legitimacy” and fulfil “moral” and “educational purpose.” The educa-
tion system and individuals within are considered to benefit from the checks and
balances provided by the oversight and strategic direction of such a public, democratic
middle tier. A concern, however, is the extent to which democratic principles and con-
ventional local authority practices actually engage local people and enable responsive
and equitable local educational developments.
1130 Campbell and Whitty

Transforming Failing LAs: Solutions Tried

We now explore alternative strategies for transforming so-called “failing” LAs. While
these particular examples derive from central government interventions, they point to
some possibilities for public alternatives to either privatization or conventional LA
control.
The Audit Commission (2002, p. 3) defined government intervention as:

Cases where Government departments and/or Ministers have taken action that
they would not otherwise have taken as a result of a critical inspection report or
other external evidence of service failure.

The Government’s arguments for intervention generally relate to inadequate capacity

within the LA. Audit Commission (2002) evidence suggests the need for attention to
local leadership and organizational factors from which failures in service delivery
arise. Intervention therefore seeks to either replace or rebuild local capacity.
At its most basic, according to Harris and Lambert (2003, p. 4) capacity building is
“concerned with providing opportunities for people to work together in new ways.”
Such a conceptualization resonated with Prime Minister Blair’s vision of a “third way”
involving new partnerships between public, private and voluntary sectors – supposedly
based on pragmatism and “what works”.
A range of formal interventions, directed by the Government through the Secretary
of State for Education and the Department for Education and Skills, have been imple-
mented. The majority of these interventions have been in urban locations, including for
whole cities’ education systems as in Bradford, Bristol, Liverpool and Leicester. The
main forms of intervention vary in their balance between:
● an emphasis on service provision or strategic direction;
● external challenge and internal support.
The first dimension refers to whether the intervention is primarily intended to reform
service delivery, for example by privatizing elements or all of the LA’s service responsi-
bilities, involving a shift towards Klein’s (1984) Cell 3 and Burchardt et al.’s (1999) quad-
rant 3a. The primary focus of reform, however, may be to reform strategic direction,
including leadership and decision-making powers by bringing in new players to advise or
direct local bodies. The second dimension contrasts whether the intervention relies
mostly on bringing external agencies in to take on responsibility for ensuring local
improvement or whether the intervention is intended to rebuild local capacity through
the provision of additional support for existing local bodies. Examples of different inter-
ventions and their balance on these dimensions are outlined in Figure 3. Examples of
private sector involvement tend to be on the right of the figure, at the most extreme
through privatization/outsourcing of both service delivery and strategic responsibility,
whereas the examples on the left of the diagram tend to involve within public sector solu-
tions with an emphasis on working with the existing LA to support renewed capacity.
Cutting across these dimensions is the extent of private sector involvement com-
pared to reform from within the public sector. As we discussed earlier, the distinction
 The Governance of Urban Education in the UK 1131

SERVICE DELIVERY

Contract between LA
Outsourcing/privatisation and schools

EXTERNAL Charitable trust taking Internal INTERNAL

Partnership with
CHALLENGE over LA functions another LA improvement SUPPORT

Stakeholder partnership board

STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT

Figure 3. Focus of intervention in LA

between public and private can be blurred by the emergence of “ideological privatisa-
tion” which seeks to infuse public sector practice with private sector approaches and
the tendency for private sector companies working in education to recruit former
public sector employees. As Woods discusses in his chapter, the nature of private sector
values within the public sector requires careful attention.
We turn now to look in more detail at two alternative approach to addressing LA
failure – one effectively replacing local capacity through private sector involvement
and the other seeking to rebuild local capacity through public partnership working.

Replacing Local Capacity

The New Labour government’s initially preferred strategy for failing LAs was to
replace local public responsibility with private sector providers contracted for service
delivery and/or strategic management. Examples include the high profile outsourcing
of local education services such as to CEA in Islington and the range of similar con-
tracts let to private contractors, including Amey (Waltham Forest), Capita (Haringey),
Nord Anglia (Sandwell), Serco (Bradford, Walsall), Tribal (Swindon) and W. S. Atkins
(Southwark). Speaking in March 2003, Secretary of State for Education at the time,
Charles Clarke, reported that, under his direction, 23 interventions were in process at
that time, of which 9 involved substantial outsourcing of LA functions.
There are three main difficulties with such attempts to privatize local education. One
is the principled argument about the threat to public sector values. Second is the prag-
matic recognition that such interventions remain unproven in terms of bringing about
the anticipated improvements or meeting academic targets (while also being profitable).
Third, there are concerns also about the long-term effects of outsourcing arrangements,
with contracts generally being let initially for 5–10 years.
There is a lack of evidence of short-term benefits from outsourcing, indeed initial
contracts can take over a year to put in place preventing swift recovery initially. In the
1132 Campbell and Whitty

medium term, some private sector providers under outsourcing arrangements have strug-
gled to deliver targets and secure profits. And in the longer-term we have already noted the
grounds for concerns about lasting implications for local public capacity. Outsourcing
arrangements do not provide a “quick fix” solution – they are not “quick” to establish or
to bring about improvement and they do not necessarily provide the “fix” required.
Evidence from the US concerning substantial removal of local powers, through state
takeover arrangements, gives cause for concern. The majority of large-scale takeover
arrangements in the USA have not yet been able to reach a point where local control has
been re-established. In New Jersey, where the first state legislation to enable local
control to be removed for a minimum of five years was implemented, this has resulted
in a longer-term removal of functions (over 15 years in Jersey City). Despite strong calls
there for a return local control, a prolonged period of removal of powers has resulted in
a lack of local capacity for the future (Tractenberg, 2002). Indeed, the longer local con-
trol is removed, the greater the risk of permanently undermining prospects for rebuild-
ing local capacity as local actors become effectively excluded from the current process.

Rebuilding Local Capacity

It may therefore be preferable to consider strategies which build local public capacity,
rather than removing or replacing this with centralized or privatized solutions. One
approach to rebuilding local capacity within the public sector in the UK is through
Education Partnership Boards (EPBs). These are:

Strategic advisory bodies, involving stakeholder membership, working in part-

nership with the LEA to support school improvement. (Campbell, Evans, Askew,
Hughes, & McCallum, 2004).

They involve independent Chairs, external to the LA, working with local stakeholders
from across the local education system (and sometimes also with external members
who are experienced educators).
Hopkins (2002, p. 4) defines EPBs as offering a “public public partnership” for
improvement with the following benefits:

The unique feature of the public Partnership Board approach is the ability to work
within existing structures of the LEA and Council. This has given the Partnership
Board the ability to work immediately and swiftly on removing obstacles to
recovery and improvement. And much more swiftly than the rather labored, in
comparison, process involved in public private or wholly private interventions.

A rationale for education partnership boards is that they provide time-limited support
for LAs to accelerate progress and build capacity for sustainable improvement in the
longer-term. They work with local politicians, officers, school leaders and communi-
ties, rather than replacing or by-passing them within local governance arrangements.
However, alongside this local partnership, EPBs, through their Chairs, also have to
 The Governance of Urban Education in the UK 1133

develop a partnership with central government, including reporting to senior education

Ministers and civil servants.
In our evaluation of education partnership boards across England, 11 boards were
identified as being in operation between 2000–2003. Of these five were the main form
of intervention involving a public sector solution, whereas four were combined with par-
tial outsourcing arrangements and two with major outsourcing. As indicated by
Burchardt et al. (1999) (see Figure 2), these involve differing combinations of public and
private provision funded by public finance. These examples represent different combi-
nations of public/private involvement and the blurring of such boundaries in practice.
The range of EPBs in the sample included those with:
● No outsourcing: Bristol, Liverpool, Leicester, Northumberland, and South Tyneside.
● Partial outsourcing:
– Short-term outsourcing of strategic management: Sandwell.
– Medium-term outsourcing of strategic management: Haringey, Swindon.
– Medium to long-term outsourcing of selected services: Waltham Forest.
● Major outsourcing: Bradford, Walsall.
Outsourcing involves contracting out responsibilities to alternative, frequently private,
providers. Interestingly, it is those LAs where an EPB, rather than private sector solu-
tions, was the main driver for improvement which have also been quickest to secure
successful re-inspections from the national inspection agency in England (Ofsted)
whose responsibilities include assessing LA performance. For example, Bristol,
Liverpool, Leicester and South Tyneside moving from a period of initial intervention
to successful Ofsted re-inspection within 1–3 years.
The first education partnership boards were implemented in January 2000 – a small
monitoring board in Liverpool and a larger stakeholder body in Leicester. In both
cases, central government’s first preference had been to move to an outsourcing
arrangement. The shift to a public sector partnership solution was fought for by local
politicians and officers, rather than being a principled commitment from central
government to a new public approach to reform.
In some other LAs, where outsourcing had been initiated from 2000 onwards, over
time education partnership boards have been established to hold private contractors to
account and to rebuild local capacity by ensuring local public involvement in the
strategic development of the education system. In Haringey, for example, a partnership
board with wider stakeholder membership has evolved, to “facilitate a return to a proper
voice for schools, politicians and community members” in the context of a LA aiming
to move beyond outsourcing arrangements. One reason for this shift to developing
public partnerships has been the growing recognition that, in the words of an intervie-
wee, private sector outsourcing has “not delivered improvements” and, according to
another, privatization had become a “juggernaut” that had to be rectified.
EPBs can help to rebuild confidence in the capacity of the local education system and
to create a sense of “community” with a “common purpose.” Successful EPBs draw on,
and extend, the expertise of their members. EPBs contribute to informing and further
developing the understanding of those involved and, when feasible, through them the
1134 Campbell and Whitty

wider groups that they communicate with. However, “it’s not just about being informed
but about taking joint responsibility.” This has involved developing an understanding of
the relative roles and responsibilities of the different partners (see Campbell et al., 2004).
Therefore, while EPBs work within public processes to build local capacity, they
entail also reforming conventional public processes to create new partnership working
arrangements across individuals and institutions within the public sector. Implicit in
Hopkins’ (2002) terminology of “public public partnership” is the recognition that this
is about different parts of the public sector working with each other in new ways to
stimulate and sustain improvement.
Across the 74 individuals interviewed for our evaluation of EPBs (Campbell et al.,
2004), there was a widespread view that EPBs offer a good approach to supporting LA
improvement through public partnership working. Furthermore, evidence to date
points to the relative effectiveness of EPBs in accelerating change within public part-
nerships, compared to many of the difficulties encountered in creating and sustaining
change through privatization.

Governing Through New Public Partnerships

The “partnership” nature of EPBs was welcomed by those involved and consistently
identified as one of the main benefits of such an approach. However, it is vital that we
explore more fully the nature and implications of such partnership working and recog-
nize that current public partnership arrangements involve significant shifts in the nature
of educational governance. This involves developing our interpretation of welfare reform
beyond those we initially considered for distinguishing between public and private sec-
tors. Klein’s (1984) categorization focuses on funding and provision, while Burchardt
et al. (1999) add to those consideration of the locus of decision-making. Formally, EPBs
do not directly fund local education, they do not provide education services and they tend
not to have decision-making powers. They are advisory bodies, but highly influential.
This requires our attention to who sets the agenda, who exerts influence and who bene-
fits from the changing local governance of education. As discussed previously, this
requires moving beyond examination simply of whether inputs are public and private and
to the surface level of decision-making to deeper examination of the governance
processes explicit, implicit and emergent under new arrangements.
Writing in 1977, Regan argued that “partnership is a hackneyed term” (p. 35) and
certainly in the period since, particularly within New Labour discourse, the term is
prone to over-use and under-explanation, with multiple (and frequently contradictory)
interpretations being invoked simultaneously in current policy discourses. What is
evident is that, although EPBs remain within the nature of public sector activity
identified by Klein (1984) and Burchardt et al.’s (1999) models, EPBs are not about
retaining or replicating the status quo of traditional LA practices but rather about reform-
ing new relationships between the central state and local state for local education.
Some interpretations of these new forms of governance, for example Rhodes’
(1997) work on networks, argue that new self-governing and powerful partnerships are
evolving which challenge the authority and capacity of the central state. Nevertheless,
 The Governance of Urban Education in the UK 1135

even Rhodes concedes that partnerships offer the opportunity to encourage compli-
ance. Newman (2001, p. 125) similarly argues that “partnership arrangements have
enabled a wider range of actors to be discursively constituted as participants in the
delivery of government policy” and, therefore, local partnerships in the context of central
steering can represent “dangerous liaisons” (Taylor, 1998) for local actors. Such tensions
raise questions about the ongoing balance between local agency and both historical and
current political, economic and social structural conditions that shape and influence local
actions, including conflicts and contradictions relating to outcomes for urban education
as discussed in Grace’s and McCulloch’s chapters. While privatization clearly removes
local public and democratic bodies from control, new public partnerships seek to include
but also transform the role of public bodies in the interests of a centrally determined
national policy for urban educational reform.

Conclusion
These tensions and risks do not, however, justify retention of the status quo. Although
we can debate the language of LA “failure” and the methodology used by the national
inspection agency to identify weaknesses and inadequacies at the local level, it is evi-
dent that there are LAs which have demonstrated a serious lack of local capacity.
Frequently, such LAs are not simply failing in managerial terms, for example, having
inadequate procedures and systems, but also in educational terms, with a lack of sup-
port for school improvement, and in democratic terms, with poor political leadership
and a breakdown of trust and respect with local communities. In such circumstances,
there is a need to look again at the working of LAs. One argument is that the alterna-
tive is to simply remove or by-pass the powers of LAs.
A middle way is suggested in the New Labour government’s 2005 White Paper
(DfES, 2005) and Education and Inspections Bill (Her Majesty’s Government [HMG],
2006). This retains a strategic role for LAs, but offers the opportunity for a school or
group of schools to be run by Trusts. One version of this, suggested by the Secretary
of State in her evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee (House of
Commons Education and Skills Committee, 2006), would involve private, public and
voluntary sector stakeholders, including universities, having a permanent and substan-
tive involvement in the governance of schools. If such an arrangement were to involve
a group of schools, say all those in an urban area, this would institutionalize the notion
of a local stakeholder board in the governance of education.
Although local capacity building can be more locally acceptable than removal of
functions, it is important to recognize that interventions designed to support local
improvements also entail significant changes in local governance. While justifications
for external intervention in LAs frequently invoke arguments relating to educational
outcomes and managerial capacity (Indepen and Bannock Consulting, 2003), the con-
struction, implementation and experience of such reforms are inherently political –
involving reformed relationships between the central state and local education. Thus,
although public partnership arrangements are not really about privatization of local edu-
cation in the conventional sense, and tend to emphasize the importance of public sector
1136 Campbell and Whitty

values and responsibilities, they do involve also a reform of public sector practices and
processes. While shifts in local governance are presented in some interpretations as
offering scope for considerable local agency (Rhodes, 1997), we would argue that the
coupling of these new forms of governance with state steering raises new dilemmas for
local democratic processes and local politics which require further investigation.
In looking to develop alternative and appropriate approaches to support local
capacity, we need not only to focus on the delivery of improved performance, but also
take seriously implications for educational and political processes. For example, as
Behn (1998, p. 132) argues about public sector reform more generally:

The advocates of any new approach to the management of the public enterprise
must not only demonstrate that their strategy is more effective or more efficient.
They must also demonstrate that it is politically responsible. Those who seek to
create a new paradigm of public management have the burden of providing a cor-
relative concept of democratic accountability.

This challenge has not been addressed by reforms which seek to privatize the delivery
of, or decision-making for, public education. However, the solution is not simply to
argue the case for public sector responsibility for the local education system, but also
to construct public alternatives which appropriately embody and promote public
values of equity and integrity, democratic responsibilities for representation and
responsiveness, and educational improvements to support students’ development.
Purposeful improvement in urban education must always be grounded in educational
values. The various forms of partnership discussed here do not offer a panacea, but
they seem more likely to offer a way forward that balances democratic accountability
and managerial efficiency in urban education rather better than either conventional
public sector approaches or privatization.

Note
1. As this chapter went to press, police were investigating allegations that potential sponsors had been
offered honours, including peerages. See Toby Helm, “City academy fund-raiser held over cash for
peerages,” Daily Telegraph, April 14, 2006.

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58

MULTI-AGENCY WORKING IN URBAN

EDUCATION AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Lyn Tett
University of Edinburgh, Scotland

The UK Policy Context and Multi-Agency Working

Since New Labour was first elected in 1997, joined-up government and multi-agency
working in the interests of social justice has been actively pursued through a range of
legislation. For example, the report of the Scottish Taskforce on Poverty states:

Achieving our ambitious targets can only happen through partnership with
colleagues across the UK. We share a common commitment to delivering social
justice [and] a belief that we are stronger together and weaker apart as people, as
communities and as nations… . The targets in the Scottish Social Justice Report
can only be delivered through focus, leadership and “new directions” in the allo-
cation and use of public, private and voluntary sector resources. (Scottish Office,
1999a, p. 2)

Social justice policies have been framed in terms of fighting social exclusion and
promoting social inclusion, reflected in the establishment of the Social Exclusion Unit
as part of the Cabinet Office in England and the creation of the Social Inclusion
Network in Scotland. In conceptualizing social exclusion, the Government has sought
to move away from a sole focus on material deprivation towards the recognition of the
salience of wider social and cultural factors. Thus, whilst it is recognized that poverty
is likely to produce social alienation, it is also recognized that unless ways are found of
hooking individuals and communities into positive social networks based on trust and
reciprocity, money spent on alleviating material disadvantage may be wasted.
Historically, targeting resources on the most disadvantaged groups and communities
has been an approach implemented to tackle the effects of economic and social disad-
vantage, for example, Educational Priority Areas and Community Development Projects
that were based in the most excluded urban areas (Halsey, 1972). More recently,
governments in the UK have focused on raising educational achievement particularly
1139
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1139–1156.
© 2007 Springer.
1140 Tett

in urban areas characterized by severe socio-economic deprivation. In the UK individ-

uals with high levels of multiple deprivation are concentrated in the cities so, for exam-
ple, in Scotland the largest city – Glasgow – has 41 out of the 100 most deprived wards
whereas rural areas, such as Argyll and Bute and the Scottish Borders, have none
(Lupton, 2004). Since it has long been recognized that agencies must work in close co-
operation if they wish to provide a seamless response to the needs of socially excluded
communities and groups (Dyson, Lin, & Millward, 1998; Tett, Crowther, & O’Hara,
2003; Webb & Vulliamy, 2004) a focus on urban contexts is necessary if such initia-
tives are to be effective. Such joined up thinking lies behind a number of international
educational initiatives such as inclusive schools, full service schools and Education
Action Zones (see Campbell, 2002; Power, 2001). In the UK schools are envisaged as
playing a key role in the current government’s policies to promote social inclusion
among children and young people in particular and in tackling social exclusion in
general. Research has shown (Atkinson, Wilkin, Stott, & Kinder, 2001; Ball, 1998)
that multi-agency projects, especially those that are based outside any one school, have
been able to provide a structure where the uneven take up of services by poorer urban
households and neighborhoods can be addressed and encouraged. Projects that
have involved social and health services, housing, police, adult education, and Non
Governmental Organizations (NGOs) collaborating together with parents and schools
in ways that focused on providing integrated services at the point of need, have been
shown to be the most effective (Semmens, 2001; Whitty, Aggleton, Gamarnikow, &
Tyler, 1998).
In Scotland the “Social Inclusion Strategy” document stresses that:

The Government is investing heavily in programmes to promote inclusion among

school-age children, including New Community Schools, Early Intervention
Schemes, Alternatives to Exclusion from School, and Family Literacy. (Scottish
Office, 1999b, p. 7)

Furthermore it is recognized that schools on their own cannot solve the problems asso-
ciated with social exclusion. The long-term objective of Scottish policy in relation to
preventing social exclusion and promoting more inclusive communities is to develop
ways of working “which integrate programmes not just within Government, but at all
levels of action right down to local neighbourhoods and communities” (Scottish
Office, 1999c, p. 1). Thus schools are expected to work with other agencies both to
prevent social exclusion taking place and to help reintegrate those who have been
socially excluded into mainstream society.
This approach envisions new roles for service users and professionals. The idea that
service users should play a significant role in shaping the type of services available
and their mode of delivery is, of course, not a new one, but the notion of service users
as partners has been used recently for a range of ideological purposes. In the area of
special educational needs, for instance, the idea that parents might work in partnership
with professionals was emphasized in the Warnock Report, published in 1978, but, as
noted by Mordaunt (2001), professionals have been very reluctant to relinquish power
to parents and policy changes have been pursued at different rates throughout the UK,
 Multi-Agency Working 1141

with greater parental rights being guaranteed in England than in Scotland. For example,
the establishment of school boards in Scotland and governing bodies in England, which
were ostensibly to give parents a stronger say in the running of their school, actually
resulted in little redistribution of power (Vincent, 2000). Vincent suggests a further
model of parental involvement, that of parent as citizen. Parent Centred Organisations,
Vincent suggests, whilst being “limited, fragile and partial in their scope and their
impact,” nonetheless “go some way towards the creation of a language and several
arenas in which (at least some) parents acting as citizens can participate in shaping
educational opportunities for all children” (Vincent, 2000, p. xiii).
Just as service users are construed differently within the modernized welfare state,
so the casting aside of departmental boundaries and the deregulation of services
creates new roles for professionals. Within the post-war welfare state, each profes-
sional group worked within clear boundaries, operating according to specific working
practices and with clear routes of accountability. Within the new welfare state, the
boundary between public, private and voluntary sector workers and those employed by
particular departments is increasingly blurred. Workers are cast in the role of social
entrepreneurs, crossing departmental boundaries in order to undertake a particular
task. The idea of the free-ranging worker adopting extremely flexible and innovative
working practice has been developed most fully in the context of the New Deal
programs designed to get people who are unemployed back into employment (see
Riddell & Tett, 2001). In order to move individuals destined for long term unemploy-
ment back into the labor market, job brokers have been instructed to use any means at
their disposal to persuade employers to find work for individuals and to support indi-
viduals in holding down a job or a training program placement. The underlying theory
is that employers’ sense of community responsibility can be drawn on in creating jobs
or lifelong learning opportunities for disabled people and other groups at risk of social
exclusion.
Clearly then, this policy context creates a wide variety of opportunities in which to
examine multi-agency working in urban areas but how these opportunities are concep-
tualized will influence their implementation in practice. In the next section, I set out a
framework for how these differing conceptualizations of the role and purposes of
multi-agency working operates. The rest of the chapter then explores multi-agency
projects in two main settings – schools and socio-economic community regeneration
initiatives – with a particular focus on social justice.

Frameworks for Understanding Multi-Agency Working

In trying to understand multi-agency working attention needs to be paid to the differing
conceptions of the purposes of partnerships, and the structures required to fulfill these
purposes, which are held by professionals and communities. There are two fundamental
dimensions of practice that influence these purposes and structures:

● Institutional and professional boundaries;

● Pedagogic purpose
1142 Tett

In terms of boundaries, each profession defines itself in terms of specialist skills and
knowledge. Such specialization helps to distinguish one profession from another but it
also separates the professional from the lay member of the public. In understanding
different approaches to multi-agency working it is important to acknowledge the
existence of professional boundaries and to examine whether such distinctions of pro-
fessional knowledge and skills are sharply defined or blurred. These boundaries also
exist between institutions and the wider community with some institutions conceptu-
alizing salient knowledge and skills as only existing within its boundaries and not
being held by others outside these boundaries. For example, parents of children with
socio-emotional behavioral difficulties (SEBD) may be viewed as not being able to
make a contribution to the understanding of their child’s problems as the school
“experts” have the correct interpretation of what is wrong and how it can be righted. In
addition, at the wider community level, services may be organized in such a way that
boundaries are certain to arise between different parts of the local authority system as
there is no strategic plan to bring services together.
Boundaries to multi-agency working will be “high” when:
● All the agencies have separate spheres of operation;
● Where there are declining resources or short-term funding that make it necessary
for the agencies to concentrate on what is considered their core business;
● Professional roles are in conflict, for example, where some professionals see
disadvantaged community members as experts whilst others see them as knowing
nothing;
● Where there are divergent views on the role of the participants in the activity, for
example, pupils with behavioral difficulties may be seen as having no insights
into their own problems by their teachers but having great expertise by youth
workers;
● Different groups being given priority by the agencies in the collaboration, for
example, only the parents of pupils attending the school or only people living in
poverty.
Boundaries to multi-agency working will be “low” when:
● Processes are in place that give value to joint decision-making by the various
agencies;
● There is a commitment by all the institutions involved to collaborative working
that includes the wider community;
● Institutions respond to the articulated views of the community;
● There are shared view of the roles of participants in the activity;
● There is an appreciation of the strengths to be gained from the complimentary
roles of professional workers and the pupils, parents and communities with whom
they work.
The pedagogic purpose and practice dimension is about the orientation of the profes-
sional, which may be “particularistic,” focusing upon the personal and educational
development of the individual, whether pupil, young person or adult. Alternatively it
 Multi-Agency Working 1143

may be “holistic,” with a focus on the development of the community as a whole and
a vision of learning as having a dual purpose in the development of both the individual
and the community. For example, schools may only focus on the individual pupil and
see the role of that person’s parents as solely focused on the child rather than seeing the
importance of their roles in the wider community regeneration. Purpose and practice
form a continuum that ranges from an orientation towards community development that
aims to encourage effective and responsible citizenship to an individualistic orientation
that is concerned with universal provision of education rather than being responsive to
both the articulated and the unvoiced requirements of the community.
The pedagogic purpose and practice will be “particularistic” when:
● There is an emphasis on the individual growth of participants;
● There are no means whereby the community can raise problems of concern to
them;
● People are only involved in decision making at a tokenistic level;
● The skills of the community are not utilized or valued;
● Universalistic provision that is focused on individuals is offered;
● Policy and practice objectives are predetermined.
The pedagogic purpose and practice will be “holistic” when:
● There are mechanisms for, and a commitment to, responding effectively to the
issues and problems identified by the community;
● The community that is the focus for the intervention has an influence on decision
making and the structures are in place that allow such decisions to be implemented;
● Methods for developing the “voice” of socially excluded individuals, groups and
communities are used;
● There is a commitment to community participation in decision making that leads
to responsive, demand-led provision.
The relationship between these two dimensions result in a matrix of four quadrants in
which the different purposes of multi-agency working can be characterized as follows:
● Quadrant A Individualistic perspective/High institutional boundaries (Individual
development).
The purpose of multi-agency working is to support the work of schools and focuses
upon addressing the problems that frustrate the progress in the learning of students.
Institutions define roles and rules in ways that can create a boundary around the school
and the focus of other professionals, parents and the wider community is seen only in
relation to the purposes of supporting the individual pupil in the school.
● Quadrant B Holistic perspective/High institutional boundaries (Citizen development).
In this quadrant the challenges of social and economic regeneration are recognized in
multi-agency working: education and training are focused on enabling members of the
community not only to gain employment but also to improve the quality of individual
lives. However, professional and institutional traditions and conceptualizations of
1144 Tett

purpose can still frustrate collaborative working leading to high boundaries between
the different agencies.
● Quadrant C Holistic perspective/Low institutional boundaries (Whole community
development).
In this quadrant the school, the local authority, the institutions and agencies that work
co-operatively all recognize the importance of community development as well as lifelong
learning. They form collaborative partnerships to ensure effective provision of education
to enable members of the community to participate as citizens in the practice of local
democracy.
● Quadrant D Individualistic perspective/Low institutional boundaries (Lifelong
learning approach).
In this quadrant multi-agency working is focused on supporting the learning needs of
all individuals in the community: pupils; young people outside school; their parents;
and the life-long learning needs of adults in the community. To support these needs
institutions strive to become responsive to the communities they serve and to establish
collaborative patterns of working with other organizations and agencies but the focus
of the intervention is on the individual.
In order to explore these frameworks further I now turn to an examination of a
particular Scottish program, Integrated Community Schools (ICS), which was designed
to break down the boundaries between professionals and community members living
in urban areas characterized by high levels of social exclusion.

High boundary

Quadrant A Quadrant B
Individual Citizen
Development Development

Individualistic/ Holistic/
Particularistic Community
Development

Quadrant D Quadrant C
Lifelong Whole
Learning Community
Development

Low boundary

Figure 1. A framework for multi-agency working

 Multi-Agency Working 1145

Multi-Agency Working in Urban Schools

The development of ICS was initiated in 1998 and it was argued that this initiative of
“Integrated provision of school education, informal as well as formal education, social
work and health education and promotion services will require a new approach and
level of inter-disciplinary team working” (Scottish Office, 1998, p. 8). Research
commissioned by the New Labour Government showed that many children and young
people, particularly those in urban communities, were underachieving in schools and
at risk of becoming “socially excluded” from society (see Baron, 2001). It was decided
to implement a program which would aim to meet the needs of “at risk” children and
families. They should:

Focus on the individual child, his or her family and the community; the aim is to
meet each child’s needs in the round; the key is integrated provision of services –
teachers, social workers, adult education workers, health professionals and others
working together as a single team. (Scottish Office, 1998, p. 2)

ICS is an important policy intervention because it is designed to bring about more

inclusive schools and communities through inter-agency partnerships. Such initiatives
have long been considered an important way of working in education (see Dyson &
Robson, 1999) and similar partnerships form the basis for the “Extended School” ini-
tiative in England. All these initiatives have focused especially on socially excluded
children and young people and their families who suffer from a number of difficulties
including poverty, poor housing and health and low educational attainment. This is
because, as Semmens (2001, p. 71) argues, this type of approach is a very practical
response to “at risk” students since “schools are usually located in accessible places,
and services can be delivered either at school or through school acting as the referral
agency.” In addition, the strength of this way of working is that no one agency is
expected to deal with the complex range of difficulties such students face (Lloyd,
Stead, & Kendrick, 2003). The multi-agency approach offers “joint consideration of
individual children’s needs and joint action to address these” (Scottish Office, 1998,
p. 4). In terms of the framework set out above, the approach recognizes the need
to reduce the professional and institutional “boundaries” of service providers. Its
pedagogic purpose, however, is “individualistic” and it thus falls within quadrant D of
the framework.
The rest of this section will explore how action to reduce boundaries that get in
the way of individual learning can contribute to greater inclusion through examining
the way support services are delivered to “at risk” children and young people and their
parents. Other Scottish legislation, such as the “Standards in Scotland’s Schools etc
Act,” requires schools to take an inclusive approach to these groups. The Act states
that there is a “presumption of inclusion” and that “school education for any child of
school age, shall be provided in a school other than a special school” (Scottish
Executive, 2000a, p. 8). Therefore, it is seen as better for the child to be educated at
their local school and within the body of their own community as this may prevent
1146 Tett

social exclusion later in life. Schools are expected to have a continuum of supports for
young people experiencing difficulties. The Scottish Executive have made recommenda-
tions such as “schools having a positive ethos” and “engagement of parents in their child’s
learning” (Scottish Executive, 2000b) and “staged intervention to support children” and
“schools should develop agreed systems for shared responsibility” (Scottish Executive,
2001). However, in the past, educational support services have been delivered around
the mainstream curriculum. But as mainstream education only accounts for 15% of a
child’s life (Wolfendale, 1993), this meant that the child and family largely went
unsupported for a large part of their lives.
ICS Projects in many areas have addressed these issues of social inclusion by develop-
ing supportive programs both within and out-with school that involve multi-agency work-
ing. These include: “breakfast clubs”; out of school activities and clubs; holiday activities;
targeted support for parents. There is evidence that these supports are very positive and
Jon Nixon has argued that:

The Breakfast and After School Club provision creates a “border country”
between private and public in which children are encouraged to develop their
sense of responsibility for themselves and for others. (Nixon, 2001, quoted in
Baron, 2001, p. 102)

This type of intervention has led to the building of local community supports with
a whole range of service providers and can lead to professionals developing a more
democratic repertoire in their relationship with local people. This way of working is an
asset because it aims to strengthen local networks, collective self help and include the
target community as active participants as a way of building social capital. In some
local authorities ICS Integration Managers have promoted the structural changes nec-
essary to improve services through taking on a co-ordination role. Innovative ways
have been found to engage with parents that are positive, purposeful and lead to improved
understanding between them and the school community. For example, one ICS school
cluster has developed a structure where all referrals about “at risk” pupils are
channeled through a single person who then coordinates the responses from profes-
sionals, agencies and others so that the pupil and his/her carers have only one point of
contact. This involves adopting the principle of “reciprocity” that allows a move away
from the “blame culture” and instead values the contributions of all concerned, espe-
cially the views of carers. In addition a study of experiences of integrated services
delivered through ICS from the perspective of parents and their children (Tisdall &
Wallace, 2004) found that parents were particularly appreciative of having one point of
contact rather than being passed from person to person. They also noted “the impor-
tance of having their concerns recognised [and having] … less hierarchical relation-
ships with staff ” (ibid, p. 46).
However, a study of parents of children with a diagnosis of SEBD (Smith & Tett,
2003) based in another ICS school cluster, showed that although they had sound
knowledge, clear understanding and good insights into their child’s difficulties, in
many cases this was not acted upon. Rather they had to wait for professionals to make
 Multi-Agency Working 1147

referrals to support agencies and often had to approach a variety of professionals them-
selves rather than having just one coordinating person to make these connections for
them. Semmens (2001, p. 76) argues that in a crisis situation, which many parents get
to before asking for help, “someone with specialist expertise must step in and take
responsibility … however the intervention must be connected with the rest of the
client’s life.” One of the key points that emerge from this, and other, research is that
parents want to be involved in supporting their children but professionals can make
this a difficult, rather than an easy, process (Kendrick, 1995; Stead, Lloyd, & Kendrick,
2004). Clearly then, an approach that positions the professionals as the only “experts”
in understanding a child’s difficulties is going to create boundaries between the school
and the parents it is expected to work with.
Another type of intervention arising from the ICS initiative has been the restructuring
of local authorities’ education and children’s services. When a corporate approach to
the development of children’s service plans is taken then much can change. It is essen-
tial, however, that the plans are owned not only by all local authority departments, but
also by all the agencies involved in providing services and the people – community
members, pupils, parents – that are affected by them (see Kendrick, 1995). This is
a time-consuming task as different groups and individuals all have to give up some
of their autonomy for the greater good of the whole and the voices of parents, pupils
and communities can easily be silenced by “exclusionary professionalist agendas,
often sustained by deficit ideologies” (Hatcher & Leblond, 2001, p. 55). This type of
approach has been most successful when there has been time for people to work
together on small projects that have resulted in positive change. For example, one
project focused on providing a school summer holiday programme for vulnerable
families that covered a range of social, educational, and recreational activities. This
involved staff from a number of organizations, including the local schools, the volun-
tary sector, the further education college, and adult education team, together with three
local parents working together to find the resources of staff and finance to make an
interesting and varied program. The parents were fully involved in advising on the kind
of activities that were appropriate and the professional staff worked collaboratively
together to make sure that all services made a contribution to a successful initiative. As
a result of this program a further development that is focusing on primary/secondary
transitions is now under way and will involve two other parents that participated in the
summer holiday project (see McCulloch, Tett, & Crowther, 2004).
An increase in joint working has to be facilitated if it is to work and local authorities
that appointed people with a particular responsibility for promoting this were the most
successful. Such facilitators were able to improve clients’ access to services (and
school access to different funding sources). Professionals from different sectors valued
learning more about each others’ areas of expertise, and many saw “blurring the
boundaries” between agencies and professional groups as both offering positive poten-
tial and presenting new problems and dilemmas. Schools Liaison Groups also played
a valuable part in developing increased trust through face-to-face meetings. One
aspect of working together that was particularly successful was the potential for, and
experience of, joint training. This was seen as a valuable learning process for staff. One
particularly useful practice was thought to be cross-professional work shadowing
1148 Tett

which, among other benefits, was thought to have helped to resolve confidentiality
issues:

Social workers say I know what the school nurse does but if they actually came
out and shadowed … they would be absolutely stunned about the extent of the
work and vice versa. A lot of it has got to be education and training for the actual
staff involved to make it a success and to break down barriers to working together.
(Tett & McCulloch, 2005, p. 10)

Research carried out by the author and her research group with a range of ICS initiatives
found that most people were realistic about the difficulties presented by different
professional perspectives and priorities but were willing to work together to achieve the
overarching aim of providing better, more focused, services for pupils, parents and the
wider school community (McCulloch et al., 2004; Tett, Caddell, Crowther, & O’Hara,
2001; Tett, Munn et al., 2001; Tett et al., 2003).
On the other hand, collaborative partnerships, particularly between professionals, are
not easy because of a number of inherent hazards such as inter-professional rivalries or
unrealistic expectations (Huxham, 1996). For example, different professional partners
may have divergent views about what collaboration means (see Blair et al., 1998; Dyson
et al., 1998). Our research (Tett, Caddell et al., 2001; Tett, Munn et al., 2001; Tett et al.,
2003; McCulloch et al., 2004) found that schools were more likely to welcome collab-
orating partners in areas that they saw as beyond their own expertise such as health
education. In areas that were seen as “core” activities such as the teaching of specific
subjects in the secondary school then the focus was more likely to be on funding for
additional resources that would enable them to teach more effectively. Other research
has shown (e.g., Webb & Vulliamy, 2004) that there can be conflict between the target
of raising achievement and the target of reducing exclusions in secondary schools with
classroom teachers being concerned that the latter would affect the former.
As can be seen there are many barriers to multi-agency working and conflict and tension
between professionals are inevitably part of the process. Inter-professional collaboration
may be seen as a threat rather than a benefit especially when core aspects of people’s pro-
fessional competence may be questioned. The ICS approach has the goal of delivering pub-
lic services that meet the needs of its citizens – parents, pupils and communities – rather
than the convenience of public service providers. However, staff had to be clear about how
they are constructing the needs of citizens especially in relation to urban communities that
are disadvantaged. The deep-rooted cultural differences between professional groups,
vested interests in maintaining school and departmental boundaries and statutory restric-
tions may undermine efforts to engage in partnership working that includes all the com-
munity. This has led some commentators to suggest that a new professionalism is needed
that gives priority to “boundary spanning” (Newman, 2001, p. 6) so that the concept of
integrated provision to meet individual needs becomes embedded in people’s thinking.

Multi-Agency Working and Local Community Groups

In this section, I want to focus on multi-agency working that has holistic community
development as its pedagogic purpose through involving local community groups as
 Multi-Agency Working 1149

partners in multi-agency working for socio-economic regeneration. Such an approach

recognizes that people are embedded in different social realities, where power manifests
itself concretely and specifically, and educational practices need to take these particu-
larities and differences into account. For example, tackling racism requires the expert-
ise of those who have directly suffered its effects as well as the general knowledge of
those who seek to understand and counteract it. Understanding disability includes an
awareness of the meaning of dependency, which becomes an educational resource
both for disabled experts and interested generalists, rather than simply a technical
problem to be solved. To live full lives people need to engage in learning that can
equip them to develop their autonomy and control both at the individual and the
communal level. If people are to gain a voice they will need the confidence and
authority that comes out of having their embodied experience acknowledged and val-
ued and through being part of a social, mutually supportive group that is engaged in
learning from each other.
This focus on the expertise of local people in understanding what is wrong in their
communities and what should be done to change it has risen up the policy agenda
recently especially in relation to the work of adult education. However, official gov-
ernment literature about the merits of partnership tends to present an idealized model
that assumes that achieving local action and consensus at the community level is rela-
tively unproblematic. For example the Scottish Executive, (2000a) suggested that:

Services need to listen to their communities with a single ear. Having listened
they need to change the services they provide and the way in which they are deliv-
ered in a way that is more responsive to their communities’ needs.

In contrast, research into partnerships between local community groups and a variety
of public and private sector organizations (e.g., Craig & Taylor, 2002; Hatcher &
Leblond, 2001; Milewa, Dowswell, & Harrison, 2002; Tett et al., 2003), shows the
conflicting character of co-ordinating different and unequal interest and identity groups.
Given these difficulties with involving community groups as equal partners how
might communities and the adult education workers who liaise with them be more
effectively empowered? Purdue and colleagues (2000) suggest that effective strategic
partnerships should first of all involve local community groups from the outset rather
than after a partnership has been established. They should have an agreed and negoti-
ated agenda with clear terms of reference; ensure that all partners are committed to
community empowerment; develop appropriate structures and procedures for commu-
nity participation that are acceptable to all partners; and address issues of conflict and
power (Craig & Taylor, 2002, p. 139). Partnerships for community regeneration through
involving local people in educational initiatives are potentially creative but they can
founder unless they are based on shared interests, with agreed mechanisms for negoti-
ating differences and building trust (Wagner & Spence, 2003). One key is that they
should be set in the context of longer-term strategies for community development that
offer strategic possibilities for learning. This involves taking the concerns and needs of
local community organizations seriously by enabling them to respond as far as possible on
their own terms and at a manageable pace, rather than sucking them into the slipstream
of policy programs (Taylor, 2003).
1150 Tett

If communities are to be fully involved in decision making as equal partners then

maximum access to as much information as possible is needed, particularly research
and specialist knowledge that will enable them to justify alternative views. In addition,
structures need to be in place to enable community groups and the people they
represent to influence decision-making through developing their own ideas and agen-
das, pro-actively (Tett et al., 2003). This takes time but this is not always available as
one group found:

We found that we were included in a regeneration partnership at the last minute

because the funding criteria suggested that a community-based organisation
would be an asset. This meant that we had hardly any time to get to know the other
partners and that meant it took ages before we were able to make an effective
contribution. (quoted in Tett, 2003, p. 5)

Having control over resources of money, time and staff is also a powerful tool in estab-
lishing a more equal place at the partnership table. If these conditions were met then
communities would be better placed to:

Play an active role in setting the agenda and pressing for the wider policy changes
required. [This kind of partnership for renewal would then be able to meet] social
needs as defined from the bottom up, rather than responding to the requirements
of market-led agendas determined from the top down. (Mayo, 1997, p. 24)

Adult education workers have an important role to play in assisting community groups
to understand, operate within, and, where necessary, challenge their political environ-
ment. This involves identifying and stressing areas of commonality and the creative
development of links and alliances between groups that might otherwise see their
organizations as in competition. It also involves recognizing the rights of those who
experience problems to define appropriate solutions and argue for the resources nec-
essary their implementation (Wagner & Spence, 2003). As one group pointed out “you
must respect the people that you are working with and acknowledge their expertise
about what works in their community” (quoted in Tett, 2003, p. 17).
Multi-agency working has generally developed, within existing structures, processes
and frameworks of power, with public sector cultures in the UK, that are so deeply
engrained that power holders are unaware of the ways in which their use of language and
procedures that outsiders find impenetrable excludes community groups in particular.
However, many adult education workers have established educational programs designed
to enable community groups to understand and engage with the unwritten codes behind
the operation of working in partnership. For example, one group pointed out:

We wanted to make sure that no one agency dominated the proceedings so we had
a revolving chair and each organisation took turns in minute taking. Just these
simple things made quite a difference to hearing a variety of voices and not
always just the biggest partners. (quoted in Tett, 2003, p. 16)

By this means a local community group had their concerns listened to and acted upon.
 Multi-Agency Working 1151

Communities want evidence of tangible changes as much as their public and pri-
vate partners do. But an emphasis on hard, measurable outputs leads to a technical
bias, which ignores the institutional and socio-cultural context and overshadows
the social and political dimensions of the change process. An approach that trans-
forms social problems into technical problems neutralizes both their value base and
debate about what caused the problems in the first place. The danger is that “what
began as a political issue is translated into a technical problem which the development
exercise can accommodate with barely a falter in its stride” (White, 1996, p. 7).
However, Russell (2001) reports on a range of initiatives that have attempted to over-
come these problems of providing hard outputs. For example, partnerships have set
benchmarks for community participation; had an explicit statement of the shared
vision and purpose of the partnership, based on jointly held values; regarded each
partner as having an equivalent status, irrespective of some having more resources than
others have. Russell further argues that “equivalent status means avoiding having
‘core’ and ‘peripheral’ groups and ensuring fairness in the conduct of the partnership
by creating opportunities for each partner to contribute as much as they wish and in a
manner that is appropriate” (Russell, 2001, p. 22).
Taking the concerns and needs of community organizations seriously is important
means of enabling them to respond as far as possible on their own terms and at a man-
ageable pace. Partnerships work best when each partner is perceived – collectively and
individually – to have an equivalent status, irrespective of some having more resources
than others. An example of how this works in practice is a multi-agency partnership
that involves a large secondary school, the local Further Education College, the adult
education worker, and a range of community based organizations working together to
make sure that the learning provision available in one disadvantaged urban community
is appropriate. The partners in this initiative have realized that the resources that each
partner brings may be different and not always quantifiable. These include, for exam-
ple, the information, experience, and expertise that voluntary groups such as parents’
organizations bring about adult learning needs in the community. In talking about the
issue of resources the school educational outreach manager said:

The community activists who knew the local community were the people who had
the best knowledge of what would work and where the best places were to hold the
classes. They were our most important outreach partners in getting the right adult
learning opportunities into the community. (quoted in Tett, 2003, p. 25)

This valuing of local resources was not there in the early days of the partnership,
however, and has had to be worked on. As one of the parent-led groups pointed out
“the professionals needed to listen carefully to what the community was saying and, at
the beginning of the project, they were quite selective about what they wanted to hear”
(quoted in Tett, 2003, p. 18). This group had to work hard to have its concerns about
the educational provision being focused on telling parents how to be better at helping
their children with their homework rather than seeing that parents were experts in
relation to their own needs and interests. They were eventually listened to because they
were clear about their own purposes in getting appropriate out-of-school child-care
1152 Tett

provision and wanting to learn about how to do this. One particular issue was about the
recognition and respect for community members’ differences of religion, ethnicity and
sexuality and the group was able to articulate what difference this made to the provision
that was made. As a result all the partners in this project experienced tensions about
their respective roles and responsibilities and have had to compromise. However, the
multi-agency committee responsible for the project has helped to strike a balance
between these competing priorities by listening and working together. As the adult
education worker put it “every developmental step has been enhanced through effec-
tive networking and the building and maintenance of meaningful partnerships with
other agencies, some statutory, some voluntary” (quoted in Tett, 2003, p. 19).
The approach that this particular project has taken suggests an approach to multi-
agency working that focuses on whole community development with a holistic per-
spective and low institutional boundaries. This falls into quadrant C of the framework
detailed above where the community has an influence on decision-making and there
are mechanisms in place for these decisions to be implemented. This focus on the
expertise that lies in the local knowledge of the community and the acknowledgement
that it is as valuable as that of the outside professional educators is, however, unusual
in the wider regional and national contexts (see Dyson & Robson, 1999; Glendinning,
Powell, & Rummery, 2002; Riddell & Tett, 2001). Generally professionals and lay
members of multi-agency partnerships are expected to respond to problems defined
and understood from outside of disadvantaged communities and local “lay” knowl-
edge is not valued.

Conclusion
In examining the data reported on here from a range of initiatives, it can be seen that
multi-agency working always involves the agency of the people who are working
together and the structures that make such interactions possible. Overall, it is possible for
multi-agency working to exist in a wide range of circumstances and situations. However,
where boundaries are low and a community development approach is taken collabora-
tive partnerships are more likely to encourage the development of democratic partici-
pation in local communities, a key goal of the policy to combat social exclusion and
increase social justice. Such partnerships have at their core a commitment to lifelong
learning and to promoting community capacity and empowerment.
Building partnerships results in multi-agency working that supports both the values
and purposes of schools and the values and purposes of communities. Such activity
necessarily sits on the boundary between school and community and is as much about
schools’ development as community development. The successful school will necessar-
ily be involved in community building and regeneration as both a value and a purpose.
This is what Sergiovanni (1994) terms the “gemeinschaft” school – the school that
values kinship, neighborliness and collegiality above rational, contractual relation-
ships (gesellschaft, pp. 8–9). Merz and Furman (1997), using the same theory, conclude
that schools have become too “gesellschaft” which is undermining a sense of community.
Schools that value community building and regard it as a prime institutional purpose will
 Multi-Agency Working 1153

be more successful in shaping multi-agency partnerships. This requires the community

to be involved in developing education and creating a learning community. While the
practice described above provided examples of an interest in, and commitment to, a
vision of learning communities there are institutional barriers preventing “gemein-
schaft” being at the heart of schooling.
As far as pedagogy is concerned, many schools would claim to encourage lifelong
learning either directly through teaching approaches which promote enjoyment and a
sense of achievement thereby enhancing motivation to learn in their pupils and/or by
encouraging adult participation. Yet the scope for a negotiated curriculum is heavily
circumscribed and the introduction of performance targets in terms of pupil attainment
leads to teacher attention being focused on those aspects of the curriculum for which
they are publicly accountable. Schools need to look beyond the school gate to the
wider community not just in terms of mobilizing parents to be involved in their
children’s education but through being open to the contributions that the community
can make to the school and vice versa.
Schools also have a very limited capacity currently to promote learning to participate
in a democratic community. The informal curriculum may provide experience of organ-
izing and managing clubs and societies. The hidden curriculum of schools typically
sends messages about the hierarchical and status driven nature of school organization
with few opportunities for pupil involvement in decision-making particularly for those
in danger of exclusion (see Munn & Lloyd, 2005). There are a few notable exceptions,
of course, where pupil councils or their equivalent play a real part in decisions about
school life. Certainly many schools work with parents as partners both to improve
children’s learning and to enhance parents’ own education. Yet even the most success-
ful and dynamic schools in this regard would not claim to reach all parents. This is not
intended as a criticism of schools. Rather it is to recognize the limited role they can
play given current government priorities for schools and the severely constrained
budgets under which they operate.
Each partner in collaboration brings their own tradition to multi-agency working
that sets limits about what they can contribute to the whole. However, although joint
professional development can reinforce the understanding and valuing of collaboration,
the threats and pressures facing the partners can accentuate the limits of professional
boundaries. This chapter on multi-agency working in urban contexts has shown that
there is a great diversity of learning needs that can only be addressed through a variety
of professionals and lay people coming together to share their skills. Plural interests
and needs require the complementarity of specialisms and understandings whether
derived from professional or local knowledge. Professional and lay collaborations
depend on forging the trust and understanding that allows people to build a common
view that respects the contribution that all can make to learning and development.
It also means recognizing the rights of those that experience problems to define
appropriate solutions and argue for their implementation. In these circumstances
professionals need to see this as an opportunity to build the capacity of people living
in disadvantaged urban communities rather than as a threat to their individual posi-
tions. As Whitty and Campbell (2004, p. 11) point out “when implementing integrated
services there is a tendency to focus initially on the implications for professionals and
1154 Tett

agencies.” However, the experiences of communities and their own definition of the
needs are central to the organization and delivery of appropriate education and other
services. People themselves can develop their own forms of knowledge by being rec-
ognized and respected in multi-agency collaborations and this challenges the power of
expert, professional, knowledge to monopolize the definition of what is wrong in their
communities and what is needed to right it.
While many schools in the past were closed to both the professionals and communities
beyond their boundaries, some of the emerging practice reported on here provides a
vision of what might be achieved through an open institution that is responsive to local
needs and circumstances. Schools are often closed organizations surrounded by strong spa-
tial, professional, accounting, and organizational boundaries. Openness can be created
and sustained through a commitment to creating effective community development
where boundaries are blurred, cross-over, and sometimes disappear altogether, as
shared ways of seeing the work that is to be done are developed, which are fit for the
purpose of building the capacities of all. With these issues in mind it is hoped that the
analysis presented here will help plot the various models of multi-agency working in
urban contexts that unfold and provide a useful way of analyzing the multi-faceted
strands of social inclusion policy.

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59

FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR URBAN EDUCATION

IN THE UK

Leisha Fullick and Tim Brighouse

Institute of Education, University of London, U.K.

Introduction
Previous chapters of this handbook have described a range of developments in contem-
porary urban education policy and practice in the UK. Many of these developments
advance our understanding of what are likely to be the key drivers for reform of urban
education in the future. This final chapter, arising from these insights, will examine
what we see as the main trends that are bringing about significant change in urban
schools in the UK. Many of these changes do, we believe, have the potential to create
more effective ladders of opportunity for students in urban areas and, hopefully, many
of these will be irreversible. The chapter also highlights some key policy areas which
will require significant further development if the needs of students in urban areas are
going to be addressed fully and real social justice achieved. These include extended
schools, race equality, issues of access and equity in the context of the rhetoric of
choice and “parental empowerment.”
Many of the contributors to this handbook have described how developments in
urban education in the UK are currently characterized by a set of contradictions.
On the one hand the trend toward diversity and choice in education, with its attendant
promotion of quasi markets and acceptance of the inequalities they produce, continues
to grow and develop often with negative consequences for deprived urban areas. After
1997 New Labour continued the commitment to marketisation and the assertion of
consumer rights in education (Whitty, 2002, p. 127) which had characterized educa-
tion policy in the two previous decades but, at the same time, there has been a remark-
able growth in funding and in social policy interventions designed to create a more
equal society in the UK. These interventions have been based upon hugely ambitious
governmental goals to halve child poverty by 2010, achieve full employment and to
close the gap between the poorest areas in England and the rest. One of the biggest
achievements of the New Labour governments since 1997 has been its ability to gain
acceptance for the active role of government in creating a “social justice” agenda
1157
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1157–1172.
© 2007 Springer.
1158 Fullick and Brighouse

alongside an economic strategy designed to benefit all its citizens. New Labour has
shown a deep commitment to the improvement in public services for wider social ben-
efit across all areas, most notably in education and health, and it is in this context also
that future of directions for urban education in the UK should be viewed.
It is our view that recent governmental reforms, many of them not specifically in
education, but centered more broadly on New Labour’s approach to social justice,
social inclusion and poverty, have created a new paradigm for urban education in the
UK the last eight or so years. There are, as a result, many new opportunities both for
developing our understandings of urban education theory and practice and for creating
the new social commitment to urban education that is called for in Gerald Grace’s
chapter in this Handbook.
The development of a new discourse about urban education is very much on the
agenda in the UK and this in itself is a very hopeful trend. This is in marked contrast to
the situation when New Labour came to power in 1997 when it had virtually disap-
peared from the public agenda as an issue, despite the fact that the connection of
economic and social disadvantage and ethnic diversity in urban areas to differing edu-
cational outcomes had, over many years, been thoroughly documented as a persistent
feature of the UK education system (Gottdiener & Budd, 2005, pp. 21–23). At first
urban education did not merit particular attention in New Labour’s ambitious program
of education reform, and before they were elected in 1997 future new Labour education
ministers had not developed, even in outline, any policies or strategies for urban educa-
tion. Indeed at that stage some of their leading players denied there was a need for
particular actions focused on socially disadvantaged areas beyond their intention to
focus with a passionate and fierce determination to raise standards of school education
provision across the whole of England. Tony Blair’s 17 detailed promises which backed
his famous “Education, Education, Education” declaration of policy priority intent
contained none relating to urban education.
Perhaps because, traditionally, concepts of “the urban” have been located in con-
cepts of social pathology and, in particular, of crisis (Grace, 1984, pp. 48–54) this did
not prove an attractive organizing concept for New Labour. Traditional political and
sociological analyses which focused on urban education as a “problem” and explained
underachievement in urban schools as arising from political, economic and cultural
disadvantage were eschewed. New Labour did not make explicit its support for a more
equal education system. Favored progressive strategies such as equality of opportunity,
progressive pedagogy, community education, reform of the admissions system to cre-
ate more genuinely comprehensive schools were notable by their absence from New
Labour education rhetoric at the outset.
However as the New Labour project developed there were significant developments
which did take on board the issues that had been highlighted by Office for Standards
in Education in its ground breaking, though largely ignored, 1993 report “Access and
Achievement in Urban Education.” This report described how the range and complex-
ity of problems in urban areas, such as poor housing, poor social infrastructure and
high levels of pupil mobility, created a cycle of underachievement that meant that edu-
cation reforms could not make an appreciable difference to many inner city schools
due to the concentration of disadvantage found in such areas.
 Future Directions for Urban Education in the UK 1159

Most schools in such areas do not have within themselves the capacity for sus-
tained renewal … Beyond the school gates are underlying social issues such as
poverty, poor housing, inadequate health care and the frequent break up of fami-
lies. Education by itself can only do so much to enable individuals to reach beyond
the limiting contours of their personal and social circumstances and succeed.
(Ofsted, 1993)

Within months of coming to office thinking that focused in this way on notions of
place, and on the impacts of concentrations of disadvantage on a whole range of
opportunities in people’s lives had become a central organizing concept of government
policy. While the language may have been more managerial rather than ideological
there can be no doubt about the seriousness of commitment and the quality of the
thinking that informed that commitment. This was manifested most clearly in the
establishment of the Social Exclusion Unit and the subsequent creation of the high
profile National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal (Social Exclusion Unit, 2001)
with its ambitious targets to ensure that no-one was seriously disadvantaged by where
they lived. These targets contained both floor targets (absolute improvements to a
minimum level) and, perhaps more importantly, convergence targets (closing the gap
between poorest areas and the rest). As well as the targets (in particular the convergence
targets) there were a number of new and distinctive features to the strategy – an empha-
sis on community involvement and leadership, and a holistic long-term approach
driven by changes in mainstream services. In addition the National Strategy for
Neighbourhood Renewal was clearly redistributive in its intent to “bend” mainstream
activity (such as school improvement strategies) so that they benefited the most
deprived areas over the rest.
These developments, based on the recognition of the neighborhood as a key site both
of social disadvantage and of policy change, have served to reinstate urban education
as an important area for public policy. The notion of complex geographic disparities in
education outcomes was put firmly on the agenda as an organizing principle. There
was an increasing recognition that schools located in urban areas faced a “heightened
challenge” and that the combination of issues such as ethnic diversity, poor housing,
crime, poverty, other social disadvantage, pupil mobility, and teaching staff shortages
in urban schools required focused policies and practice if an achievement and attain-
ment culture with commensurate improvements in outcomes was to be established in
every school, wherever located.
This resulted in significant specific area based urban education initiatives –
Education Action Zones, Excellence in Cities and London Challenge – all of which are
described in more detail elsewhere in this Handbook. These initiatives have gone beyond
school based initiatives and represent an increasingly focused and well resourced
attempt to wrestle, especially in secondary education, with many of the long standing
and intractable issues associated with urban education. Contained within this range of
initiatives is the potential for a concerted effort to tackle the “neighbourhood effects”
on education outcomes and to bring the wider resources of society, both private and
public, to bear on tackling the problems of deprivation in poorer communities in general,
and disadvantaged schools in particular.
1160 Fullick and Brighouse

There is now in the UK the basis for an overall education strategy focused on cities
and the chance to develop a new commitment to urban education the twenty-first
century. While these developments may not contain all of the features of a great “socio-
cultural project” called for in Gerald Grace’s review of the current state of urban
education theory, it should be recognized and welcomed that New Labour has devel-
oped a broad and ambitious program of social reform designed to tackle poverty and its
attendant social ills and it is in that program that a new context for urban education
should be understood. Space has been created for a new theoretical and policy discourse
based upon our growing knowledge of what is working and why in current approaches,
and how certain policies need to be taken forward. The task will be to ensure this dis-
course is sustained and developed so that it can provide a significant basis for develop-
ing a new paradigm for urban education in the future.

Success for the Many Not the Few

Perhaps the most significant contextual change for urban schooling lies in the univer-
salism of the commitment to successful outcomes for all pupils. It used to be the case
that at the age of 11 it was accepted practice to select the 20–25% of pupils who passed
the 11-plus exam to attend grammar schools and the 75–80% who failed it to attend
other schools. Then the job of schooling for the majority of pupils was to give them
sufficient education “to give them that sense of awe for higher education which the
teachers of the nation demand.” And a civil servant in the 1970s was still declaring that
“We have to select. Otherwise we are creating aspirations which society cannot
match.” Urban schooling was predicated on the assumption that there would be hun-
dreds of thousands of jobs for the unskilled and semi-skilled. Therefore the education
of the many didn’t matter.
At first the reliability of selection processes at 11 were questioned. Then views of
intelligence changed too. A belief that intelligence was generally inherited and pre-
dictable gave way to a more general acceptance that it was multi faceted heavily influ-
enced by the individual’s environment and was capable of being developed. In this
context the importance of the election of the New Labour government in 1997 cannot be
overemphasized. It was not merely the clarion call of education, education and educa-
tion, it was also the promise of “success for the many not the few.” As other contributors
to the Handbook testify in an age of information technology and creativity education
with high quality outcomes for all is seen as an economic and social necessity. This now
means that for the future the inequities based upon economic and social disadvantage,
including those associated with place are likely to receive a continued focus.
As important as the attitude of politicians are the signs that the belief in everybody’s
capacity to learn is increasingly taking root in the culture of many urban schools (Hart,
Dixon, Drummond, & McIntyre, 2004, pp. 14–15) and it is likely that this changing
culture will be a key driver for change in urban education in the future. Young people
in urban areas are all very different from each other and come from many kinds of
families and backgrounds. They operate highly complex, fast moving environments
 Future Directions for Urban Education in the UK 1161

and they have a lot to contend with – socially, morally and personally. They are often
highly mobile and have access to quite sophisticated experiences from an early age,
often through technology. They often underachieve, not only in conventional academic
terms but also in their ability to negotiate a complex set of circumstances, to effec-
tively communicate with others and to influence and command respect. The idea that
differences in attainment amongst these young people reflect fixed or stable differ-
ences in ability has been thoroughly challenged. Our increasing knowledge about
learning, about how the influence of environmental and cultural factors in their broad-
est sense influences a young person’s self identity and their ability or willingness to
learn is reflected in a growing number (which could become a critical mass) of out-
standing teachers who believe all children can succeed. Those urban schools which
increasingly focus on approaches to learning which enhance young people’s identities
as learners, take account of building confidence and self esteem, attend to the “student
voice” and increase young people’s capacity to function in a learning community are
the real pointers to the future.
The engagement of previously disadvantaged learners and their parents in urban
schools has the potential to be greatly enhanced through the drive for increased per-
sonalization and through the use of information and communication technologies. It is
clear that learners’, even young learners’, expectations of schools are changing as the
experience of “digital childhoods” becomes more widespread. Young people are
increasingly using (largely outside of school) a wide range of technology – internet,
television, computer games, mobile phones and MP3s – in more and more individual-
ized ways (Buckingham, 2005). Much of this technology is interactive. Young people
are used to using this technology to organize feedback for themselves and to exercise
choice and control. This is also true of their parents as they experience the personal-
ization of commercial services through the use of ICT. The personalization of infor-
mation structures through ICT has the potential to increasingly empower students so
that both they and their teachers can access their personal data and use it to plan and
adapt personalized learning experiences. For parents the ability to access all the man-
agement, achievement, learning and teaching information they need remotely is also
an important for development of the engagement of disadvantaged groups in education
in the future.
For this to really happen it has to be recognized that for schools in disadvantaged
urban areas there is the continuing issue of the “digital divide.” There is considerable
evidence of inequalities in access by individuals, and of variations in the levels of ICT
usage by schools (Becta, 2005). But the wider social issues go well beyond the issue of
access to technology. As David Buckingham has described it is a commercially driven
media culture which is increasingly dominating young people’s lives out of school, one
which they do not control, or often even fully understand, and which needs to be criti-
cally evaluated and challenged (Buckingham, 2005). The issue of choice and control
for many young people is illusory – in school, as Richard Riddell describes in his con-
tribution to this handbook, they are expected to function as passive consumers of a
decontextualized nationally determined pedagogic program, while outside school,
although they may be positioned by a consumer culture as active and autonomous, the
1162 Fullick and Brighouse

reality is also often very different. The challenge for urban education in the future will be
to contextualize and personalize the current universal content and pedagogic structure of
much of school learning, and to enable our young people to develop better “knowledge
for understanding” in a society where information and knowledge production are
increasingly driven by commercial imperatives.
The use of information and communications technologies which increase the ability
of schools to respond in an increasingly sophisticated fashion to the full range of learn-
ing needs of every young person is a more unambiguously welcome development. The
London Challenge “Families of Schools” initiative illustrates the possibilities (DFES,
2005a). In 2003 all of London’s 416 urban secondary schools were grouped into fam-
ilies on the basis of each school’s current free school meal data and three years of prior
attainment data (attainment on entry into secondary school). Schools were also
grouped into ethnicity families and into families with high levels of pupils in poverty
as measured by the percentage of free school meals. The school test and exam results
are then divided into four comparative quadrants: low rates of improvement with low
points; high rates of improvement with low points; high rates of improvement and high
points; and low rates of improvement with high points. As a result of the sharing of this
information through conferences and school improvement advisers increasingly
schools have become active in using this information to see which schools in appar-
ently similar circumstances are performing better either as a school as a whole or indi-
vidual departments. A system of school visits to share successful practices has been
developed. When this data is linked to other data it has become possible to see in even
finer detail who is succeeding with different groups of pupils (e.g., low, medium or
high ability boys or girls) and to focus in fine detail on the performance of particular
school departments and subject areas. At school level fine pupil and group level analy-
sis can enable schools to measure gaps and stimulate intervention and to work on the
educational progress and social integration of particular groups of pupils and enable
the individual mentoring of children and young people.
The next breakthrough in urban education should center on the full range of experi-
ences that young people need to have access to, based upon a richer definition of what
counts as an educated person for the twenty-first century, and encompassing not only
knowledge and understanding but also qualities, attributes, social competencies and
the development of interests. One way of doing this is to make use of the identity of
cities themselves, the “commonwealth” that cities can provide to enable young people
to access experiences and understandings which will be part of an entire planned learn-
ing experience that goes beyond the current classroom based curriculum. The specific
urban education initiative in London, the London Challenge, has had a very welcome
focus on the wider set of experiences that should be available to all young people in
the city through the London Student Pledge (DFES, 2003). This development seeks to
harness the exceptional riches of London – its art galleries, museums, theatres, sports facil-
ities, businesses and higher education to the goal of cracking the cycle of disadvantage.
So it has set out “experiences” including participation in a public performance, visits to
galleries and museums, engagement in voluntary activity – which wealthier parents regard
as essential for their own children. The Student Pledge has brokered connections between
the public “commonwealth” facilities and the schools and has sought to persuade
 Future Directions for Urban Education in the UK 1163

schools to adopt the Pledge for all their pupils. For the future in urban areas what is
needed is that the schools should increasingly become brokers of time, space and peo-
ple of the range of experiences that a young person needs in order to develop as a
learner and an individual.

Integrated Services, Extended Schools

and Lifelong Learning
A recurring theme for urban education has been the need to look at issues “beyond the
school gate” (Ofsted, 1993). This is based on the long standing understanding that rais-
ing attainment within deprived areas comes not only from within schools themselves,
but also through the community involvement and learning. This agenda of course
draws on a powerful tradition. The Cambridgeshire “village college” movement of
the 1930s with its vision of schools at the heart of healthy communities was carried
forward in many urban areas. Gary McCulloch in the first chapter in this section of the
Handbook has described how, in London particularly from the 1960s onwards, increas-
ing importance was placed upon the social, cultural and economic context of school-
ing and how in the 1970s the Inner London Education Authority’s concept of an
“Education Service for the Whole Community” was based on educational improve-
ment through an integrated approach to the needs of families and communities in
London. In this era urban schools in many areas were often seen to be part of a wider
framework of values, expectations and relationships centered on meeting the needs of
diverse and rapidly changing communities.
There are a number of the different ways in which these issues have reappeared on
the agenda in the UK in the last ten years or so. Perhaps the most significant of these
is a renewed and sustained interest in comprehensive, universal and targeted provision
for preschool aged children and their parents. Initiatives such as “Sure Start” and
“Children’s Centres,” building on the evidence of Headstart’s impact in the United
States, have been given the highest policy priority in the drive to tackle child poverty
and promote equal life chances. All of the UK devolved administrations have commit-
ted considerable resources to services that it is believed will break the link between the
economic and social status of the child at birth and the outcomes for that child in later
life and, as Lyn Tett has described in a previous chapter, development of early years
services in Scotland is strongly allied to encouraging parental and community engage-
ment in deprived communities as a means of enhancing social capital in such commu-
nities. In England too the massive expansion in early childhood education, has
happened alongside a major structural reform process centered on the integration of
services for children and young people (Cohen, Moss, Petrie, & Wallace, 2004). Services
for early years are designed to be holistic, focusing a range of support and outreach serv-
ices, including health and education interventions, for adults as well as young people.
There is every sign that the strong policy consensus now current in the UK on the effec-
tiveness of such support in breaking the link between social class, parental income and
later education outcomes will continue, and, in the longer term, this is likely to have a pro-
found impact on the future of urban education. Probably the next phase of development
1164 Fullick and Brighouse

will see education and health professionals working even more closely together with the
aim of providing successful preventative support to the most challenged families dur-
ing their children’s infancy. Moreover in city areas with high concentrations of socio-
economic disadvantage there will be a deliberate attempt to expand simultaneously
“second chance” further education opportunities for adults especially women and, in a
limited way, the availability of paraprofessional jobs in education, health and social
care. In all these three fields the chronic and acute shortages of highly qualified pro-
fessionals prepared to work in large urban areas makes such a strategy politically desir-
able. It also has the virtue of providing additional opportunities at the bottom of the
educational and employment ladder. A more overt connection of these needs can be
expected in the next wave of urban reform.
Allied to the early years agenda is the even more ambitious national program of
whole system reform outlined in “Every Child Matters” (DFES, 2004) which is
designed to promote integration between agencies and other bodies to improve chil-
dren’s well being up to the age of 19. The education component of this program has at
its heart the recognition of the important relationship between education achievement
and a child’s well being. Children and young people learn when they are healthy,
secure and in a good environment. There is now a national vision for England that all
schools should provide a range of services and activities, often beyond the school day.
These services will typically include childcare, adult education, parenting support,
health and social care services, multi agency support teams and after school care and
activities for young people (DFES, 2005b). There is a commitment to setting up effec-
tive systems of extended services in schools that will increase parental participation
(recognized as the single most important determinant of education outcomes) and
raise levels of achievement. There is recognition that school buildings and facilities are
important community resources and that these kinds of schools have an important role
to play in neighborhood renewal as a whole.
This is potentially a very radical agenda. However it is not yet clear that this initiative
does in fact embrace a radical vision, building on the kind of strategies initiated in the
1960s and 1970s and based on a concept of urban schools as a place where life chances
are really transformed through schools playing an inclusive and democratizing role in
their communities. The guidance for England on establishing extended schools has a
strong emphasis on clusters of services and activities operating from a school site, and
there is also a strong emphasis on preventative inter agency working for children at
risk (DFES, 2005b) It is of course important that effective support is triggered for young
people when there are problems, and having a range of services together on a school
site may well help with this. But it remains to seen if this initiative will maintain a high
political profile and be sustainable and affordable in the longer term in the context of
stronger imperatives that many schools face in relation to related to finance and test
performance.
Extended schools could be important sites for the generation of social capital and a
lifelong learning culture. Social capital is essentially about social change based upon real
community engagement, and the development of shared values and trust between differ-
ent groups of people. Lyn Tett’s framework for understanding multi agency working is
particularly useful here. Extended school developments as currently conceived are in
 Future Directions for Urban Education in the UK 1165

danger of locating themselves in the “high institutional boundaries” side of the quadrant,
particularly as they continue to be located in the “high stakes test” culture. Nor, currently,
is the extended school idea particularly underpinned by a belief in the importance of
lifelong learning which understands that a prime purpose of schooling is the preserva-
tion of the motivation to learn and the continued development and enhancement of the
capacity to learn.
The government’s strategy for tackling social exclusion originally did incorporate
this approach and the concept of lifelong learning was seen as highly important to pro-
viding a coherent long term strategy to solve the nexus of low education achievement,
poverty and lack of cohesion in communities. It was seen as crucial to student motiva-
tion and skills, employability, to parenting and citizenship in poor areas. The 1998
Green Paper “The Learning Age: A renaissance for a new Britain” (DFEE, 1998) rec-
ognized that the more individuals and organizations were able to learn and had access
to learning the more they could respond effectively to the demands and opportunities
of our changing economy and society and that lifelong learning was fundamentally
important to families, neighborhoods and communities and to equality of opportunity.
However a lifelong learning strategy now appears to be off the national education policy
agenda. “The Learning Age” is a distant memory. The dominant strategy shaping the
schools agenda continues to be high stakes examination and testing and the strategy
shaping post compulsory education is skills acquisition.
Important though both of these may be, to achieve a really radical long term
transformative approach to education that would serve better deprived schools and
areas there needs to be a much more coherent view of schools’ relationship with their
communities linked to the discourse on lifelong learning. The Scottish experience sug-
gests that schools currently have a limited capacity to achieve a richer vision of com-
munity learning. Currently, despite the talk of radical transformation there is a real
danger that the focus in the UK will continue to be on the implementation of “top
down” national strategies at institutional level, be they child protection or reaching
achievement targets. The future for urban education will require much more policy vis-
ibility to be given to the specifics of how we can create the capacity for developing and
extending lifelong learning cultures within schools using strong partnerships with par-
ents, businesses and the wider society, and how this is linked to the creation of social
capital and social cohesion in rapidly changing, highly diverse urban communities.

Racial Inequality
Issues of ethnic diversity and the inequalities in education outcomes for particular ethnic
groups are of fundamental importance when considering new directions for urban edu-
cation. This is because the single most significant factor distinguishing urban schools
from other schools facing the challenges of disadvantage is their diversity. Population
shift is a defining characteristic of cities which have always grown and sustained them-
selves by a constant flow of new people. The vast majority of immigrants to the UK
take up residence in urban areas, and these areas are well documented as the site of racial
as well as income inequality (Gottdiener & Budd, 2005, pp. 60–62). Racial diversity is
1166 Fullick and Brighouse

becoming more significant, not less, in UK cities. In the last ten years there has been a
significant rise in the net annual inflows of non British citizens with net inflows in
2003 being four times those in 1993 (Pearce & Paxton, 2005, pp. 161–163). This immi-
gration has been increasingly diverse with many nationalities from war torn parts of the
world entering the UK alongside the more traditional immigrant groups from the “old”
and “new” commonwealth. High levels of pupil mobility resulting from complex
migratory flows are likely to continue are a distinguishing feature of urban schools and,
overall, minority ethnic students will be significant proportion, in some areas a major-
ity, of the urban school students of the future (Gottdiener & Budd, 2005, p. 37).
Unequal education outcomes for many minority ethnic pupils have been a feature
of UK urban schools since the first wave of large scale immigration from the former
British colonies in the 1960s. David Gilborn (2007) has demonstrated the longer term
complex patterns of attainment across different ethnic minority groups. He has shown
that while these patterns are not fixed and some groups are making significant strides
in attainment, overall the black/white gap has not closed and ethnic inequalities show
no sign of abating. He has convincingly argued that some recent education reforms
are sustaining and extending inequity in education outcomes for some minority
ethnic UK students. These include the league tables, high stakes testing setting and
current choice based approaches to schooling. In addition we are seeing the growing
social segregation and isolation of particular ethnic groups in some northern urban
areas (Cantle, 2002) heightened by security issues since 9/11 and the London bomb-
ings in July 2005.
There is evidence that education institutions have been among the worst offenders
in failing to implement the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 which requires
public institutions, including schools, to promote equality of opportunity.
Evaluations by the Commission for Racial Equality published in 2003 and by the
Audit Commission published in 2004 highlighted the slow progress that was being
made. The CRE found that over half of respondents from education to a survey on
progress had not identified staffing and service delivery outcomes in their policies.
The Audit Commission study found that approaches were very procedural rather than
engaging with real needs and outcomes and that in many cases limited resources and
energy were being devoted to the issue.
This is particularly worrying in that the Race Relations (Amendment) 2000 represents
a significant step forward in providing a framework in the UK for promoting race equal-
ity and is an important tool for tackling both direct and indirect discrimination. Through
the Act educational institutions are required to publish a race equality policy and to
monitor and assess the impact of their policies. The race equality duty has a strong
emphasis on making public services accountable to all parts of the local community.
Despite over 30 years of research that has consistently identified the key contributory
issues to the educational underachievement of particular ethnic groups insufficient action
has been taken and the impact of racial inequality on the outcomes of schooling has not
had, and continues not to have, a sufficiently high profile in urban education develop-
ments in the UK. In London a recent investigation by the London Development Agency
has highlighted the biggest casualty of the education system is African-Caribbean boys
 Future Directions for Urban Education in the UK 1167

and has called for a national wide ranging strategy to reverse this “catastrophic trend”
(LDA, 2004). In the context of the life chances of a significant group of young people
in urban areas, and in the context of social justice and social cohesion, this is not overly
strong language.
The current UK rhetoric of greater personalization and choice is not offering
enough to ethnic minority pupils in urban schools. The 2005 White Paper “Higher
Standards, Better Schools for All” is proposing that every school will receive advice
and support to meet the aspirations of black and ethnic minority parents and pupils.
That advice needs to recognize that if personalization in learning is to mean anything
it must mean constant attention to developing understanding and knowledge of the
impact of particular structures, processes and teacher and pupil behaviors on differ-
ent groups of children. It cannot be racially unaware or color blind. In the LDA
research into the academic achievements and schooling of Black pupils in London,
particularly male pupils from African-Caribbean backgrounds, the fundamental
importance of teachers – pupil teacher relationships, teacher expectations and teacher
attitudes – was particularly highlighted as was better respect for, and better commu-
nication with, parents and the pupils themselves (LDA, 2004). This evidence, along-
side the evidence that the disparity in achievement levels between different ethnic
groups increases during the course of compulsory schooling, suggests that the next
phase of urban school reform should include greater challenge both to teacher behav-
ior and to the institutional processes of schools in relation to ethnic minority pupils.
If the commitment to league tables and high stakes testing is to continue it needs in
the future to be accompanied by a stronger ideological stance on this issue, which
clearly identifies the extent of the problem. The focus for the future should be on
much more extensive capacity building across the system, above all to increase the
number of, and support for, black and ethnic minority teachers, leaders and mentors
and stakeholders exercising real power and influence.

Choice
The dominant public policy debate on urban education in England continues to center
around the issue of choice. The current English government continues its commitment
to reforms that put the individual’s needs and aspirations at the heart of service deliv-
ery and this is a trend that is unlikely to be abandoned by any political party in the
future. The main driver for this desired cultural change in public service delivery is
perceived to be consumer choice, and in education the choice strategy is part and parcel
of the drive to ensure the next wave of education reform is driven by the “front line” –
in education’s case the schools.
The rhetoric around expanding choice for parents and pupils reached new heights
with the publication of a White Paper “Higher Standards, Better Schools for All” in
October 2005. Parental choice is cited in the White Paper as one of the main reasons
for the undoubted rise in education attainment that has taken place in the UK in the
last ten years. It is argued that the use that parents have made of performance tables
1168 Fullick and Brighouse

and inspection reports to seek out higher performing schools has put pressure on
weaker schools to improve. In addition it is argued that greater diversity of schools
through the development of specialist schools and new kinds of schools like
Academies, coupled with additional freedoms for schools has introduced greater
innovation and energy into the system, which has also served to drive up standards.
The 2005 White Paper argued that these are key developments that need to be inten-
sified and put at the heart of the education reform program in order to improve the
system further. A range of measures are now in place to make sure all parents are
given a real choice of school for their child and to encourage more active parental
engagement in schooling.
These issues are really important for urban schools, where class stratification is
at its most obvious across the school system. Parental choice in school admissions
has developed in England since the 1980s and, particularly in urban areas with good
transport systems and different types of schools, this has led to well documented
social divisions and inequality in school choice. As a result many schools in urban
areas are highly socially segregated and it is perceived that access to a “good”
school is denied to many parents. There is strong evidence of how disadvantaged
groups are unable to engage with the market and exercise choice due to inequalities
in knowledge and ability to exercise influence (Ball, Bowe, & Gewirtz, 1995) In
addition inequalities in choice are strongly reinforced through the operation of the
housing market (Leech & Campos, 2000). This stratification, as well as operating
against principles of social justice, also has an impact on the performance of a
school, and more importantly, on the performance of the individual child. The aver-
age social and economic intake of a school is a strong determinant of its academic
performance and there is also evidence that disadvantaged children perform better
in schools with a more evenly socially mixed intake. This would seem to suggest
that further emphasis on parental choice could lead to greater social stratification
in urban schools with negative consequences for the “ladders of opportunity” that
appear to have been created through many of the initiatives described elsewhere in
this handbook.
There is an urgent need therefore for this discourse on choice to be taken further.
The 2005 White Paper argued strongly that greater choice does not need to lead to
greater inequity in education. It is true that most parents continue to choose the local
school and that “neighbourhood schools” can lead to a reinforcement of residential
segregation and differentiation (Pearce & Paxton, 2005, pp. 292–295). In these cir-
cumstances enabling parents to go further afield for their choice of school through
the provision of financial support for transport costs, as is currently proposed, may
produce greater equity in access to schooling. The creation of new and refurbished
schools in urban areas, through the Academies program and the Building Schools for
the Future program is also to be welcomed, not least for the impact that such
improvements in young people’s self esteem and commitment to learning appear to
have. But current proposals to encourage greater parental capacity to exercise choice
and engage with schooling are woefully inadequate and display a very poor under-
standing of the realities of many parents bringing up children in disadvantaged urban
areas today.
 Future Directions for Urban Education in the UK 1169

A much richer concept of parental choice focusing on citizen’s rights and collective
engagement needs to be supported in urban areas, building many of the initiatives
reviewed in this Handbook, if the current focus on choice is to have much to offer
urban education for the future. It is not clear that current measures to enable choice will
have the desired effect on school composition, and there is a danger that such a empha-
sis in urban education is a diversion from concentrating on developing the approaches
described in this handbook which focus on neighborhood and community develop-
ment and on what young people need in the schools and in the education system we
actually have.

A Stronger Commitment to Social Justice

The improving rate of achievement by schools with high numbers of disadvantaged
pupils has been feature of the new century in the UK and has been well documented
and much heralded. This is an achievement that should not be underestimated. It is
clear that many of the reforms of recent years have been successful in increasing oppor-
tunity for many pupils in deprived urban areas. However, to date, as shown by the con-
tributions by Barbara MacGilchrist and David Gilborn in this Handbook, while there
has been a narrowing of performance between more advantaged and less advantaged
schools there remains a huge gap in performance between richer and poorer children
and between different racial groups. This inequity is due to the fact that, while attain-
ment levels for poor students have risen remarkably, pupils with higher socio economic
status have improved at a faster rate. In addition poor children attending schools with
high levels of other deprived children (which are more likely to happen in deprived
areas) also tend to have lower attainment levels (Hills & Stewart, 2005, pp. 48–50). The
UK continues to be characterized by high levels of inequity in education outcomes for
different socio economic groups in comparison with many other countries and there are
no signs that that inequity is abating (Dobert, Klieme, & Stroka, 2004).
These continuing inequalities that are a feature of many urban schools become
particularly glaring at the end of compulsory schooling. Differences in outcomes for
the post-16 age group have long been seen as a major contributing to the class, gender
and race divisions that continue to characterize our society. The willingness to tackle
this issue is of the most important indicators of how serious successive governments
have been in their commitment to tackle inequality and social injustice in the educa-
tion system. Currently the imperative of closing the achievement gap in the later years
of secondary remains a huge unresolved issue. The gap between high and low attain-
ers many of whom comprise the “NEET” (not in education, employment or training)
group is a continuing cause for concern.
A comprehensive and radical strategy designed to tackle this problem through the
longer term reform of learning for 14–19 year olds in England was produced in 2005
by the Tomlinson Committee but was not adopted by the government. Despite wide-
spread consensus on the Tomlinson recommendations for a fundamental overhaul of
the qualifications system, with the absorption of GCSES and “A” levels into a new
unified diploma system a somewhat more conservative strategy is being pursued
1170 Fullick and Brighouse

which may not succeed in seriously challenging the high levels of inequity in the post
16 system. About half of all young people at age 16 have only modest or poor GCSE
results. To date reforms have failed to provide a credible alternative to the many young
people who wish to access a different curriculum offer and achieve different but equal
qualifications at 16 and thus improve their life chances. A selection process takes place
at 16 with the majority of these young people attending further education colleges that
are less well resourced than school sixth forms or sixth form colleges. Often they find
themselves on poorly designed or inappropriate courses and completion rates are often
poor. As a result participation rates posts 16, while they have improved, are well below
the OECD average, and poor in comparison with most of the rest of Europe (Hayward
et al., 2005).
It is unlikely that the collaborative arrangements that are now being encouraged
between schools and colleges will of themselves counteract the elitism and competi-
tion that continues to characterize the post 16 sector and which has long been a cause
of educational underachievement for significant groups of young people. The current
system has failed – despite a great deal of top down curriculum reform, some financial
support for participation through the Education Maintenance Allowance and a huge
focus on meeting national targets for “level two” qualifications.
This remains therefore a key issue for the future direction of urban education in the
UK, and especially in England where progress has been particularly weak. There is a
strong neighborhood component to this issue also. People with no education qualifi-
cations now face massive income inequality as all the employment growth is in high
skilled jobs for those with a high level of qualification or low wage jobs that require no
qualifications. Place differences in employment are non existent for graduates but
extremely marked for those with no education qualifications. This is exacerbated by
the lack of mobility of the low waged due to the constraints of the housing market,
leading to issues of concentrated neighborhood deprivation. The connection between
education, employment and social mobility are becoming even more marked as the
percentage of graduates grows (from 5% in 1980 to 21% in 2003) and the income dif-
ferential between graduates and non graduates increases. Connecting deprived areas to
the labor market is probably the single most important way social capital can be gen-
erated in such areas (Pearce & Paxton, 2005, pp. 301–308). As long as schools and col-
leges in disadvantaged areas are unable to provide a curriculum and qualifications
system that is more motivating for young people after the age of 14 then, despite the
success of many of the UK reforms described in this handbook, the future ability of the
English education system to enable more economic and social opportunity for students
in deprived urban areas will have to be questioned.
Improving post 16 staying and the curriculum and qualifications available to the
majority of young people are key to the next phase of urban education reform. Ironically
this is the part of the system most in need of a transformative strategy, given the deep
rooted historical nature of the problems. But the rhetoric of transformation that has been
such a persistent feature of education change initiatives in recent times is lacking in
this area. Instead the Nuffield Review of 14–19 education and training notes the
poverty of language and real aspiration which characterizes government policy docu-
ments on the 14–19 phase (Hayward et al., 2005). At times it seems as if the realities
 Future Directions for Urban Education in the UK 1171

of the structural relationships within the education and training system, and between
the system and its wider social context are almost willfully ignored. Certainly there is
little focus on the experience of, or the voice of, young people themselves or their
teachers in generating solutions. Improving the quality of the education and training
experience of young people through radical curriculum reform which is also respon-
sive to local circumstances and local professional inputs is eschewed in favor of short
term and piecemeal policy interventions. The failure to achieve solid progress in this
area will undermine any claim to leading urban education reform to which the UK may
aspire. This is an area where the “social justice gap” is significant and where a coher-
ent strategy for bridging it for the twenty-first century is urgently required.

Conclusion
The future direction for urban education in the UK presents a mixed picture. There is
a strong commitment to addressing education problems in urban areas underlining
many recent developments. It is essential that commitment remains foreground in the
next phase of reform. Education opportunity for the many not the few, as well as a
determination to close the achievement gap between the economically and socially
advantaged and disadvantaged, remain strong drivers at policy level and seem to be
becoming increasingly strong at practitioner level. There is increasing knowledge in
the system about the approaches and investments needed to achieve greater levels of
equality of access and outcome in urban education. A major challenge for the future is
to develop and share that knowledge even further. There are however, in a number of
areas discussed above, signs that at a policy level ambitions may have run ahead of
both the means to achieve them, and – perhaps more significantly – that commitment
to really take forward some of actions necessary to achieve an inclusive and more
equal education system may be losing some momentum. In this context fully under-
standing and finding ways of building on the gains to date is an imperative for the
future of urban education in the UK.

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choice in social class contexts. Sociological Review, 43(1), 52–78.
Becta ICT Research. (2005). The Becta review 2005: Evidence on the Progress of ICT in Education.
Buckingham, D. (2005). Schooling the digital generation: Popular culture, new media and the future of
education. London: Institute of Education.
Cantle, T. (2002). Community cohesion: A report of the Independent review team. London: Home Office.
Cohen, B., Moss, P., Petrie, P., & Wallace, J. (2004). A new deal for children? Reforming education and care
in England, Scotland and Sweden. Bristol: The Policy Press.
Commission for Racial Equality. (2003). Towards racial equality: An evaluation of the public duty to promote
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Department for Education and Skills. (2003). The London challenge: Transforming London secondary
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all. London: The Stationery Office.
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Dobert, H., Klieme, E., & Stroka, W. (Eds.). (2004.) Conditions of school performance in seven countries:
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Gottdiener, M., & Budd, L. (2005). Key concepts in urban studies. London: Sage.
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CODA
60

CODA: AN URBAN EDUCATION DYSTOPIA

George W. Noblit* and William T. Pink†

*University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, U.S.A.;
†
Marquette University, U.S.A.

As everyone knows who has tried to write anything, the two most difficult things are
getting started and the ending. Predictably we struggled for a while to figure out how
to get started in order for this Handbook to take shape. We struggled much longer,
however, to figure out how to end the Handbook. Initially, we discussed writing a closing
chapter that would focus on three or four major themes that we saw as cross-cutting the
different sections. This discussion quickly moved to the idea of writing a closing chap-
ter that would be a collaborative effort of the section editors, with each highlighting the
two or three major themes surfacing from their section. We quickly abandoned this
idea when we realized that this typical strategy of reducing multiple site data to com-
mon themes of similarity was not only conceptually problematic, but was also simply
an ineffective way to understand the complexity and richness of urban education pre-
sented in the various chapters of this Handbook. In short, our reading of the chapters
as they arrived in draft form pushed us to explore alternative ways to end the text that
were sensitive both to the complexities of the factors in play and the contexts in which
the work was grounded.
Our next idea was to ask each section editor to use the various perspectives of the
authors in their section and project ahead an ideal or utopian view of urban education:
we thought that such a collection of different futures would prove useful (1) in mak-
ing the point that local context is key to the way cities and the urban education that is
found there develop, and most importantly (2) that these different futures would
demonstrate that there is room for the development of a variety of futures, rather than
only one. We also considered the idea of asking each section editor to talk about how
we might move from where we are at present in their respective regions, to the ideal
or utopian state. It was at this point in our deliberations that we decided to have a con-
versation with the section editors at the upcoming AERA meetings in San Francisco
in April 2006.
The conversation between the majority of the section editors who were able to attend
the AERA meetings was intellectually stimulating, far ranging and highly spirited: it was
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1176 Noblit and Pink

immediately after this meeting that both of us turned to each other and noted how unfor-
tunate it was that we couldn’t have such profound and professionally productive con-
versations each day. Here we floated our first two ideas, which as we had anticipated
were rejected by the team. The third idea, section editors developing a utopian view,
while warmly received rapidly morphed into the power of crafting a dystopian view of
the future city and the education that would be available to its inhabitants. We engaged
in a spirited discussion of the current connections between Orwell’s (1949) totalitarian
society controlled by Big Brother as depicted in Nineteen eighty-four, Huxley’s (1950)
artful play on chemically-driven “happiness” in Brave new world and the problematics
encountered in many educational systems in urban areas, but we were still struggling
with the writer’s dilemma about how to write this as an end piece to the text.
Allan Luke, the section editor for the Asia Pacific section, came to the rescue by vol-
unteering to write a dystopian statement, to be entitled “Urban Education Dystopia,
2050” that would gaze into the future built on trends that were most evident with respect
to urbanization, corporatism, globalization and the education on offer for those living in
cities. We immediately accepted Allan’s offer and subsequently developed a charge to
section editors to each write a response to Allan’s view that would reflect their own spe-
cific context. What follows is Allan Luke’s dystopia statement followed, in alphabetical
order, by the responses from each of the section editors in the Handbook.
While we realize that each of these responses necessarily reflects the perspective or
taken-for-granted assumptions of the writer, we see great value in moving beyond the past
and present and into the future. Specifically, we see this future gazing exercise as an
invitation to help shape this future. To be direct, we offer this Coda as an opportunity to
engage you, the reader, in thinking deeply about (1) the implications of our current
theorizing and practices in urban education, pushed into the future, (2) whether these
projected futures are acceptable with respect to factor such as equity and academic
excellence for all students rather than some students, and perhaps more importantly,
(3) what actions we are prepared to take to ensure that the actual futures of urban educa-
tion and the cities in which this education is found do not take on the negative charac-
teristics suggested in the various dystopia detailed in the following pages.
We must confess that we are happy with the way that we have resolved the pro-
blematic of how best to end this unique text. We are hopeful that the futures of urban
education can be made bright rather than dim, inclusive rather than exclusive, equi-
table rather than inequitable. Again, however, this will take more than will. It will take
collective action, courage and diligence. We hope that we are all up to the challenge.

References
Huxley, A. (1950). Brave new world. New York: Harper.
Orwell, G. (1949). Nineteen eighty-four. New York: Harcourt, Brace.
61

URBAN EDUCATION DYSTOPIA, 2050

Allan Luke
Queensland University of Technology, Australia

The definition and history of “urban education” are rooted in the North American and
British industrial city of the past two centuries. Common curriculum, public education,
and universal access have been the principled responses of democratic societies to the
social and cultural conditions of urbanization. In Chicago, Dewey’s project was very
closely affiliated with Progressive Era politics around the social inequities, corruption
and class politics of the American city (Knight, 2005). In Boston, G. Stanley Hall’s
initial descriptions of adolescence were a response to the emergent problem of urban
youth. The industrial city, literally, brought new kinds of educational subjects into
existence, developing theories, practices and interventions to address their perceived
problems and needs.
This Handbook documents new forces of economic and technological change,
cultural and linguistic diversity and socio-demographic stratification that are bringing
many of the industrial paradigms of urban schooling to a breaking point. In emergent
economies and postcolonial conditions of Asia, the Americas and Africa, urban educa-
tion continues to entail the building of systems of compulsory and universal access to
schooling, the expansion of provision for youth and the amelioration of adult and fam-
ily poverty, and the making of complex national and regional curriculum settlements
across cultures and systems. In the post-industrial North and West, policy remains
focused on the extension of neoliberal market economics to education, with forces of
deregulation, performance-based management and affiliated educational foci on testing
and curriculum regulation.
But what if we expand the field beyond that of the twentieth century Anglo-
American city? How would the material, local effects of these and other policies and
practices play out? The “place” of the city, and the nature of urban lifeworlds is in tran-
sition. There is intense international debate among urban planners and designers,
social demographers and sociologists, economists, cultural theorists and citizen public
intellectuals about the future of the city. The prognosis, favorable and unfavorable,
depends upon complex issues of ecosustainability, population and migration flows, the
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© 2007 Springer.
1178 Luke

nature and location of industrial, service and technologically-mediated work, new

structures of class and racial solidarity and division, and the location and power of cor-
porate and governmental networks (e.g., Soja, 1996). The complex and contending
scenarios argue variously for decay and renewal of the city: the flight of the “creative
classes” to and from the cities, mobile populations in search of both work and “green
zones,” increased racial and cultural segregation in world cities, and, indeed, the flood-
ing of coastal cities and the pollution of others to the point where they are no longer
habitable (Rosemann, 2003).
If indeed central educational issues pivot around the voice, identity and power among
urban teachers and youth – any future scenario for urban education depends upon the
kinds of places that cities become. How will knowledge, identity and practice be defined
and located into this and the next century? What will be the productive economies for
the making of educational knowledge and power? Might these rest in nationism and
nationality (Anderson, 1992), in metropolitan or cosmopolitan allegiance (Cheah &
Robbins, 1998)? In affiliation with community, culture and language, race and place
(Keith & Pile, 1993)? In the context of new urban education, how will curriculum, and
teaching balance the increasingly complex and conflicting interests of community and
culture, linguistic majority and minority, nation and state, corporation and worker?
To answer these questions, we might well turn to current qualitative work on the
emergence of world youth identities (e.g., Lam, 2006), which begin to document modes
of affiliation and identity, knowledge and power relations built through engagement with
electronic media and digital resources (Gee, 2003), and as well through construction of
virtual and trans-geographic social relations and communities. Longitudinal and cross-
sectional studies have begun to track the life pathways, skills and knowledge, identity
and consciousness of youth as they move through the new boundaries of community,
school and work (e.g., Lucas, 1999).
But we might look elsewhere as well, towards utopian and dystopian visions for the
city – from those of urban planners and geographers to the visions of novelists and
filmmakers. My aim in these brief comments is to table one scenario for the city of 2050
to provoke response, dialogue and alternative cases. Wary of millennial declarations of
the end of history, or the demise of the nation – this is not meant as an overstatement of
the “end of the city.” This is a speculative, narrative link from the future to the present.
At its best, science fiction creates possible worlds for which there are plausible traces,
precursors, necessary conditions and indeed, nascent cultural and political economies.
That is, it has an historical plausibility while pushing that plausibility to its limits. We
search for characters who demonstrate what we can take as identifiably “human” and
“humane” dispositions and traits confronting the new – whether technological, social
relational, ethical and cultural, and, indeed, “scientific” (Milojevic, 2005). This is precisely
what Brave New World did with uncanny precision, overlaying a reading of technologi-
cal future with a dystopian social and political order, and inhabiting this with characters
much like “us,” whomever and wherever “we” might be.
In Oryx and Crake (2002), Margaret Atwood offers a dystopian vision of the eco-
logically degraded shoreline of Lake Ontario or thereabouts. There the last human –
“Snowman” – lives alongside of a tribe of cloned, vacant but curious, genetically
reprogrammed people. They are the perfect human subjects created by his classmate,
 Urban Education Dystopia, 2050 1179

the prodgiy nerd Crake, through genetic engineering. They are human subjects inca-
pable of nuance, paradox, analysis and creativity. Snowman takes us on an autobio-
graphical narrative towards the end of his life, a metaphor for the end of the social
order, the decay of cultural memory, the end of the species and the biosphere.
As we would expect of Atwood, the narrative is a distinctively Canadian one of
elements and weather set in monochrome, but fraught with a rich, contradictory interior
monologue built around powerful themes of love and sexuality. She reframes Canadian
space by reversing the center/margin, metropolis/hinterland relationship that dominates
Canadian history and culture (Innis, 1951), making the urban centre the new “no go”
hinterland, and ecologically removing the Canadian winter through global warming.
Oryx, the principal woman character is the counter-Eve, the last woman,
with vestiges of affect, love and relationality in the face of a debased society where
reproduction, sexuality have been reduced to genetically reprogrammed activities.
After the bioholocaust, the city is a place where genetically reprogrammed animals
roam freely, where gated communities are left with no inhabitants to keep in or out,
where corporate surveillance cameras sit without anybody left to surveil. This is
Huxley’s vision revisited yet again. Its portrayal of the demise of the species at the
hands of a bio-corporate, scientific/technical order, accustomed to living in urban
gated worker communities, bound to industrial secrecy, beyond the control of state or
nation. This is a vision of a political order that is something beyond and the other “isms”
of the twentieth century that both Huxley and Orwell were so prescient in analyzing,
where the state has been supplanted by “neofeudal corporatism” (Graham & Luke, 2003).
Without wanting to reduce Atwood’s rich narrative to political allegory – what it does
is present readers with a powerful moral, ethical and, indeed, species imperative. Put
simply, how do we belay and stop the scenario of a world rationalized wholly by science,
scientists and scientism, defined and run by a techno/corporate establishment that, ulti-
mately, destroys itself along with everything else, leaving behind only its principal arti-
facts and products: the new, wholly reengineered species and the shells of cities. Her
Rousseauean analysis of the debasement of species being sits alongside a clear political
message. The corporate stratification into a binary class system that is already underway
will turn cities into “no go” zones for the scientific elite, both biologically inhospitable
and dominated by urban crime amongst an anarchic urban proletariat. This is akin to
Phillip K. Dick’s vision of Los Angeles in 2019 in Bladerunner. This stratification is
accompanied by a binary division of knowledge, with the degrading of aesthetic and
narrative knowledge at the hands of digital and bioscience corporations, and the designing
through education and bioscience of species without narrative memory.
There are images of pedagogy throughout Oryx and Crake: of cloned subjects
stripped of memory and cultural production sitting around the last man and construing
him as their maker (with Crake the graduate of Crick/Watson University and clone-
master taken as their “Ford”), of their learning and chanting of infantile rhymes and
rituals as a new religion. The Snowman, a graduate in advanced communications and
rhetoric from Martha Graham University, struggles to maintain his humanity by
remembering and chanting lessons from basal lessons in school, retaining poetry and
narrative despite his deteriorating physical and mental condition, and like an oral poet
recalling the legacies and traditions of print and cinema for the clones.
1180 Luke

It is too easy to take Atwood’s vision as humanist nostalgia. As much as it stands as

a critique of the present, it raises questions about the power of culture, narrative, poetry
and art, the sustainability of relationality and love. Throughout she points to the kinds
of moral, affective and, indeed, literary education that sustains species being. In this
way, Oryx and Crake leads us to a reappraisal of the techno-corporate rationalization
of education as cause and concomitant of the dystopia she writes about. In Atwood’s
vision of the current configuration of corporate science, the state, the nation, indeed,
the “race” (if ever Canadians could be construed as race) have disappeared, they are
unmarked. In their place is a political economy of control and surveillance similar to
that of Huxley and Orwell, of singular control of the means of production and modes
of information that is “private,” “corporate” and increasingly partitioned from and
between corporate and non-corporate people. It is less distant than it appears.
In this urban place, what is left of the urban educational infrastructure for the working
underclass would have decayed altogether. The children of the biotechnical and digital
elite classes might have been educated wholly online in “schools” run by and using
curriculum designed by the biomedical and media corporations that employ their par-
ents. Their “childhood” play and education would take place within the confines of
corporate compounds. As they progressed, the best and brightest would be streamed
towards the bioscience university, Watson Crick University; while those of lesser
talent, like Snowman, would study rhetoric and communications at Martha Graham
University to service a corporate advertising and promotional infrastructure, and to
maintain the surveillance and control systems. The state, civic and municipal authori-
ties have subsided, relinquishing and merging policy powers, censorship and manage-
ment of information through the complex corporate-run surveillance systems. They
have also given up education to the corporations.
This vision of the city only addresses part of a global scenario. We know little of
what might happen in the townships of urban Harare, or the new vertical cities of Asia,
or whether, indeed, the cities of the South Pacific might be altogether submerged. But
we could backward map from Atwood’s dystopia to look at current policies and
debates around urban education that might act as precursors. These include a general
corporatization of educational systems and a retreat from state, universal schooling:
● the emergence of binary provision in urban schooling, with a state system for
the unemployed and working poor and a selective, private-system operating on a
user-pays basis;
● a political economy of textbook and online, print and digital curriculum dominated
by corporate contents, ideologies and interests; and,
● a binary science/arts division of knowledge where “science” and technological
expertise count as forms of human capital with the loss of history, narrative and
aesthetics; which leads to,
● a curriculum where critical debates over ecosustainability, scientific and digital
ethics, corporatism and militarism are not considered basic or essential experiences.
The emergence of industrial cities set the grounds for urban education as a field. That
field marked out the twentieth century commitment to universal state education, com-
mon curriculum and a vision of equity of provision and achievement. Current policy
 Urban Education Dystopia, 2050 1181

conditions in many countries index the unsettling of those provisions and a retreat
from that vision of the means and ends of urban education. New visions and versions
of the city are at hand. The challenge is to both engage with those visions while con-
tinuing to model the material, cultural and social consequences of current policies and
practices. This is but one scenario, an attempt to extend and stretch the horizons of
urban education.

References
Anderson, B. (1992). Imagined communities. London: Verso.
Atwood, M. (2002). Oryx and Crake. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.
Cheah, P., & Robbins, B. (Eds.). (1998). Cosmopolitics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Graham, P., & Luke, A. (2003). Militarising the body politic: New mediations as weapons of mass instruction.
Body and Society, 9(4), 149–168.
Innis, H. A. (1951). The bias of communication. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Keith, M., & Pile, S. (Eds.). (1993). Place and the politics of identity. London: Routledge.
Knight, L. K. (2005). Citizen: Jane Addams and the struggle for democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Lam, E. (2006). Learning, education and globalisation. In J. Green & A. Luke (Eds.), Review of research in
education (Vol. 30, pp. 213–238). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.
Lucas, S. (1999). Tracking inequality. New York: Teachers College Press.
Milojevic, I. (2005). Futures of education. London: Routledge.
Rosemann, J. (Ed.). (2003). Future city. London: Routledge.
Soja, E. (1996). Thirdspace. Oxford: Blackwell.
62

URBAN EDUCATION DYSTOPIA, 2050:

A RESPONSE FROM AFRICA

Kevin Brennan
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, U.S.A.

A Current Example
Allan Luke briefly mentions the Zimbabwean city of Harare and what might happen
there in a dystopic future. For Luke, the urban townships of Harare are a site about
which little might be known by most readers of this Handbook. As this is quite possi-
bly true, it seems worthwhile to spend some time expanding the description of a place
like present-day Harare. The existence of such places in today’s world leaves open the
question of what dystopia means. More specifically, given the future orientation of
most definitions of “dystopia,” this assignment becomes almost wishful in nature.
The March 30, 2006 online edition of The Scotsman newspaper has a story entitled,
“Zimbabwe, where cleaners earn $3 m[illion] on poverty wages.” The gist of the story
is that inflation, currently estimated by business people cited in the article to be nearly
1000% per annum, has so distorted the local economy that “[n]o one uses wallets in
Zimbabwe anymore. They’re too small.”
In today’s Zimbabwe, a single U.S. dollar now buys approximately 200,000
Zim-dollars. Going out to dinner with friends now means filling the boot (or trunk) of
your car with “bricks” of money. The domestic worker who is the focus of the article’s
title is cited as making 2.9 million Zim-dollars per month, but:

[t]hat’s a salary she could only dream of early last year, when maids’ wages were
fixed at just over $80,000. These days her millions won’t stretch to a regular piece
of meat. So she eats dried grasshoppers.

Given news like this, it may not be necessary to cite the books of George Orwell (1984)
or Margaret Atwood (Handmaid’s Tale or Oryx and Crake), or the movies of Ridley
Scott (Blade Runner). Dystopia might be here.

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1184 Brennan

A Broader View
Grant Farred (2003) describes United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s “three-
epoch view” of twentieth century African independent history as being first about
decolonization, and second about civil war and the “Age of Authoritarianism.” The
third (and current) stage is characterized by the death of authoritarianism, with
Nigeria’s unsteady shift away from military rule and the end of political apartheid
offered as examples. Writing primarily about the end of apartheid, and the notion of an
African renaissance espoused by South African President Thabo Mbeki, Farred notes:

To be an African in a “third wave” epoch is, Mbeki implicitly recognizes, to be a

“visionary pessimist.” It requires the South African president to metaphorically
align himself with the “pain of violent conflict that the peoples of Liberia,
Somalia, the Sudan, Burundi and Algeria experience;” because it is “a pain I also
bear.”

Africa has got to see itself regionally, continentally, if it is to realize the ideas of this
third epoch. South Africa’s Mbeki, Nigeria’s Obasanjo, Senegal’s Wade, Ghana’s
Koffuor may push for these kind of relationships: time will tell. African Union conti-
nent-wide efforts such as NEPAD (New Partnership for African Development) may
bear fruit, as may the numerous regional economic and security-minded cooperative
efforts, such as ECOWAS, ECCAS, and COMESA. Meanwhile, however, leaders like
Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Museveni in Uganda, continue to rule autocratically, and the
tension between such cooperation and autocracy defines the space in which dystopia
is either preventable, or becomes, perhaps, inevitable.
The issues listed above do not begin to define all that is happening today in Africa,
where wars rage (e.g., Sudan, Congo) at casualty rates far exceeding that in Iraq,
drought spreads in at least partial response to global climate change pressures, and
HIV/AIDS infection rates remain at dangerously high levels in far too many countries.

Dystopia from Five or Ten Years Away

I’ll turn now to the specific issue of global climate change. Africa’s current population
is approximately 800 million. According to the Intergovernmental Oceanographic
Commission (IOC) of UNESCO:

It is estimated that over 60% of this population live within 10 km from the shoreline.
Although population densities along the coasts of East and southern Africa are
not as high as in West Africa, coastal cities in the east are also experiencing high
growth rates (in some east African States, at least 80 percent of the population is
considered to be located in the coastal zone). The Sub-Saharan Africa has the
world’s highest urban population growth rate of more than 5%. (United Nations,
1995)
 Urban Education Dystopia, 2050: Africa 1185

From a recent article by Mark Hertsgaard in Vanity Fair magazine, in which scenarios
of 3-foot, 20-foot, and 80-foot rises in sea level are depicted:

The World Health Organization estimates that climate change is already helping
to kill 150,000 people a year, mainly in Africa and Asia. That number is bound to
rise as global warming intensifies in the years ahead. (2006)

From Chakravart Raghavan, writing in South-North Development Monitor:

The ability of human systems to adapt to and cope with climate change depends on
factors such as wealth, technology, education, information, skills, infrastructure,
access to resources and management capabilities. (2001)

These quotations, taken together, beg the question of whether the already stressed
socioeconomic and political structures in place in Africa can withstand the impact of
global climate change. That such climate change is propelled by the practices and poli-
cies of the industrialized global north is a sound point of debate, but will little impact
the response, except in that as northern economies shift priorities to protect themselves
against the climate change they helped spur on, less attention will likely accrue to
other nations and other peoples.
So, how will Africa’s coastal populations manage their migration away from rising
seas? What will national and urban planners in Cairo and Alexandria, Dakar,
Abidjan, Accra, Lagos, Mogadishu, Maputo, etc. do if seas rise? Gommes, du Guerny,
Nachtergaele, and Brinkman (1998) writing for the Sustainable Development Department
(SD) of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, offer this:

In Egypt, the Nile delta north of Cairo represents 2.3% of the area of the country,
but contains 46% of its total cultivated surface and 50% of its population; the
[altitude] belt 0–3 m harbours about 20% of the population (with Alexandria 3.5
mill., and Port Said 450.000 inhabitants), 40% of industry, 80% of port facilities,
60% of fish production.

How does Egypt survive if all of this economic activity is directly endangered?
Yet most of the damage done as a result of global climate change will come not so
directly as Egypt will experience it, but indirectly. As weather patterns change, water
sources will be threatened, drought will increase, and agricultural practice will be
endanger. As Raghavan notes:

Grain yields are projected to decrease, diminishing food security. Major rivers are
highly sensitive to climate variation. Extension of ranges of infectious disease
vectors would adversely affect human health. Desertification will be exacerbated,
and increases in droughts, floods and other extreme events would add to stresses.
Significant extinctions of plant and animal species are projected. Coastal settle-
ments along the Gulf of Guinea, Senegal, Gambia, Egypt and East-Southern
African coast would be adversely affected by sea-level rise.
1186 Brennan

Urban Education in Dystopia

As these measures of eco-sustainability (“eco” referring both to ecological and
economic aspects) decline, the ability of governments to fund education efforts will be
made more difficult, and decisions made by families to send children to school, in
the face of endangered family food security, will be ever more deeply implicated. It is
quite possible that migration away from rural areas to Africa’s urban centers will be
exacerbated. This will burden urban social services across the spectrum, schools
included.
To return to Zimbabwe, it was recently announced, and then quickly denied, that
Zimbabwe would soon mandate that Chinese language be required of all university stu-
dents, and eventually of students at lower levels in the education system. China would
gain great influence in Zimbabwe, roughly analogous to that enjoyed by western finan-
cial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. While
this can be seen in a more Panglossian sense as increasing cultural awareness among
students of the two countries, it would more accurately reflect the Mugabe government’s
willingness to use the human capital at its disposal, its young citizens, as fodder in its
effort to maintain control of the levers of economic and political power in the country.
On the other hand, to bring this short essay back to its beginning, the people of
Africa have been dealing with externally induced stressors for centuries. Many coun-
tries in Africa have experienced the additional internal pressures of authoritarian rule.
Yes, the mortality rates from these stressors (slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism,
authoritarianism, etc.) is high. But the people of Africa’s many countries have managed
to adapt and survive. They continue to send their children to school. They continue to
encourage their governments to better fund education across a broader range of the
population.
It would be a mistake to conclude that how the global north deals with its propensity
for burdening the rest of the world will be any differently dealt with than other stressors.
Africa will keep itself alive.

References
Farred, G. (2003). The “African Renaissance” at the crossroads of postcoloniality and postmodernity.
Contours, a Journal of the African Diaspora, 1(1), 1–15.
Gommes, R., du Guerny, J., Nachtergaele, F., & Brinkman, R. (1998) Potential impacts of sea-level rise on
populations and agriculture, http://www.fao.org/sd/EIdirect/EIre0046.htm
Hertsgaard, M. (2006). While Washington slept. Vanity Fair, April 2006, http://www.vanityfair.com/features/
general/articles/060417fege07
Raghavan, C. (2001). Global warming: Net losses for developing world. South-North Development Monitor,
Third World Network, http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/losses.htm
United Nations. (1995). World urbanization prospects: The 1994 revision. New York: United Nations.
63

URBAN EDUCATION DYSTOPIA, 2050:

A RESPONSE FROM THE ASIA PACIFIC

Masturah Ismail
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

What is the reach of this dystopia? As Luke mentioned, it is a vision of the city that
only addresses part of a global scenario. However, the scale and rate of urban growth
in Asia are unprecedented in history – it already has the largest number of megacities
(cities with a population of over 10 million each) in the world, and traditional hinter-
lands that serve the cities are increasingly being integrated through in-migration, a
revolution in transportation and communications, and rapid expansion of industry. Asia
is hyper-urbanizing. With rural poverty across the region and increased concentration of
population and industry in the cities, it is not difficult to imagine how the single-minded
pursuit of economic growth to the exclusion of other considerations – environment and
quality of life – can have a far-reaching and potentially disastrous impact.
While there is historical plausibility in this dystopia which serves as a warning to us,
its limitation may lie in a unitary and deterministic projection, whereas we know that
present conditions are much more complex, with a myriad of potential outcomes. The
future is likely to be more nuanced and grounded in geo-historical realities, for “cities
differ greatly among themselves and their historical trajectories are far from random:
the past will shape the future of each city, but not determine it” (Friedmann, 1998).
Luke’s rendition of one future scenario of the city has at least provoked me to think of
such multiplicity as it currently exists across the Asia Pacific region.
In 1996, the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)
prepared a major document on future trends of a hyper-urbanized Asia. It predicted
“population growth, megacity concentration, poverty, growing inequality, a growing
informal sector, environmental degradation, weak governance and management, central-
ization, inadequate participation, and socio-cultural alienation” (p. 91).
Indeed, multiple forces, “increasingly complex and conflicting interests of community
and culture, linguistic majority and minority, nation and state, corporation and worker,”
and not just corporate interests, are impacting the provision of urban education today.
It is interesting to note that Luke uses the word “balance” as a way for curriculum and
teaching to deal with conflicting interests between these different forces. Yet, in his
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1188 Ismail

backward-mapping from Atwood’s dystopia, he describes current policies not only in

neat binaries, but as a domination of one force over others, that is, a domination of cor-
porate ideologies over others’ in curriculum materials both print and digital, science
over the arts, and a cleavage in the provision of urban schooling: private for those who
can pay and state/public education system for the working poor.
Surely, the issues go beyond binaries and singular triumphs of one over the other.
Pursuing the antireductionism and antidualism of Thirdspace, Soja (1996) cited
approvingly Henri Lefebvre’s rejection of binaries:

For Lefebvre, reductionism in all its forms … begins with the lure of binarism,
the compacting of meaning into a closed either/or opposition between two terms,
concepts, or elements. Whenever faced with such binarized categories (subject-
object, mental-material, natural-social, bourgeois-proletariat, local-global, center-
periphery, agency-structure), Lefebvre persistently sought to crack them open by
introducing an-Other term, a third possibility or “moment” that partakes of the
original pairing but is not just a simple combination or an “in between” position
along some all-inclusive continuum. This critical thirding-as-Othering is the first
and most important step in transforming the categorical and closed logic of
either/or to the dialectically open logic of both/and also … . (p. 60)

To the corporation-state dialectics then, I would add a third space that, however taken
for granted in the West, is still emergent in many Asian cities: civil society. For city for-
mation does not rest with state and corporate interests alone, but also involves the con-
struction of and is reliant upon a robust and sustainable civil society. That civil society,
longstanding and taken for granted in some nations, at risk in others, and potentially
still-born in yet others – was part of the original settlements around postcolonial educa-
tion in Asia, just as it was part of the push for universal secular schooling in the West.
This is why an Asian education which still focuses on the building of civil society is
so important – the education of people to mobilize outside and around the state, to
assert their claims for inclusiveness, to demand accountability of those who hold public
office, transparency in the conduct of the public’s business, and information that will
allow people to form their own opinions and come to their own decisions (Friedmann,
1998). For many countries in the region, education and nation-building are still strug-
gling to build participatory processes that enable people to analyze, critique and take
issue with state and corporate actions that are likely to affect peoples’ lives and liveli-
hoods. Especially at the level of local community, civil society can give voice to differ-
ent narratives and alternative viewpoints from the ideologies of government and
corporations. In many Asian cities, this kind of civic and civil space has yet to exist.
Educationally then, to counter the dangerous totalizing effects of a techno-rational and
corporatized curriculum, urban educators would do well to encourage the civic partici-
pation of students – and to pursue new models of democratic education.
At the same time, we are seeing public spaces for civic participation in the city being
usurped by private space, leaving few places for people to meet and conduct activities
in the flesh. Our kids – and civil society – may be forced to retreat to the virtual, but
there are limitations of what one can do in virtual spaces. The challenge for the future
 Urban Education Dystopia, 2050: Asia Pacific 1189

is to come up with creative ways to provide an environment conducive for all students
in the city to grow, participate and learn.
Urban formations are to a considerable extent a result of public policies. They are,
in those states and cities where people are enfranchised, what we choose them to be.
While economic interests do seem to prevail in many national agendas, especially in
developing countries, the issues facing urban education across the Asia Pacific go
beyond corporate stratification and a binary class system. For some, it’s still about
basic provisions for infrastructure – housing, water, power supply, sanitation, transport
and communications. If current trends are anything to go by, by 2020, most people in
East Asian countries would live in urban areas – close to two-thirds of the population,
most in the five mega-urban regions (McGee, 1998). The challenge for governments
and urban planners is to make urbanization sustainable – both in the quality of people’s
“life space,” that is environment, and “quality of life insofar as it is socially determined”
(Friedmann, 1998, p. 44). The former means such basics as clean air and water, while
the latter includes housing, community infrastructure and public services (education,
health, recreation, security, transportation, communication, etc.), work at decent wages
for all who seek it (including migrant workers) and a robust, well-organized civil soci-
ety. All these, except the last, are objects of public policy, whose quality and coverage
are more than just a matter of resources, but one of distribution, fairness and social
justice. Letting the free market decide has already widened the gap in quality of life
between rich and poor in many of the countries of the Asia Pacific. States still have the
major role of mediating and buffering the impacts of markets on citizens.
However, large urban regions such as megacities are extraordinarily difficult to plan
and manage: governments will need to develop an integrated approach to their man-
agement. Unlike in Australia, where states have considerable autonomy vis-à-vis the
federal government in planning powers over their respective city regions of Brisbane,
Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, there is tendency for centralized planning in
many Asian governments. Can substantial powers be devolved to allow critically
important and growing regions the ability to effectively manage their own affairs
without national intervention? And how will the region cope with a unified ASEAN
similar to the EU underway for 2011? What kinds of flows of capital, people, resources,
and information will be generated from a regional union? What kinds of regulatory sys-
tems and agreements will be put in place? And how will these affect the very different
educational histories and systems of Asian countries?
The Asian city is struggling over the balance of “control” and “openness” in
governmental planning, with the Chinese population now having greater freedom of
movement. Hence, governments that are allowing cities to grow without strongly
resourced urban planning, for example Indonesia, risk Delhi-type scenarios with urban
slums and environmental degradation. Governments that assert to control via public
housing, population movement and legislated constraints, like Singapore, are building
more coherent and viable cities. However, even within strongly-controlled and cen-
trally funded state education system like Singapore’s, there are increased attempts for
educational variation and alternatives. So part of the policy trick may be to diversify
educational provision without the neoliberal policies that are critiqued across this
Handbook – for the state to develop effective and diverse provision rather than using
1190 Ismail

the need for diversity as a means to marketize education. This might yield locally
tailored solutions in the interest of diverse communities. In Asia, the future of urban
education lies more in multiplicity than a streamlining of possibilities. But at the same
time it also still lies in the establishment of strong state systems committed to education
for and on behalf of civil society.

References
ESCAP. (1996). Living in Asian cities, the impending crisis – causes, consequences and alternatives for the
future. New York: United Nations.
Friedmann, J. (1998). World city futures: The role of urban and regional policies in the Asia-Pacific region.
In Y. Yeung (Ed.), Urban development in Asia: Retrospect and prospect (pp. 25–54). New Territories,
Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
McGee, T. G. (1998). Five decades of urbanization in Southeast Asia: A personal encounter. In Y. Yeung
(Ed.), Urban development in Asia: Retrospect and prospect (pp. 55–91). New Territories, Hong Kong:
The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Soja, E. (1996). Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and other real-and-imagined places. Oxford: Blackwell.
64

URBAN EDUCATION DYSTOPIA, 2050:

A RESPONSE FROM EUROPE

Elisabet Öhrn* and Gaby Weiner†

*
Boras University College, Sweden;
†
Edinburgh University, Scotland

This is a response to the dystopic scenario proposed from the position of the Pacific
Rim by Allan Luke, from the editors of the European section of the Handbook. While
we recognize the picture that Luke paints, and the range of debates about the future
among, for example, urban planners, social demographers, sociologists, environmen-
talists, and cultural theorists, we turn to political scientists rather than fiction writers,
to create two potential scenarios for Europe for the year 2050. We recognize that
Western Europe like the rest of the world, is affected by global changes such as envi-
ronmental disaster (flooding as well as heat waves), economic upheaval (increased
influence of multinationals, widening gaps between the rich and the poor) cultural
homogenization (globalization of popular culture as well as policy) geographic modi-
fications (enlargement of European Union) and demographic change (flow of immi-
grants from South to North and from rural to urban). However, in comparison with the
rest of the world, Western or “old” Europe has been generally stable (since the end of
World War II at least) accompanied by increasing prosperity and sustained efforts at
developing structures of cooperation rather than conflict. This is embodied in the
establishment and growth of the European Union (EU), an intergovernmental and
supranational union of 25 democratic member states from the European continent,
which was established under that name in 1992 by the Treaty on European Union (the
Maastricht Treaty). However, many aspects of the Union developed from 1951
onwards, through a series of predecessor formal and informal relationships.
If we see the EU as an economic, social cultural, and geographic embodiment of
Europe currently (or aspiration or imaginary for those not yet admitted), two main sce-
narios for 2050 are available; the first of “fortress” Europe, largely protectionist and
regulatory, with the likely outcome of stagnation and slow economic decline, and the
second, more dynamic, expansionist and outward looking, allowing widened member-
ship but also greater fragmentation and leading perhaps to eventual dissolution of the
Union. These two scenarios have their origins in two different forms of governance
adopted currently and simultaneously in the EU: termed respectively as “traditional,
1191
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1191–1194.
© 2007 Springer.
1192 Öhrn and Weiner

authoritative” and “new, open” (Caporaso & Wittenbrinck, 2006). The former is seen
as the “progressive realization of an emerging system of authoritative rule at the supra-
national level” with the backing of a system of laws agreed by the member states:

in good part because these laws are made according to accepted procedures which
have themselves been consensually accepted by intergovernmental conferences.
Authority, therefore, far from being antiquated, is an irreducible component of the
political process. Authority implies imposition, either to coerce people to do what
is in their own interests (in the case of laws to solve social dilemmas) or to ensure
that the losers accept their status. (Caporaso & Wittenbrinck, 2006, p. 472)

This form of governance has been largely successful in bringing about economic
prosperity, social cohesion and considerable success at the political level. For example,
Young (1999) claims that the EU achieved a political “triumph,” in successfully
embedding liberal democracy across half of Europe, with the second half willing
to follow. At a time of Soviet decline, Young argues, the EU managed to protect the
fragile emergent democracies of southern Europe as well as to encourage aspiring ex-
communist member states towards western forms of democracy. However, criticisms
concerning the negative social and cultural consequences of the EU include its empha-
sis on economic rather than welfare or social issues, the male domination of its bureau-
cracies and structures and its imposition of a particular form of hegemonic, cultural
homogeneity which reflects these characteristics. Thus, Brine (1999) argues that work-
ing class women have been marginalized by economic and education policies within
the EU, and Einhorn and Gregory (1998, pp. 93–94), that Europe has become the
object of desire of those outside the EU though citizenship “is effectively denied to
black women, ethnic minorities and those with experience of poverty.” The EU is also
consistently presented in the largely Eurosceptic, nationalist mass media as the rule of
Europe through Brussels (the administrative centre of the EU), whereby “foreigners”
are seen as dictating not only European and foreign but also the domestic policy of
individual countries.
The second form of governance which has emerged in recent years as a response to
the criticisms of authoritarianism by Brussels is concerned less with compulsion and
more with openness, deliberation and information dissemination. Thus, ironically, new
governance models use “soft law instruments” to “insist” on:

non-coercive processes based on the will of the participants to agree, by way of

collective deliberation, on procedural norms, modes of regulation and common
political objectives and, at the same time, to preserve the diversity of national and
even local experiences. (Bruno, Jacquot, & Mandin, 2006, p. 520)

The difficulty with the second model is its inability (or unwillingness) to punish
non-implementers even though it is possible to argue that policies which are manda-
tory in all Community policy, should be applied to all policy, whether European or
domestic. This new form of governance, which is characterized by bench-marking,
mainstreaming, best practices and open methods of coordination, affects European
 Urban Education Dystopia, 2050: Europe 1193

countries in different ways. For example, López-Santana (2006) argues that the
Europeanization of labor market policy has shifted the priorities of national policy-
makers leading to a convergence of goals and instruments, while Kristin Edquist
(2006) points to the bleak choice of social activists in terms either of cooption in, or
exclusion from, policy-making which either weakens or isolates them. So powerful has
the EU become in its project of the Europeanization of different national entities, that
the concept of Europe is now mostly associated with the Union rather than the
geographic continent.
The European capital city or urban context of both scenarios is idealized as pros-
perous, bureaucratic, multilingual and sophisticated, though authoritative Europe is
less susceptible to the whims and influence of often localized social and democratic
expressions of dissatisfaction. However, as we have seen, urban settings are also
viewed as fragmented, conflictual, and dangerous, and therefore a threat to the eco-
nomic and social order. Overall, then, while greater “convergence” between member
states is currently viewed with suspicion, few can conceive of a Europe without the
Union. Thus, as compared with Luke’s imaginary of a decaying urban educational
infrastructure, at least for the working classes, we cannot foresee a similar collapse of
the state, or of civic and municipal authorities in Europe in the short term at least, even
though the weakening of the ties between state and local, and public and private, and
the influence of neo-liberal “traveling” policy are clearly with us.

References
Brine, J. (1999). Under educating women: Globalizing inequality. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Bruno, I., Jacquot, S., & Mandin, L. (2006). Europeanization through its instrumentation: Benchmarking,
mainstreaming and the open method of co-ordination … toolbox or Pandora’s box? Journal of European
Public Policy, 13(4), 519–536.
Caporaso, J. A., & Wittenbrinck, J. (2006). The new modes of governance and political authority in Europe.
Journal of European Public Policy, 13(4), 471–480.
Edquist, K. (2006). EU social policy governance: Advocating activism or servicing states. Journal of
European Public Policy, 13(4), 500–518.
Einhorn, B., & Gregory, J. (1998). Introduction. The European Journal of Women’s Studies special issue:
The Idea of Europe, 5(3–4), 293–296.
López-Santana, M. (2006). The domestic implications of European soft law: Framing and transmitting
change in employment policy. Journal of European Public Policy, 13(4), 481–499.
Young, H. (1999). This blessed plot: Britain and Europe from Churchill to Blair. London: Overlook Press.
65

URBAN EDUCATION DYSTOPIA, 2050:

A RESPONSE FROM LATIN AMERICA1

Belmira Oliveira Bueno

University of São Paulo, Brazil

Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to
assume responsibility for it and by the same token save it from that ruin which,
except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and young, would be inevitable.
(Arendt, 1968)

Dystopias, as well as utopias, are not mere fiction. No matter how absurd they may
seem, the worlds they describe start with situations that are real. As a result, they often
haunt us and impel us to think about the future, about the possible worlds that are
expected, mainly the ones expected by the new generations. Allan Luke’s dystopia pro-
vokes a tension: which vision should we engage with? With those utopian visions or
with those which preview a decaying world, such as the current social practices and
policies lead us to think? Luke warns that his dystopia is just speculative, “a narrative
to link from the future to the present.” I intend to go a littler further, to connect the
present not only to the future, but also to the past.
Any reflection about the future of the city and urban education needs to be supported
by a diagnosis of the present time. Such diagnosis about the major lines of force that
draw the space of the city and about the corresponding urban education will allow the
imagination of the future to be an exercise of working on the consequences of the ele-
ments that have been diagnosed. To what extent do the space of the city and education
preserve the hopes of the past, enabling individual development to take place in tension
between the past, present and future? Or, to say this in another way, to what extent do
the spaces of socialization and education stimulate the coming of a “unidimensional
man” (Marcuse, 1964), pointing to a man/woman immediately glued to the present and
reality, unable to keep the tension between what s/he is and what s/he should be? Here,
I would like to utilize criteria found in some classic texts to make such a diagnostic:
in particular, texts on education which focus on its subversive element, due to its char-
acteristic of keeping remembrances, hopes and memory that may serve to destabilize
the present state of affairs.
1195
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1195–1198.
© 2007 Springer.
1196 Bueno

This idea is already present in Allan Luke’s text. When he uses the book by Margaret
Atwood, presenting it as an example of dystopia, he points out that the characters are
“human subjects incapable of nuance, paradox, analysis and creativity.” He also suggests
that, “There are images of pedagogy throughout Oryx and Crake: of cloned subjects
stripped of memory and cultural production sitting around the last man and construing
him as their maker.” In this novel, the character who resists is depicted thus, “The
Snowman (…) struggles to maintain his humanity by remembering and chanting
lessons from basal lessons in school, retaining poetry and narrative despite his deteri-
orating physical and mental condition, and like an oral poet recalling the legacies and
traditions of print and cinema for the clones.”
Because these images interconnect the capacity of thinking and feeling, the resistance
to an oppressive situation, the creativity and the link with memory and tradition, they
make me think about the education of the range of people in Latin America. How do these
elements relate to each other? First, in a very simplistic way. We could say that education
links us to a tradition, to a collective memory, it connects us to the voices from the past
and somehow this “digs” into the depths of our very existence. Based on this connection,
our own biography links to other biographies, and the sense of history begins to take on a
concrete and shared meaning. The reflection about a present state cannot fully happen
unless we have the experience that something came to be, and thus, it can also change.
This dimension of thinking gains reality when we are fed by the past, by all the hopes and
struggles which somehow contributed to configure our present state. Human creativity is
also an expression of the tension between what exists and what could exist: it is born with
the child that plays, making something into something else, and completes in the adult
through his or her will to know and create, breaking up the determinations of the present.
Therefore, the questions we should ask as we try to imagine the future are, “Do the
current conditions of life in Latin American cities and the education found there,
enable people to understand the present and imagine another future?” and “Does the
education betray its mission to connect us in a deep way to the past and its meaning,
thus making man/woman a prisoner of the present thereby imposing on them ways of
action which are merely repetitious of the same and sole rationality?” This problematic
seems to be presented, for example, in the preface of Dialectics of Enlightenment
(Horkheimer & Adorno, 1972) where they suggest that, “What is at issue here is … the
necessity for enlightenment to reflect on itself if humanity is not to be totally betrayed.
What is at stake is not conservation of the past but the fulfillment of past hopes. Today,
however, the past is being continued as destruction of the past” (p. xvii).
In a text by Simonell Weill (1979, p. 353), we find an idea that extends this reflection:

It would be vain to turn one’s back to the past just to think about the future. It is a
dangerous illusion to believe that there is a possibility in it. The opposition
between future and past is absurd. The future brings us nothing, give us nothing;
it is we that, in order to construct the future, must give it everything, we must give
it our own life. But to give one must have, and we do not have another life,
another sap, except the inherited treasures of the past, that have been digested,
assimilated, recreated by ourselves. From all the needs of the human soul there is
no other more vital than the past.
 Urban Education Dystopia, 2050: Latin America 1197

Memory has a subversive power, and it is such power that should be utilized by education.
As Marcuse (1964, p. 98) puts it:

Remembrance of the past may give rise to dangerous insights, and the established
society seems to be apprehensive of the subversive contents of memory.
Remembrance is a mode of dissociation from the given facts, a mode of “media-
tion” which breaks up, for short moments, the omnipresent power of the given
facts. Memory recalls the terror and the hope that passed.

Based on this thinking, that is, on the understanding of the current relationship between
past/memory, education and life in the city, we can imagine how the future might be. In
doing this it is also necessary to take into account the educational research that indicates
that schools find it difficult to provide an education which is effectively critical and not
instrumental. Most research in the Latin American countries, along with research in
other regions around the world points out the difficulties that students have learning to
read and write, even when they actually go to school. This indicates that even the most
instrumental education is in danger. Considering that there is no separation between
shape and content with respect to thinking, the lack of skill to handle symbols and signs
inevitably brings severe consequences involving the inability of students to reason.
Without a doubt, this leads us to suggest that the frustrations caused by social inequity
and injustice are likely to be channeled into aggressiveness. Examples are fights among
soccer rooters, or the appearance of gangs which, quite honestly, seem to reproduce the
same violence they are themselves subjected to. By arguing this I want to emphasize the
point that the frustration generated by the feelings of injustice, especially when individ-
uals find no support for politically organized ways for struggle and resistance, tends to
turn into naked violence. Sadly, such violence is often utilized by the status quo to reas-
sure itself. Education, then, would have an essential role in the possibility of mediating
violence and supporting ways of organizing civil involvement to address the existing
social, economic and educational inequalities.
Education, when grounded in instrumentalism, that is when it is offered just as a
technical rationality and merely justified by the capacity of operating on things, loses
its power of imagining and building a different future. Thus, it is completely absorbed
in the maintenance of the present and the management of any emergent contradictions.
In this case, where instrumental and technical education prevails, we are only allowed
to think that men and women will more and more become only an object of the social
machine, a machine of their own creation. This is the element common to all dystopias.
Obviously, the separation of the social classes remains, as there will always be one caste
that rules the machine and another which is governed by the former under the condi-
tion of being an instrument. Concepts such as freedom and justice are excluded from
a purely technical education. Moreover, these concepts do not gain reality when they
are disconnected from the history of our civilization. For this reason, the diagnostic of
today’s education, leads us to imagine a very close future.
In the case of Latin America, then, I can only glimpse its future by thinking about it
from a perspective that takes into account the history and the roots of the various peoples.
In doing this it is important to include them in the school curriculum and, then, develop
1198 Bueno

a more sensitive pedagogy that meets the various needs and major expectations of the
new generations. It is also important that this reformulated curriculum and pedagogy
enable the youth to think of alternatives that will open up both thinking and action so
that they can be protagonists both for educational change and crafting their own iden-
tities. This double perspective, the appraisal of memory and juvenile protagonism, seems
to me to be crucial in a school curriculum that aims to seriously face the challenges of
the city of the future, be it chaotic or excessively planned. I would argue that nobody,
other than the young people, should occupy the center of such project. It is enough to
note their vivacity in the communication process. It is enough to acknowledge that
they are the ones who currently show a break with the established order: they are doing
this by creating new forms of cultural transmission and by challenging the school to
rethink its traditional ways of teaching. This is not, however, meant to abandon the
youth to some laissez-faire system, as a result of the absence and foolishness of adults.
It is the adults, of course, who must remain responsible for ensuring that the new gen-
erations do not lose their links with the past: this is important so that the new genera-
tions can project and live the future without historical discontinuities. I truly believe
that no matter how painful future changes may be, the treasure mentioned by Arendt,
must not be lost.

Note
1. I am very thankful to Daniel Bueno and Bernardo Svartman for their insightful ideas that helped me to
think in this way.

References
Arendt, H. (1968). Between past and future: Eight exercices in political thought. New York: The Viking
Press.
Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. (1972). Dialetic of Enlightenment. New York: Herder & Herder.
Marcuse, H. (1964). One-dimensional man: Studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society. Boston:
Beacon Press Boston.
Weill, S. (1979). A condição operária e outros estudos sobre a opressão. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra. [The
working condition and other studies on the oppression, first publication in 1951].
66

URBAN EDUCATION DYSTOPIA, 2050:

A RESPONSE FROM NORTH AMERICA

Michele Foster
Claremont Graduate University, U.S.A.

In his dystopia, Luke examines some contemporary conditions of urban life that might
be harbingers of urban life and urban education in the mid-century. Drawing on science
fiction because it offers “possible worlds for which there are plausible traces, precursors,
necessary conditions and indeed, nascent cultural and political economies,” he deploys
Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (2003) to illustrate one possible scenario.
To be sure this dystopia addresses several of the major social and ethical issues – a
dual system of schools for rich and poor, the corporatization of schooling, an over
reliance on scientific and technological solutions – that confront contemporary life and
may foreshadow life in urban communities and by extension urban education. While a
useful heuristic, the commentary overlooks some of the major historical forces that
have shaped contemporary education, urban life, and urban education and by coupling
the concept of urban to a fixed geographic location, disregards some of the patterns
that point to much more likely complex and nuanced outcomes.
While a common curriculum, public education, and universal access may have been
intended as principled responses of democratic societies to the social and cultural con-
ditions of urbanization, these ideals were never fully realized. Nowhere is this more
evident than in the history of African Americans. Although the common school move-
ment aimed to expose American children to a common curriculum, this ideal did not
extend to most African American young people, which I illustrate in the brief chronol-
ogy that follows. Throughout most of the common school period, roughly between
1840 and 1910, African Americans were systematically denied opportunities for
schooling. Prior to the Civil War, most African Americans resided in the south where
they were held in slavery, barred from attending school, and forbidden from learning
to read. African Americans did not fare much better in the North and the West, where
they were relegated to segregated schools, or excluded from them by state and local
laws. Following the Civil War and emancipation, largely through self-help efforts and
the Freedman’s Bureau, blacks were able to some gain access to public schools.
However, with the end of Reconstruction, the enacting of Jim Crow laws, and the 1896
1199
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1199–1202.
© 2007 Springer.
1200 Foster

Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson that legalized segregation and established
the doctrine of “separate but equal,” this access was further constrained.
Philosophically affiliated with progressive issues designed to ameliorate social
inequities, Dewey’s project is often invoked by academics to signal the best of the dem-
ocratic traditions in schooling. Dewey’s progressive inclinations, notwithstanding, his
Lab School, coincidentally founded the same year of the Supreme Court’s Plessy deci-
sion, followed the customary practice of the era of keeping students out simply because
of their color. My point is that too often, the philosophies, propensities, and practices
of democracy, including democratic education even when professed by progressives
have tended to exclude African Americans as part of the citizenry.
To return to the chronology, although the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and
1960s, the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education that declared
separate facilities inherently unequal and unconstitutional, and The Civil Rights Acts
ended the “official” period of legal segregation, school desegregation was a protracted
process that met with fierce and intense opposition across all regions of the United
States. Exacerbated by community responses – white flight and the creation of private
academies – by institutional responses – “controlled choice” an attempt to voluntarily
desegregate the schools as well as promote parental choice of schools establishing mag-
net schools, creating rigid tracking systems, and special education programs, closing
Black schools, and the wholesale dismissal of African American educators – and
academic responses – developing and inscribing theories of social disorganization,
pathology, and cultural deficit into the scholarly canon – rather than enhancing educa-
tional opportunities desegregation obstructed schooling opportunities for African
Americans. Once African Americans finally gained access to educational institutions,
state, local, and federal policies intervened in the education system not by blocking
African Americans’ access to education but by infusing the education they received
with a destructive mediocrity using various means that has rarely been interrupted.
This is the historical background against which neo-liberal policies are being
introduced and extended into the education sector with the language of privatization
and educational choice – the push for charter schools, voucher programs, emphasis on
performance based management, and the imposition of systematic curriculum and
testing. If, as some polls suggest, African Americans and other marginalized groups
endorse particular aspects of these neo-liberal policies, could the reason be that having
been disenfranchised from adequate schools and frustrated by the limited education
options these groups have concluded that vouchers may be a more feasible alternative
to doing nothing (Apple & Pedroni, 2005).
In my introduction to the North American section of this Handbook, I highlight
some of multiple and contradictory meanings of the word urban. Along with meanings
of urban as a spatial location and/or population density, I examine the urban signified
as sophisticated and cultured; the urban meaning run-down, deteriorating, crime ridden;
the urban signified as poverty, social disorganization, and pathology the urban denot-
ing renovation, enhancement and gentrification; the urban as code words for poor
people of color. It is impossible to predict how contemporary conditions will develop
into future scenarios, since the same set of conditions can just as easily lead to a
different set of events. However, Atwood’s dystopian conception of a Canadian city
 Urban Education Dystopia, 2050: North America 1201

whose inner core, abandoned by and off-limits to elites and inhabited only by working
and lower classes struck me as jejune and predictable. As the residential patterns in
France and similar developments in the Greater Toronto area demonstrate, residential
patterns, where the poor live in the inner city and the more affluent live in suburban
enclaves, are not predetermined. With respect to the United States, this scenario is déjà
vu all over again. Although the residential patterns of many major US cities were
organized according to Burgess’s idea zones of concentric circles, even when first pro-
posed his theory did not account for the multiple patterns of development that existed.
Waves of gentrification sometimes within different parts of the same city, and the
razing of public housing developments such as Chicago’s Cabrini Green and Robert
Taylor Homes, once symbols of the problems associated with public housing in the
United States, and the construction of new mixed income housing built to attract more
affluent residents has resulted in the dispersal of poor and working class people of
color to other neighborhoods within the city, as well as to the inner ring suburbs.
Because immigrants are settling in communities and states that did not typically
receive large numbers of immigrant families and children, the dispersal of people of
color is expanding. These changing settlement patterns are reshaping many public
school systems. Urban school districts have typically enrolled large percentages of
the US students of color; many of the largest districts have student enrollments that are
more than half African American or Latino. But as residence patterns continue to
change, more students of color are attending school in communities that heretofore
have not been considered urban. Rather than being restricted to geographically
“urban” spaces, in keeping with the postmodern era, urban issues are ever shifting –
changing in emphasis, direction, focus, as well as location.
As Diane Ketelle, one of the chapter authors recently wrote in 2004, “A public
school has both internal public purposes and external public purposes. The internal
purpose is learning, but the external purpose is to build community.” Still, unresolved
and highly contested is what kind of community we want and are willing to work to
build. If the vision is one of excellence, democracy, social, cultural and economic
equity, then North Americans must apply political pressure on their national leaders to
live up to the rhetoric of democracy. For whatever progress has been made toward
eradicating social injustice, racial and ethnic inequality, and economic disparities,
much more remains to be done. It’s later than we think, but not too late to act.

References
Apple, M., & Pedroni, T. C. (2005). Conservative alliance building and African American support of vouchers:
The end of Brown’s promise or a new beginning? Teachers College Record, 107(9), 2068–2105,
http://www.tcrecord.org ID Number: 12154, Date Accessed: 8/19/2006 4:01:14 P.M.
Atwood, M. (2003). Oryx and Crake: A novel. New York: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday.
Ketelle, D. (2004). The disappearance of the homemakers club: A dilemma for school leaders. Public Voices,
7(1), 43–46.
67

URBAN EDUCATION DYSTOPIA, 2050:

A RESPONSE FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM

Carol Campbell* and Geoff Whitty†

*
Formally Institute of Education, University of London, U.K.;
†
Institute of Education, University of London, U.K.

Luke asks us to think into the future, drawing on historical knowledge, current reali-
ties and futures thinking, to consider the possible future for cities and urban education
in 5, 10 or 50 years time. His piece posits a future in which the city has become a “no
go” area, where there is a binary social class system based on a biotechnical and digi-
tal elite class and a working underclass. This social stratification is reflected in binary
provision in elite private/corporation schooling and residual state education for the
underclass. It is a world in which science is valued over arts and curriculum content
and schooling are determined by corporations and private interests. Humanity and the
human condition have been devalued and destroyed.
Like all futures thinking, this analysis reveals traces of historical and current
evidence. Debates about private and state schooling, concerns about segregation of
educational access and outcomes associated with choice policies, promotion of private
investment in education and the persisting inequalities in educational outcomes in
urban areas, particularly associated with socio-economic, racial and ethnic diversity
and divisions, are all very much on today’s agenda for urban education. As indeed they
have been throughout the history of urban education, particularly since the 1960s in
the UK but also throughout the earlier twentieth century and late nineteenth century as
indicated in McCulloch’s chapter in this collection.
The challenge of predicting urban education in the distant, and even not so distant,
future is that often the predictions and the reality remain far apart. Luke cites literary and
media interpretations of the future city, which have not been fully realized in reality.
In the UK, a popular science fiction television show broadcast in the 1970s predicted
that by the end of the twentieth century we would all be living in outer space and com-
muting by space travel in Space 1999. Yet, here we are in the twenty-first century still
Earth dwellers and still debating education in UK cities in terms that would have been
broadly recognizable 100 years ago.
The reality is that urban education, and indeed all education, particularly since the
1944 and 1945 Acts for England/Wales and Scotland respectively, has evolved through
1203
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1203–1206.
© 2007 Springer.
1204 Campbell and Whitty

a process of incremental adjustments in policy and practice. While there have been
both continuities and discontinuities in educational development, many of the funda-
mental purposes and pillars of schooling remain intact. Even the Thatcher government’s
1988 Education Reform Act, which reformed curriculum, testing and governance
arrangements in England, did not entirely transform the educational landscape estab-
lished in the mid-1940s. And even though the New Labour government since 1997 has
been committed to dramatic and rapid educational change, with a raft of initiatives and
strategies to generate large-scale school improvement and raised student achievement,
it has drawn upon principles and practices recognizable from both the 1944 and 1988
Acts. Given this reality, the prospect of the total demise of schooling as we currently
know it, even within 50 years, appears unlikely in the absence of a major political or
ecological disaster – though that, of course, is by no means out of the question.
This does not mean, however, that we predict no changes in the nature of urban
schooling in the UK. To start with its context, as Luke comments, there is considerable
debate about the nature of the future city. But in contrast to his prediction of cities
becoming “no go” areas, UK demographic data do not point to a significant decline in
urban living. While there has been some reversal of past migration patterns, suburban
sprawl and urban regeneration – including inner-city gentrification – continue apace.
Within cities, social and economic segregation can certainly become acute in urban
spaces with “rich” and “poor” neighborhoods literally separated by one street, thereby
bringing into sharp juxtaposition the reality of urban wealth and poverty. Yet “gated
communities” remain the exception rather than the rule and, in some urban neighbour-
hoods, ethnic diversity is more evident than racial segregation. There have, however,
been some high profile flash points between communities and there are some cities
where the social and cultural experiences of different groups are in danger of becom-
ing polarized.
Although, to some extent, social divisions have always been accentuated by school
catchment areas, there is now a fear that these polarizing tendencies will be reinforced
by education policies that enhance choice. Critics of markets point to evidence of edu-
cational segregation between city schools drawn along class and perhaps ethnic lines,
as hierarchies of schooling evolve with more affluent and educated parents becoming
more successful in securing places for their child at a school “of choice” and the
remaining schools becoming populated by the less advantaged. The resulting cumula-
tive process of educational, social and economic disadvantage, often linked to racial,
ethnic and cultural differences, is a critical concern for the future of urban schooling.
This raises questions, as posed also in Luke’s analysis, about the provision of
schooling. Luke envisages the rise of corporate education provided by and for private
interests. However, the situation in the UK is not a straightforward private/state binary
divide. Around seven per cent of children attend private schools, many of which are cer-
tainly associated with the reproduction of economic and cultural elites. But there are
also divisions within the state-funded sector, which historically has included voluntary
(largely church-based) provision. The debate in the UK has therefore been as much
about religious/secular interests as about private/public interests. There are certainly
ongoing attempts to increase private investment and provision within state schooling,
but so far they have not been particularly popular or effective. As our own chapter in
 Urban Education Dystopia, 2050: United Kingdom 1205

this Handbook discusses, the current policy debate is more concerned with growing new
forms of hybrid provision involving a diverse array of state, private and third-sector
solutions and partnerships.
This reflects another trend that is perhaps more fundamental than privatization in a
narrow sense. Although some critics see the fragmentation of the public education serv-
ice into a variety of different types of provision as a problem, other commentators
regard multiple forms of differentiation as a defining feature of “post-modern”
societies, and even as something to be encouraged and celebrated. So, while the growth
of industrial cities was predicated on mass production and collective consumption, the
current trend towards niche marketing and “lifestyling” is now becoming reflected in
education. This extends beyond diversification of school types into the nature of the
school experience. The last 20 years in the UK, particularly England, has seen increased
central prescription of curriculum, assessment, instructional approaches and even time
allocations within classes. However there is now a move to “personalization,” an
approach geared more directly to individual learners’ needs, experiences and expecta-
tions. Trends across a range of sectors (public and private) reflect increasing consumer
expectations for personal attention and service and this is likely to become even more
evident in future urban education as parents and students come to expect personalized
pathways.
Information and communication technologies can play a role in supporting such
diversification of learning methods. While there is certainly some evidence to support
Luke’s proposition that a digital future could be dehumanizing, there are also ways in
which information technology can be used within and outside classrooms to support
student engagement, motivation and achievement, including encouraging both the
traditional literacies of reading and writing and the various media, digital and critical
global literacies now emerging. In the extreme case, some students disaffected from
conventional schooling are already receiving their education virtually, via the web and
mobile phones (e.g., http://www.notschool.net <http://www.notschool.net/>). The pre-
vailing view remains, however, that computers will not replace the role of teachers or
even classrooms, any more than earlier much heralded technological innovations did.
And certainly, so far, interactive whiteboards have more often just replaced black-
boards than they have truly transformed the nature of teaching and learning.
None of this, then, really makes the future of urban education unrecognizable in
terms of the present. Barber (2004) has utilized the analogy of bicycles to explain the
historical and future development of classroom practice. The first bicycle ever
designed was innovative and had profound impact on the possibilities for transporta-
tion. However, the design was not as functional as possible, and a second generation of
bicycles soon evolved where in contrast to the earlier design both wheels were of equal
size. Today, the equal-sized-wheels bicycle persists and to the casual observer looks
essentially the same as it originally did. In a similar manner, classrooms throughout the
UK retain many historical features, for example teachers, students, using desks and
chairs, reading and writing, and so on. But there are more teaching assistants
and increased use of information technology. The difference – in both the classroom
and the bicycle – is in the detail and what Barber terms “precision.” For him, this has
brought with it huge improvements in performance.
1206 Campbell and Whitty

Yet, the debate about the extent to which urban education has changed is of limited
interest if it is not connected to wider questions about the purposes of urban schooling
and what counts as successful performance. Differences persist about whether urban
education is to serve individual or collective interests, and about whether such interests
are primarily economic or grounded in concerns about democracy and social justice.
Furthermore, it is unfortunately not entirely clear which set of policies supports which
interests. Diversity and personalization may be liberating or merely a novel way by
which people will opt into the tracks required by the economy. In this case, ‘old wine
in new bottles’ is the analogy that springs to mind. So, even after all the reforms of the
past century, and alongside an overall raising of educational standards, there is persist-
ing and in some cases growing inequality in educational outcomes for different student
groups along socio-economic, racial and gender lines.
In short, we see the future of urban education in the UK as being characterized more
by continuity than radical transformation. We would hope that future practices will be
concerned not only with conventional attainment measures, but also with supporting
equity of process and outcome for all groups and developing future citizens with a
range of social and emotional skills as well as cognitive ones. We envisage schools
becoming more connected to, rather than discrete from, other agencies and services
concerned with a child’s development and in building two-way purposeful partner-
ships with families and communities. But, as long as patterns of community segrega-
tion influence educational stratification and school hierarchies, the prospects for an
entirely equitable and fully inclusive approach to urban education remain distant.
Its future is therefore likely to continue to be characterized by educational conflicts
reflecting broader social and economic contradictions and by struggles over individual
and collective needs, public and private interests and secular and religious jurisdictions.
In this sense, the future of urban education in the UK is a reflection of the history of
urban education in the UK. The challenge before us is how we choose to respond to a
call to action for a just future in urban education. As Grace commented in his chapter,
this requires envisioning, nourishing, sustaining and acting on a “complex hope.” This
will need to combine a “pessimism of the intellect,” in which the current and historical
realities are examined and understood, with an “optimism of the will,” in which both
principled and practical possibilities for alternative futures are imagined and created for
cities and their schools and for the educators and students who inhabit them.

References
Barber, M. (2004). Speech at National Primary Conference, http://www.ncsl.org.uk/media/F7B/90/primary-
transcript-barber.pdf
BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENTS

Editors
Kevin Brennan has lived and worked in Lesotho, Kenya, South Africa, and Uganda,
and visited numerous other countries in Africa on a professional basis. He has served
as a consultant with the United Nations Centre Against Apartheid and the African-
American Institute, and is a former Director of African Programs for the School for
International Training, in which position he created and managed study abroad pro-
grams in a dozen countries in Africa. He is currently a Humphreys Fellow at the
University of North Carolina, where he is a doctoral candidate in education.
Belmira Oliveira Bueno is a Professor of Education at the University of São Paulo
(USP), Brazil, where she works since 1973. She was a Visiting Scholar at the School of
Education, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA), working with Dr. George
Noblit. Her research and pedagogical interests involve themes related to teaching,
memory and gender connected to school reforms, initial and in-service teacher educa-
tion. She was President of the Research Committee of the School of Education (USP)
and the editor of the Journal Educação e Pesquisa (Education and Research, USP).
She is author of several journal articles and books, including: The Social Construction
of Virtue. The Moral Life of Schools, as a Collaborator of Noblit & Dempsey (State
University of New York, 1996); co-author of Docência, Memória e Gênero (Teaching,
Memory and Gender, Escrituras, 1997) and A vida e o ofício dos professores (The
teachers’ life and work, Escrituras, 1998).
Carol Campbell is Team Leader of the Research, Evaluation and Data Management
Team at The Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat, Ministry of Education Ontario. Carol
immigrated to Canada from the United Kingdom in March 2005 to take up this role.
Previously, Carol was a member of faculty at the Institute of Education, University of
London. During her time in England, UK, Carol was seconded as a Policy Advisor
working for Central Government in the Department for Education and Skills. Her first
role as a Policy Advisor was working in partnership between central government and a
school district to support improved student achievement in a context of low performance.
In her next Policy Advisor role, Carol worked with the Commissioner for London
Schools on a government initiative, The London Challenge, to transform education
across all 33 school districts in London. Carol is originally from Scotland, UK. She
completed her Doctorate at the University of Strathclyde. This was followed by a post
1207
W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 1207–1228.
© 2007 Springer.
1208 Biographical Statements

at the University of Glasgow. Carol has international experience in research, evaluation

and policy work, including projects in all parts of the United Kingdom, across Europe,
the United States of America and Canada in areas including raising student achieve-
ment, school improvement, school effectiveness, the role and work of school districts,
large scale educational reform, school leadership in challenging circumstances, schools
working collaboratively with other agencies to support students, families and commu-
nities, parent engagement, and inclusive schooling.
Michèle Foster is an Educational Anthropologist and Sociolinguist who focuses on
the social, cultural, and linguistic contexts of education. She was Book Review Editor
(2001–2003) and Features Editor (2003–2006) for Educational Researcher and over the
years has served on many national committees and boards, editorial boards, and as a
reviewer for numerous journals. The recipient of 1.6 million dollars in external funding,
her research has been supported by federal awards and private grants from foundations
such as the Spencer Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation. Funded by the National
Science Foundation and OERI, her latest research project, Learning Through Teaching
in an After-School Pedagogical Laboratory (L-TAPL), developed after-school peda-
gogical laboratories for students that also served as professional development sites for
new teachers and examined the effect on the learning of children and the preparation
of teachers. Foster is author of over 50 publications including four books. Her articles
appear in journals such as Teachers College Record, Language in Society, Phi Delta
Kappan, and Educational Theory.
Masturah Ismail is an Educational Researcher at the Centre for Research in Pedagogy
and Practice (CRPP) in the National Institute of Education, Singapore. She is currently
involved in a CRPP intervention project to build teacher capacity in curriculum and
pedagogical design for low track students. She is co-editing the special issue on Muslim
Education for Asia Pacific Journal of Education with Sa’eda Buang, and ensures the
smooth running of Pedagogies: An International Journal as editorial administrator.
Allan Luke has returned to Australia after serving as foundational Dean of the largest
educational research center in the Asia Pacific, the Centre for Research in Practice and
Pedagogy at the National Institute of Education based in Singapore. He is currently
developing new research projects in early literacy, accountability and assessment, and
comparative pedagogies. He is co-editor of Teaching Education (Routledge), Review
of Research in Education (American Educational Research Association), Asia Pacific
Journal of Education (Routledge) and Pedagogies: An International Journal
(Erlbaum), and is a senior editor of The International Encyclopedia of Education
(Kluwer) and the Handbook of Curriculum (Sage).
George W. Noblit is the Joseph R. Neikirk Distinguished Professor of Sociology of
Education and Chair of Culture, Curriculum and Change in the School of Education at
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He specializes in the sociology of
knowledge, school reform, critical race studies, anthropology of education, and quali-
tative research methods. Currently, he has four ongoing research strands: School
Reform, Race and Education, Arts and Education, and Qualitative Research Methods.
His studies of school reform, especially “Comer” schools (funded by the Rockefeller
 Biographical Statements 1209

Foundation and OERI) have resulted in three recent books: The Kids Got Smarter:
Case Studies of Successful Comer Schools (Hampton Press, 2001), Cultural Matters
(Hampton Press, 2005) and Bringing Systemic Reform to Life (Hampton Press, in
press). Continuing a career of research on school desegregation and race equity in edu-
cation, James Leloudis and he are currently conducting an oral history study titled,
“Roads Not Taken in School Desegregation,” funded by the Spencer Foundation. He is
also completing nine years of research by writing a book about the A
Schools
Program, an arts-based school reform program, with funding from the Kenan Institute
for the Arts and the Ford Foundation. His last two books on qualitative methods were:
Particularities (Lang, 1999) and Postcritical Ethnography (Hampton Press, 2004). He
is also the co-editor of The Urban Review, a refereed scholarly journal.
Julius Nyang’oro is Professor and Chair of the Department of African and Afro-
American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A political eco-
nomist and lawyer by training, he holds degrees from the University of Dar es Salaam,
Miami University and Duke University. He has published widely in the fields of
African development and governance. Among his publications are: Discourses on
Democracy; and Civil Society and Democratic Development in Africa. He consults
regularly with NGOs in Africa.
Elisabet Öhrn is Professor in Education at Borås University College, Sweden. She also
holds a position as Associate Professor at Department of Education, Göteborg University
and as visiting Professor at Umeå University. Her main research area is the sociology
of education, with a special interest in gender, power, citizenship, class and ethnicity.
Recent funded projects have included Changing gender patterns in education (2000),
Young people as political actors (2001–2003), Identities and gender in everyday
schooling (2003–2006), Classroom interaction, teaching and learning (2004–2006
with Sverker Lindblad and others), and Creativity and performativity in teaching and
learning (2005–2006 with Dennis Beach and others). She has written a number of
research reports, books and articles in Swedish and international journals.
William T. Pink is Professor of Educational Policy and Leadership studies in the School
of Education at Marquette University. He is also co-chair of the doctoral program in
EDPL. He has published widely in the areas of delinquency, sociology of education,
school cultures, urban education and educational reform. Pink has just recently ended
a 10 year stint as the editor of Educational Foundations, and remains the co-editor of
The Urban Review. He is the editor of the book series entitled, Understanding
Education and Policy (Hampton Press). His latest book is entitled Cultural Matters:
Lesson Learned from Field Studies of Several Leading School Reform Strategies
(Hampton Press, 2005).
Gaby Weiner is Honorary Professor of Edinburgh University, her previous posts
including Professor of teacher education and research at Umeå University in Sweden
(1998–2005) and professor of educational research (1992–1998) at South Bank
University, London. She has written and edited a number of publications on social
justice, gender, race and ethnicity including: Feminisms in Education (1994); Equal
Opportunities in Colleges and Universities (1995, with Farish, McPake, & Powney);
1210 Biographical Statements

Closing the Gender Gap: Postwar Educational and Social Change (1999, with Arnot &
David), and most recently Kids in Cyberspace: Teaching Antiracism using the Internet
in Britain, Spain and Sweden (2005, with Gaine). She has been co-editor of two book
series: Gender and Education (with Deem) and Feminist Educational Thinking (with
Yates & Weiler). She is currently completing a book on the uses of auto/biography to
educational research, with Lucy Townsend, Northern Illinois University.
Geoff Whitty has been Director of the Institute of Education, University of London,
since September, 2000. He taught in primary and secondary schools before lecturing
in education at Bath University and King’s College London and then holding Chairs at
Bristol Polytechnic, Goldsmiths College and the Institute of Education. His main areas
of teaching and research are the sociology of education, education policy and teacher
education. He has led evaluations of major educational reforms and has assisted
schools and local authorities in building capacity for improvement. His publications
include Devolution and Choice in Education (with Power & Halpin), Open University
Press 1998, Teacher Education in Transition (with Furlong, Barton, Miles, & Whiting),
Open University Press 2000 and Making Sense of Education Policy, Sage Publications
2002 and Education and the Middle Class (with Power, Edwards, & Wigfall), Open
University Press 2003.

Contributors
Alwiya Alwy is a Doctoral Candidate at the Centre for Development Studies at
Flinders University in South Australia. Raised in Kenya, she won scholarships to
study for a Bachelor of Science in Statistics at Bombay University in India, a Master
of Business Studies from Massey University in New Zealand and a Master of Arts
(International Development) at Flinders University. Her interest in equity issues in
education has been ignited by her work as research consultant on education projects
for girls in her hometown of Mombasa. She published early research results in an
article on “Ethnic inequalities in education in Kenya” [International Education
Journal, 5(2)].
Eva Arnold completed her studies in Psychology at the Technical University of
Braunschweig, Germany, and earned a doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the
University of Bern (Switzerland). Since 1989, she has worked as a private lecturer at
the University Faculty of Educational Science in Hamburg, Germany. A major focus of
her scientific work concerns evaluation and quality management in higher education,
especially teacher education. Over the past few years she has been involved in studies
on teacher education at the University and the State Institute in Hamburg and has eval-
uated a number of projects on school development. She also teaches student-teachers
about evaluation and supervision.
Funwi Ayuninjam holds a B.A. in English and French from the University of Yaounde I
(Cameroon)/the Université de Paris XII (France), and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Theoretical
Linguistics from Georgetown University (USA). Ayuninjam is an Associate Professor
 Biographical Statements 1211

and Director of International Programs at Winston-Salem State University (North

Carolina). Ayuninjam is author of A Reference Grammar of Mbili (UP of America) and
serves on the editorial boards of the Brill Journal of Asian and African Studies, the
African Journal of Languages and Linguistics, and the SORAC Journal of African
Studies.
Elba Siqueira de Sá Barretto is an Assistant Professor at the School of Education,
University of Sao Paulo, and a Senior Researcher at the Carlos Chagas Foundation, an
institution that has been conducting research on education, gender and race for 37 years.
She is also editor of Cadernos de Pesquisa, an important Brazilian scientific periodical
on Education. She received the M.A. and the Ph.D. in Sociology from the University
of Sao Paulo. She conducts research focused mainly on compulsory education, covering
urban and rural areas, curriculum and assessment, as well as management and policies.
essb@fcc.org.br
Johannes Bastian studied Educational Science, Psychology and Sociology at the
University Hamburg, Germany in the 1970s, where he received a doctor’s degree in the
field of teacher education. He was a school teacher for some years, moving to the uni-
versity in the early 1980s where he held several positions. Since the mid 1990s he has
held a chair in educational science centred on the pedagogy of secondary schools and
on school development. Focal points of his research include problems of school, class
development and teachers’ professional development. Since the early 1980s he has
been on the editorial staff of a major professional journal Paedagogik, and is currently
overall editor of the journal.
Jill Blackmore is a Professor of Education in the School of Social and Cultural
Studies in the Faculty of Education at Deakin University. She is on several editorial
boards of international journals such as the British Educational Research Journal,
Regional Editor of the International Journal of Leadership in Education, past President
of the Australian Association of Research in Education and Editor of the Australian
Educational Researcher. She undertakes professional development with teachers,
principals and parents as well as policy consultancies to government. Her research
interests include feminist approaches to globalization and education policy, adminis-
trative and organizational theory, educational leadership and reform, organizational
change and innovation, teachers’ and academics’ work, and all their policy implica-
tions. Publications are Troubling Women: Feminism, Leadership and Educational
Change (Open University Press, 1999). Forthcoming publications include (with Judyth
Sachs) Performing and Re-forming Leaders: Gender, Educational Restructuring and
Organizational Change (SUNY Press).
Katrina Lynn Bledsoe is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at The College of
New Jersey who specializes in applied social psychology, community-based research
and theory-driven program evaluation, cultural contexts, and multicultural health. Her
10 years of experience evaluating community-based programs, and drug and crime
prevention efforts for communities of color add to her knowledge of how risky behav-
ior is associated with negative health, and social outcomes for communities of color.
Bledsoe is principal investigator of a community effort to reduce and prevent obesity
1212 Biographical Statements

among adolescents of color in the Trenton, New Jersey School district. Other projects
include analyzing the effectiveness drug prevention programs designed for adolescents
of color, and serving as Co-principal Investigator of a project focusing on leadership
development in African American leaders. Dr. Bledsoe specializes in both quantitative
and qualitative methodology, survey, focus group, and interview techniques. She holds
a Ph.D. in psychology from Claremont Graduate University.
Juan Ariel Bogliaccini is a Principal Researcher at Catholic University of Uruguay’s
Program about Integration, Poverty and Social Exclusion (IPES). His research has
focused on development issues with a strong focus on Latin America. In the educa-
tional policies field he studies decentralization processes in a comparative lens and its
impact on equity; and the impact of school organization on learning. He received his
Master of Arts from the Alberto Hurtado University (Chile), Magna Cum Laude, in
Education Policy, in 2005. He is the author of Las claves territoriales de la fractura
social urbana: Inseguridad y segregación en Montevideo (UCU, 2005) and co-author
of Las reformas educacionales en Chile y Uruguay: descentralización orientada al
mercado versus centralismo estatista (CIDOB Foundation, 2004); Tendencias de
aprendizaje y paradojas descentralizadoras en los sistemas educativos de América
Latina (Forthcoming in Konrad Adhenauer Foundation) and Los límites de la promesa
educativa en América Latina (Forthcoming in CIDOB Foundation).
Xavier Bonal is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the Autonomous University of
Barcelona and Director of the Social Policy Research Group (Seminari d’Anàlisi
de Polítiques Socials, SAPS) at the Department of Sociology of the same institution.
He has been visiting scholar at several international academic institutions and has
published extensively on educational policy and sociology of education.
Tim Brighouse is presently Chief Adviser for London Schools and Visiting Professor
at the Institute of Education, University of London. Until September, 2002 he was
Chief Education Officer in Birmingham for nearly 10 years. Earlier he was Professor of
Education at Keele University (1989–1993), Chief Education Officer of Oxfordshire
(1978–1989) and Deputy Education Officer in the Inner London Education Authority.
He was brought up in East Anglia, attended state schools and read history at Oxford
University before embarking on a career in education and teaching in grammar and sec-
ondary modern schools. He entered the world of educational administration in what was
Monmouthshire and served in Buckinghamshire and with the Association of County
Councils. Tim has written extensively especially on school improvement and has a num-
ber of books and articles to his name. He is author of What makes a Good School and
How to Improve Your School and has contributed articles to the Political Quarterly and
the Oxford Review of Education. He has also broadcast on radio and television and has
spoken at many national and international conferences. Tim has received honorary doc-
torates from The Open University, University of Central England, Oxford Brookes
University, Exeter University, Warwick University, Birmingham University, University
of the West of England and Sheffield Hallam University.
Tanya A. Brown is a Doctoral Candidate at Duquesne University, pursuing a degree in
Psychology, Clinical Concentration. She is a first-generation Canadian, and of Jamaican
 Biographical Statements 1213

descent. Tanya moved to the United States in 1999 to pursue her post-secondary studies.
Her research interests explore power dynamics within social groups, agency, and civic
efforts toward social change. Currently she is working on an ethnographic evaluation
of a community initiative. Her evaluation interests include qualitative methods, collab-
orative and participatory evaluation, and critical theories in the human sciences. She
presented recent work on an evaluation of the community initiative at the International
Congress of Qualitative Inquiry at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and
the 26th Annual Ethnography in Education Research Forum, at the University of
Pennsylvania.
Sa’eda Buang is a Lecturer at the Asian Languages and Cultures Academic Group,
National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. Currently pursuing
her Ph.D. at the same university in the field of Madrasah Education, she has presented
papers relating to madrasah and Islamic education at local and international seminars.
She has been interested in the Development of Madrasah Education by organizing train-
ing workshops for madrasah teachers since the 1990s and was involved in the Madrasah
Education Training Needs Analysis Project conducted by Islamic Religious Council of
Singapore, October 2003–April 2004.
Thabisile Buthelezi is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the University
of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. She teaches at undergraduate and postgraduate levels
and supervises postgraduate students. She is a qualified teacher; adult basic education
and training (ABET) practitioner, nurse and midwife. She has worked and published in
the areas of language and gender in education, education management development,
life skills, HIV and AIDS in education, curriculum, transformation and gender equity
in education. She has worked as a Nurse, Teacher, Programme Director (2004) for the
Bachelor of Education, lecturer and regional coordinator of education management
and development.
Glória Calvo received her BA in Philosophy and Psychology from the Catholic
University of Leuven, Belgium. She is a Researcher at the National Pedagogical
University, in Colombia, and the Coordinator of the Latin American Network of
Information and Documentation in Education (REDUC-Colombia). She is also the
Coordinator of the Democratic Culture in the Scholastic Institution Research Group,
recognized by the Colombian Institute for the Development of Science and the
Technology “Francisco Jose de Caldas” – COLCIENCIAS. She is author of several
books and papers on the field of education and pedagogy from a qualitative perspec-
tive. Her more recent book, The Improved Classroom, analyzes the practices from
classroom in the processes of educative reform in Colombia framework. Presently, she
is the editor of the Colombian Journal of Education, with 50 issues already published.
Melvin Chan is a Research Associate at the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and
Practice, NIE. He is currently involved in the Longitudinal Life Pathways study. He
holds a Masters degree in Population Studies from the Department of Demography at
ANU, where he examined a range of global demographic issues/trends, for example,
population changes, family norms/systems, impact of globalization and international
migration on education and labor force patterns. Prior to this, Melvin was a Policy and
1214 Biographical Statements

Research Analyst at the Ministry of Community Development and Sports. His role as a
Policy and Research Analyst involved overseeing various research projects on pertinent
social issues in Singapore, analyzing survey and administrative data, and producing
research/policy papers to support the Ministry’s policy/decision-making.
Karen Dooley teaches Language and Literacy in the Faculty of Education, Queensland
University of Technology. She is currently working on a three-year project investigating
African refugees’ construction of literate identities in an on-line multimedia environment
while attending an intensive language school, and during transition to other school and
community settings.
Luciano Mendes de Faria Filho is an Adjunct Professor of History of Education at
School of Education, Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil. He received
his Ph.D. from the University of São Paulo in 1996. His research and writing have
focused on the history of schooling and its culture in Brazil (from the late nineteenth
century until the beginning of twentieth century) and on historiography of education,
as a result of a History of Education Program that he runs at GEPHE (Grupo de Estudos
e Pesquisas em História da Educação/History Education Research Group) with the
support of CNPq and FAPEMIG Agencies. He is the 2003–2007 Vice-President of
Brazilian History of Education Association (SBHE). He is author of República, Trabalho
e Educação (Republic, Work and Education, São Francisco, 2000) and co-author of As
Lentes da História (The History Lens, Autores Associados, 2005).
Joseph Flessa is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theory and Policy
Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, of the University of Toronto.
As a graduate student he helped to establish U. C. Berkeley’s innovative urban-focused
Principal Leadership Institute. Before graduate school he taught sixth grade in
Houston, Texas, and taught fifth grade and served as principal of a school in Pachuca,
Mexico.
Leisha Fullick is Pro-Director (London) at the Institute of Education, University of
London. She coordinates the Institute’s strategy for London, and works closely on
issues to do with the London Challenge. Leisha has over 30 years experience of work-
ing in urban education. She started her professional life as a community education
worker working in Hackney and Islington on informal community based learning pro-
grams. She was an Inspector for Further and Higher Education with the former Inner
London Education Authority, she was Director of Education for the London Borough
of Lewisham from 1989 to 1996 and Chief Executive of Islington from 1996 to 2003.
She was a founding member of the UK Learning and Skills Council. She is a former
Vice President of the National Institute for Adult and Continuing Education and a long
standing member of its Board. She chairs of the Waltham Forest Strategic Education
Partnership Board in London.
David Gillborn is Professor of Education at the Institute of Education, University of
London. He is best known for his research on race and racism in education, which
includes qualitative studies of school processes and analyses of policy impacts over
time. David’s previous publications include Racism and Anti-Racism in Real Schools
 Biographical Statements 1215

and Rationing Education (with Youdell) which was awarded “best book in the field
of educational studies” by the Standing Conference on Studies in Education
(SCSE)/Society for Educational Studies (SES). He is also founding editor of the inter-
national journal Race, Ethnicity and Education. David is active in anti-racist politics
and his current research focuses on the application of critical race theory in the UK.
Francesca Gobbo is Professor of Intercultural Education at the University of Turin
(Italy), where she teaches Anthropology of Education. She studies and teaches con-
temporary educational issues from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective
that combines educational theory with methodological and theoretical approaches
from the fields of cultural anthropology and anthropology of education. She coordi-
nates research on Italian schools attended by immigrant pupils, and has carried out
ethnographic research among her country’s “internal minorities” such as the Albanian
speaking minority of Calabria, the Waldensian religious minority in Piedmont and the
occupational minority of traveling fairground and circus people. She is a member of
the International Association for Intercultural Education and European Education
Research Association, currently Associate Editor of Intercultural Education, and also
on the editorial boards of the European Educational Research Journal, Ethnography
and Education, and International Journal of Pedagogies and Learning.
Tuula Gordon is Associate Professor (Docent) and Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium
for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki. Her research interests include educa-
tion; young people’s transitions, citizenship and nationality; constructions of gender
and methodology (such as ethnography and life history approaches). She has pub-
lished in all these areas – for example Making Spaces: Citizenship and Difference in
Schools (Macmillan 2000, with Holland & Lahelma) and Democratic Education:
Ethnographic Challenges (Tufnell Press 2003, edited with Beach & Lahelma).
Gerald Grace established the MA Program in Urban Education (with special reference
to the inner city) at King’s College London in 1976. This was the first advanced program
in Urban Education in the UK. His research study Teachers, Ideology and Control:
A Study in Urban Education was published in 1978 and in 1984 he edited an influen-
tial collection of essays on Urban Education under the title, Education and the City:
Theory, History and Contemporary Practice. Gerald Grace is currently an Editor (with
Meg Maguire and Ian Menter) of the new series of texts, Education in an Urbanised
Society, being published by Open University Press/McGraw Hill Education. After
holding academic appointments in London, Cambridge, Wellington, New Zealand and
Durham, Gerald Grace is currently Visiting Professor at the Institute of Education,
University of London, where he heads the Centre for Research and Development in
Catholic Education. His latest book, Catholic Schools: Mission, Markets and Morality
(2002) examines the role of Catholic secondary schools in the inner cities of London,
Liverpool and Birmingham.
Jennifer C. Greene is a Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign, where she teaches and conducts research in program evaluation.
Her scholarship has focused on qualitative, democratic, and mixed-methods approaches
to evaluation, and her practice on educational programs and community-based programs
1216 Biographical Statements

for families and youth. Greene has served as co-editor-in-chief of New Directions for
Evaluation and is currently a member of the American Evaluation Association Board.
Her work has been published in both domestic and international evaluation journals,
and she has had the privilege of speaking at evaluation forums in many parts of the
world. In 2003, Greene received AEA’s Lazarsfeld Award for significant contributions
to evaluation theory.
David Hogan is Professor and Acting Dean at CRPP, where he also served as Vice Dean
(Research Methodology). Prior to that, he was Professor of Education at the University
of Tasmania, and before that, an Assistant Professor and Associate Professor at the
Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania. Professor Hogan has writ-
ten extensively about the history of education in the US and won a series of awards for
his work, including the American Educational Research Association Outstanding
Book Award (1986), the Henry Barnard Prize, the History of Education Society Award,
a Spencer Fellowship and a National Endowment of the Humanities Fellowship.
Rodney K. Hopson is Hillman Distinguished Professor, Associate Professor of
Sociolinguistics, Ethnography, and Evaluation, and Chair, Department of Educational
Foundations and Leadership, Duquesne University. Hopson has undergraduate and
graduate degrees in English Literature, Educational Evaluation, and Linguistics from
the University of Virginia, and has postdoctoral and visiting research and teaching
experiences from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Hygiene and Public Health,
the University of Namibia, and Cambridge University. His recent manuscripts related
to evaluation extend the ways in which the larger field, profession, and major profes-
sional organization come to terms with research on, issues about, and interests that
impact people (and scholars) of color and traditionally underserved communities. His
work emphasizes the need for evaluators to have a new set of skills, frameworks, and
ethical considerations around culture, diversity, and social justice in evaluation.
Margaret Hunter is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Mills College. Her research
interests are in pedagogy, racial inequality, and women of color in the United States.
Hunter is best known for her work on skin tone stratification in the African
American and Mexican American communities. She has published articles in jour-
nals such as Teaching Sociology, Gender & Society, Race and Society, and
Sociological Inquiry. She is also the author of Race, Gender, and the Politics of Skin
Tone (Routledge).
María De Ibarrola is a Full Professor (Cinvestav 3-E) at the Department of
Educational Research of the Center for Research and Advanced Studies (DIE CIN-
VESTAV IPN) Mexico, since 1977. She received her Ph.D. in Educational Research
from the Center for Research and Advanced Studies, Mexico, in 1990. She has pub-
lished many works mainly on technical education and its relationship to work and
employment. She is author of 75 articles and book chapters and 12 books. Most recent
publications include Paradojas recientes de la educación frente al trabajo y la inserción
social. (Recent Education Paradoxes facing the work and the social insertion – IIPE/
redEtis/ides, Buenos Aires, 2004 – Tendencias y debates) and Escuela, capacitación y
aprendizaje. La formación para el trabajo en una ciudad en transición (School,
 Biographical Statements 1217

preparation and learning. Education to working in a city in transition, by Cinterfor/

OIT, Mexico, 2004).
Carl James is in the Faculty of Education at York University where he teaches courses
in Urban Education, Adolescence, Foundations of Education. His research and publi-
cations explore issues of equity in relation to race, ethnicity, class, gender and immi-
grant status, as well as the ways in which youth use sports to negotiate and navigate
schooling. A former youth worker, James holds a Ph.D. in Sociology, and is a visiting
lecturer in the Teacher Training Department at Uppsala University, Sweden.
Martin Johnson was a Secondary Teacher for over 30 years, specializing in Social
Studies and pupils with challenging behavior in schools and units in Merseyside,
Yorkshire, and mostly inner London. This experience was distilled in his book Failing
School, Failing City (1999). He was also a trade union activist, and became President
of NASUWT in 2000. Martin then joined the think-tank the Institute for Public Policy
Research (ippr), where he monitored schools policy and researched the future of the
teaching profession, funding, admissions, schooling in London, school-business links,
personalization, and staffing schools in challenging circumstances. In January 2005
Martin joined the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, The Education Union as
Head of Education Policy and Research. At ATL Martin is supporting work on new
curriculum and assessment models. He is also involved with ATL’s work on school
workforce issues as a social partner with the Government, particularly new models of
teacher professionalism.
Trivina Kang is an Assistant Professor in the Policy and Management Studies
Academic Group and is presently seconded to the Centre for Research in Pedagogy
and Practice (CRPP). She joined NIE in July 2001 after obtaining her Ph.D. from New
York University (NYU), where she was also involved in teaching undergraduate level
Sociology. Trivina has experience in the area of political and economic research in the
Ministry of Defence, and also in short-term teaching in primary and secondary schools
in Singapore. She is currently involved in pre-service programs like the Post-Graduate
Diploma in Education and BA/BSc, as well in in-service programs like the Diploma in
Departmental Management (DDM). In CRPP, she contributes in the qualitative and
quantitative study of longitudinal pathways of students in Singapore and institutional
effects.
Cushla Kapitzke teaches in the Faculty of Education at the Queensland University of
Technology, Australia. Her publications include Literacy and Religion (Benjamins)
and two edited volumes, Difference and Dispersion: Educational Research in a
Postmodern Context (PostPressed) and Libr@ries: Changing Information Space and
Practice (Erlbaum). She is currently editing a special issue of Policy Futures in
Education on intellectual properties and education.
Jenni Karlsson joined the University of KwaZulu-Natal in 2005. She has a professional
background in education and librarianship and since 1994 has been involved in research-
ing education policy in the schooling sector. In 2003, she received a doctorate from the
University of London for her visual study of apartheid and post-apartheid discourses in
1218 Biographical Statements

school space. At the University of KwaZulu-Natal she is engaged in teaching research

students. Her own current research concerns city-school spatial relations in eThekwini,
with a focus on transport arrangements, through a range of visual method lenses.
Diane Ketelle is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education at Mills College.
Diane began her career as a first grade teacher and went on become an elementary
school principal and a district superintendent. While working in the field she won
numerous awards including two California Distinguished School awards while she was
a principal, as well as a California Distinguished Principal award before she was
named Superintendent/Principal of the Year for the State of California. She currently
directs the administrative credential program at Mills College.
Lisa Konczal is currently an Assistant Professor at Barry University in Miami, Florida.
She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Florida International University in 2001,
after years of research on Cuban and Nicaraguan Immigrants in South Florida. After
graduating, Dr. Konczal worked with Princeton University’s Center for Migration and
Development on the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS), which has
been tracking a panel of thousands of immigrants since 1995. Her current research
project is a study of educational aspirations and achievement among Middle-Eastern
American immigrants. Her most recent publication is Murdering the Alphabet:
Identity and Entrepreneurship among Second Generation Cubans, West Indians, and
Central Americans with Patricia Fernandez-Kelly in Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2005.
Wilfried Kossen studied Sociology, Economic and Social Psychology and Educational
Science with a focus on Qualitative Research Methods in Social and Educational Fields
and on Pedagogical and Psychological Methods of Counseling, at the University of
Goettingen, Germany. He has been a research fellow and a member of the Graduate
Research Group on Educational Experience and Learner Development at the Faculty of
Educational Science at the University of Hamburg since 2002. This research group
focuses on the learner’s role in learning processes. He has also worked on class devel-
opment and professional development of teachers and is in the process of completing
his dissertation on classroom interaction and the opportunities it provides for learning.
Yvonne Leeman is a Senior Researcher and Lecturer at the SCO-Kohnstamm-
Instituut and the Department of Education of the Universiteit van Amsterdam. She
combines this with a professorship in the School of Education at Windesheim
University of Applied Sciences. Her fields of interest include diversity in education,
social justice and intercultural education, and teachers’ professionalism and teacher
education. She published books, book chapters and refereed journal articles in these
areas in the Dutch, German and English language.
Zeus Leonardo is Visiting Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education at
University of California, Berkeley. Leonardo has published several dozen articles and
book chapters on critical and educational theory. He is the author of Ideology,
Discourse, and School Reform (2003, Praeger) and he is editor of Critical Pedagogy
and Race (2005, Blackwell), and co-editor (with Tejeda and Martinez) of Charting
 Biographical Statements 1219

New Terrains of Chicano(a)/Latino(a) Education (2000, Hampton). His journal arti-

cles have appeared in Educational Researcher; Race Ethnicity and Education; and
Educational Philosophy and Theory.
Carmen Luke is Professor at the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies, University
of Queensland, Australia. Her current research areas are literacy and new media, glob-
alization and higher education. Her work has been published in Harvard Educational
Review, Teachers College Record, International Journal of Cultural Studies, Journal of
Intercultural Studies, Educational Theory and her latest book is Globalization and
Women in Academia (Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001).
James H. Lytle (Torch) is Practice Professor at the Graduate School of Education,
University of Pennsylvania. He came to the University from the superintendency of
the Trenton Public Schools where he led an aggressive effort to implement New
Jersey’s urban education reform initiative. Prior to his appointment in Trenton in
August, 1998, he served in a variety of capacities in the School District of
Philadelphia as an elementary, middle, and high school principal; executive director
for planning, research and evaluation; regional superintendent; and assistant superin-
tendent. Dr. Lytle has been active in a number of national professional organizations,
including the Council of Great City Schools, the Cross Cities Campaign, and the
American Educational Research Association. He has written and presented frequently
on matters relating to the improvement of urban schooling. His research interests
relate to increasing the efficacy of urban public schools and leading school change
efforts. Dr. Lytle received his doctorate in education from Stanford, a master’s degree
in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and his bachelor’s
degree from Cornell University.
Barbara MacGilchrist is an Experienced Practitioner and Researcher. She was a
teacher, headteacher, and LEA Inspector and Chief Inspector in the Inner London
Education Authority for 23 years. Since joining the Institute of Education, University of
London, she has been Head of In-service Education, Dean of Initial Teacher Education
and is currently, Deputy Director. She is an Associate Director of the Institute’s
International School Effectiveness and Improvement Centre. In that capacity she has
engaged in a wide variety of school improvement research and development projects
and been an advisor to the government. She is the co-author of a number of successful
books, in particular, Planning Matters, (Paul Chapman Publishing, 1995), The Intelligent
School (Paul Chapman Publishing/Sage Publications, 1997, 2004) and Transforming
Learning and Teaching: We can if … (Sage Publications, 2005). In 2003 she was
awarded an OBE for her services to “the education and professional development of
teachers.”
Kinuthia Macharia is a Professor of Sociology at American University in Washington,
DC. He has received degrees from the University of Nairobi (BA) and the University
of California, Berkeley (M.A. and Ph.D.). His research on urban problems and devel-
opment in Africa has been published in a variety of journals. He just recently (March
2006) published his second book, The Social Context of the Mau Mau Movement in
1220 Biographical Statements

Kenya (1952–1960). Dr. Macharia has served as a consultant with UNDP, Ford
Foundation, the World Bank, the Government of Kenya, and the Population Council.
Samson MacJessie-Mbewe is a Senior Lecturer in Educational Policy and Leadership,
and Sociology of Education in the University of Malawi, Chancellor College. He is also
head of the Educational Foundations Department. He obtained a doctorate degree
(Ed.D.) from the University of Massachusetts and a Masters (MA Sociology and
Education) degree from Columbia University, USA. He has published articles in edu-
cation and gender, education and democracy, educational policy, and rural education.
He is also interested in HIV/AIDS and social development.
Grace C. L. Mak is a Principal Lecturer at the Department of Educational Policy and
Administration at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. She holds a doctorate in com-
parative education and sociology of education. Her work covers teaching, research,
teacher education program management and consultancy on development projects in
Asia. She has published on women’s education, basic education, and teacher education
in Hong Kong and China. She edited Women, Education and Development in Asia
(1997) and co-edited Higher Education in Asia (1998) (with Postiglione).
Gary McCulloch is Brian Simon Professor of the History of Education and Dean of
Research and Consultancy at the Institute of Education, University of London. He is
currently the President of the History of Education Society in Great Britain. He is a
former Editor of the international journal History of Education. His publications
include Cyril Norwood and the Ideal of Secondary Education (Palgrave Macmillan),
The Routledge Falmer Reader in the History of Education (Routledge Falmer),
Documentary Research in Education, History and the Social Sciences (Routledge
Falmer), Historical Research in Educational Settings (with Richardson, Open University
Press), and Failing the Ordinary Child? The Theory and Practice of Working Class
Secondary Education (Open University Press). He is currently completing (with David
Crook) an International Encyclopedia of Education (Routledge).
Ka Ho Mok is Chair Professor in East Asian Studies and Director of Centre for East
Asian Studies, University of Bristol. Before he joined the University of Bristol, he was
Associate Dean of Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and Convenor,
Comparative Education Policy Research Unit, City University of Hong Kong. He has
been researching on comparative education policy, with particular reference to devel-
opment and education governance change in East Asia. His most recent books are
Education Reform and Education Policy in East Asia (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2006
in print), Globalization and Marketization: A Comparative Analysis of Hong Kong and
Singapore (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2004); Globalization and Educational
Restructuring in the Asia and Pacific Region (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003)
and Centralization and Decentralization: Educational Reforms and Changing
Governance in Chinese Societies (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003).
Douglas Mpondi is an Instructor in the African Studies Program at Ohio University. He
has a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies and an M.A. in African Studies from Ohio University, an
M.A. in African languages and literature from the University of Zimbabwe. Douglas
 Biographical Statements 1221

has taught African literatures and cultures at the University of Zimbabwe for five
years. His teaching and research interests include international and comparative edu-
cation; African literatures, languages, and cultures; the intersection of postcolonial and
cultural studies; globalization, politics, culture and development in Zimbabwe and
Southern Africa. Douglas contributed a chapter on culture and development in
Zimbabwe in an edited text.
Gonzalo Muñoz-Stuardo received a Magister in Sociology at the Catholic University
of Chile. His areas of research are public management and modernization of the state
and educational policies. He worked in Asesorias para el Desarrollo, a Chilean
research and consultant office. Presently he is Vice-coordinator of primary education
at the Chilean Ministry of Education. He teaches sociology at the University Diego
Portales in Santiago. He is co-author of Escuelas Efectivas en Areas de pobreza ¿Quien
Dijo que no se puede? [Effective Schools on Poverty Areas: Who said it is not possible?]
(UNICEF-Ministerio de Educación de Chile, 2004) and Efectividad Escolar y Cambio
Educativo en Condiciones de Pobreza en Chile [School Effectiveness and Educational
Improvement in Poverty Areas in Chile] (Ministerio de Educación de Chile, 2005).
Dorothy Nampota is a Lecturer in Science Education in the University of Malawi,
Chancellor College. She is also head of the Curriculum and Teaching Studies Department.
She obtained a doctorate degree (Ph.D.) in science education from the University of
Bath and a Masters degree in the same area from University of London, Kings College,
in the UK. She has published articles relating to the science curriculum and gender and
science education. She is also interested in linking school science with local science,
transition issues between school and university and HIV/AIDS for the socio-economic
development of her country.
Na’ilah Suad Nasir is an Assistant Professor at the Stanford University in the School
of Education, where she has been since 2000. She has a Bachelors degree in psychol-
ogy from the University of California, Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Psychological Studies
in Education from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research focuses on
issues of culture, development, and learning and teaching and learning in cultural and
community practices outside of school. She has published in a wide range of profes-
sional journals including Educational Researcher, Journal of the Learning Sciences,
Anthropology & Education Quarterly, and the Harvard Educational Review.
Abou Karim Ndoye is an Educational Theorist who has elaborated methodological tools
for qualitative and quantitative data collection, for the management and evaluation of proj-
ects of education and control of schools. He has published more than twenty articles on
distance learning, the Senegalese education system with its actors and means and methods,
and issues of evaluation practices and internal and external efficiency. Dr. Ndoye is the
Director of the Tuition and Reform Program at Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar. In
addition, he teaches courses in the theory of education, psycho-pedagogy, and evaluation
of training programs and projects for institutions.
Kwabena Dei Ofori-Attah is originally from Ghana, West Africa. He completed his
Doctoral Studies in Education, June 1995 at Ohio University, Athens, OH. He taught
1222 Biographical Statements

at the University of the Cumberlands (formerly Cumberland College) before moving

to Capital University in Columbus, OH, where he is currently an Associate Professor
of Education. Dr. Ofori-Attah is a Research Fellow for the African Educational
Research Network (www2.ncsu.edu/ncsu/aern/index.html), as well as the founder of
the African Symposium, an online journal of the African Educational Research
Network (www2.ncsu.edu/ncsu/aern/afrisymp.html). He is a frequent reviewer of arti-
cles on Africa for a variety of organizations, individuals, and institutions.
Valerie Ooka Pang is a Professor in the School of Teacher Education at San Diego
State University. She has published several books such as Multicultural Education:
A Caring-Centered, Reflective Approach (2nd ed., 2005). In addition Pang has pub-
lished in various journals including Harvard Educational Review, The Kappan, The
Journal of Teacher Education, Action in Teacher Education, and Social Education.
Pang has consulted with organizations such as Sesame Street, Family Communications
(Producers of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood), and ScottForesman. Pang was a senior
Fellow at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University and honored by organizations
such AERA, San Diego State, and the University of Washington’s College of Education.
Tryphenia Peele-Eady is Assistant Professor of Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural
Studies, in the College of Education at the University of New Mexico. She was Associate
Editor for Features in Educational Researcher and a former elementary language arts
and social studies teacher. She completed her undergraduate studies in education at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees
from the Claremont Graduate University, of the Claremont Colleges. Her research
interests include anthropology, qualitative and ethnographic research methods, and
sociolinguistics. Her work focuses on issues related to the education and schooling of
African American children.
Alicia Peñalva is Assistant Lecturer in education the Department of Psychology and
Pedagogics, University of Navarra (Spain). His main fields of work include Curriculum
Studies, and gender and multicultural perspectives in education. He has presented a
number of papers at national and international conferences, and published several arti-
cles in recognized journals. He has contributed to the publication of three books:
Modern Society and Multicultural Challenges; Education and Cultural Diversity; and
Proposals for School Guidance and Tutorials.
Priscilla Puamau is currently an Education Adviser on the Pacific Regional Initiatives
for the Development of basic Education (PRIDE) Project at the University of the South
Pacific based in Fiji. She has worked for close to 24 years in the field of education in
various capacities: secondary school teacher, teacher educator, and Principal. She is
also the President of the Pacific Association of Teacher Educators (PATE). Her current
research includes the reconceptualization of education reform in the Pacific and the
impact of foreign aid on this process.
Dagmar Raczynski, Ph.D. in Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles, is
Director of Asesorías para el Desarrollo, a Chilean research and consultant office, and
Professor of Sociology at the Catholic University in Santigo. She also lectures at a
 Biographical Statements 1223

Master Program in Public Management and Policies at the University of Chile. She is
author of books and articles on issues of social policies, inequality, poverty, decentral-
ization and local government. In the last years she has done research and consultancy
on educational policies. In this subject she is co-author of Escuelas Efectivas en Areas
de pobreza ¿Quien Dijo que no se puede? [Effective Schools on Poverty Areas: Who
said it is not possible?] (UNICEF-Ministerio de Educación de Chile, 2004) and
Efectividad Escolar y Cambio Educativo en Condiciones de Pobreza en Chile [School
Effectiveness and Educational Improvement in Poverty Areas in Chile] (Ministerio de
Educación de Chile, 2005).
Xavier Rambla holds degrees in History and Sociology and a Ph.D. in Sociology from
Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). He has been a lecturer at University of
Vic (1995–2001) and a researcher at the Critical Coeducation Program of the UAB
Institute of Education (1994–2000). Since 2001 he has been Associate Professor of
Sociology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. His research is concerned with
education policy, gender and education, and social and educational inequalities. He is
a researcher at the Seminar for the Analysis of Social Policy (Department of Sociology,
UAB, http://selene.uab.es/_cs_gr_saps).
Anita Rampal is Professor of Elementary and Social Education at the Department of
Education, Delhi University, Delhi, and a member of the Executive Committee of the
National Council of Educational Research and Training. Originally trained as a
Physicist, her involvement in the Hoshangabad Science Teaching Program for rural
schools inspired her move to elementary education, with a focus on curriculum devel-
opment and pedagogy. Her special interests include cognition and the language of
science, everyday mathematics and adult numeracy, policy frameworks for equity in
education, assessment of children’s learning, and science-technology-society educa-
tion. She has been a member of the People’s Science Movement, was involved in the
national literacy campaigns, and helped set up the National Literacy Resource Center.
Her recent work includes the co-authored Public Report on Basic Education (PROBE,
OUP 1999), Numeracy Counts! (1998), books in Hindi, research papers and reports,
and also films documenting people’s participation in the literacy programs.
Richard Riddell is a Visiting Fellow in the Faculty of Education, University of the
West of England at Bristol. His research interest in urban schooling arose from his
long professional experience as a teacher and local authority officer, including nearly
seven years as an urban Director of Education. His first book, Schools for Our Cities,
was published in 2003 by Trentham Books. He is currently researching the develop-
ment of social capital for working class students which may have an impact on educa-
tional attainment and occupational betterment. This is being undertaken with the
support of a research grant from the British Academy.
Etelvina Sandoval is Ph.D. in Pedagogy and a Professor at the National University of
Pedagogy (Mexico). She was the 2001–2005 Director of Normal Education and Teaching
Improvement in Mexico City. With more than 20 years in educational research, she has
carried out research in a ethnographic perspective into teaching practices in primary
schools, the feminine condition in teaching, school management at a secondary level
1224 Biographical Statements

and the training of teachers at a basic education level, among other themes. She is the
author of several articles published in books and research journals. Among her publi-
cations are the books La trama de la escuela secundaria: institución, relaciones
y sabere [The Plot of Secondary School: Institution, relaships and knowledges] which
has been used for the teacher’s education in secondary-school. She is a founding
member of the Mexican Council of Educational Research.
Roger Saul is a Doctoral Candidate in the Faculty of Education at York University.
A certified high school and middle school teacher, his interests include the schooling
experiences and media representation of student athletes, and the role of race and
gender in the schooling experiences of “at risk” males. His most recent publication is
How Black Male Student Athletes Get Stereotyped in Canadian Schools in Our Schools,
Our Selves (2006), 15, p. 2.
Susanne Schech is Associate Professor in Geography and the Director of the Centre
for Development Studies at Flinders University in South Australia. She co-authored
Culture and Development: A Critical Introduction (Blackwell, 2000) and Development:
A Cultural Studies Reader (Blackwell, 2002), and has written articles and book chapters
on race and migration and on ICTs and development.
Ove Sernhede is Professor in Social Work and the head of the Centre for Cultural
Studies at the University of Goteborg, Sweden. He has mainly been involved in
research on different aspects of youth culture and music, Afro-American culture, psy-
choanalysis and social pedagogies, all of which are explored within a frame of Late
Modernity. His most recent research involves youth, culture and patterns of segrega-
tion and social exclusion in contemporary Sweden, and draws on urban studies, inter-
national research on modern forms of poverty and cultural globalization. He is the
author of several books and articles. His latest study is AlieNation is My Nation
(Stockholm: Ordfront 2003). Books in English include In Garageland: Youth, Rock
and Modernity (London: Routledge 1995, with Fornös & Lindberg), and Lifestyle,
Desire and Politics (Daidalos, 2002, with Johansson). The forthcoming Youth and the
Plural City: Social Life and Modes of Belonging (Goteborg: Daidalos, 2005, is an out-
come of collaboration with Mette Andersson and Yngve Lithman from the University
in Bergen, Norway).
Denise Trento Rebello de Souza is an Assistant Professor at the School of Education –
University of São Paulo, where she works since 1989. She received her Ph.D. in
Education in 2001 from the Institute of Education – University of London. Her research
and writing has focused on the field of Educational Psychology, particularly on the
processes and practices developed in the school everyday life that are related to the dif-
ficulties in the processes of schooling of students from the popular classes, including
the analyses of educational programs devised to deal with the so called school failure.
Her current area of interest involves the issue of teacher professional development
within the context of the new technologies.
Marilene Proença Rebello de Souza holds a Ph.D. degree in Psychology. She works
as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology of Learning, Development
 Biographical Statements 1225

and Personality of the Institute of Psychology – University of São Paulo, where she
teaches in graduate and undergraduate courses. She also coordinates the Laboratory of
School Psychology. Her area of research is School Psychology and Educational
Psychology in which she has authored and co-authored several books and journal articles
including Psicologia Escolar: em busca de novos rumos (Casa do Psicólogo, 4th ed.
2004); Psicologia e Educação: desafios teórico-práticos (Casa do Psicólogo, 2nd ed.
2002) and Psicologia e Educação na Amazônia: pesquisa e realidade brasileira (Casa
do Psicólogo, 2002).
Sandra Zákia Sousa received her Ph.D. in Education from the University of Sao Paulo,
in 1994; the Master Degree in Education (Supervision and Curriculum) from the
Catholic University of Sao Paulo, 1986; and the Bachelor Degree in Education from
the Mackenzie University, 1975. Since 1991 she has been an Assistant Professor at the
School of Education, University of Sao Paulo. In the Graduate Course of Education she
concentrates her works on the area of “Government, Society and Education”. From
1982 to 1991 she was a Technical Adviser for the Foundation for Student Assistance at
the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports. From 1971 to 1981 she was faculty
member of Mackenzie University and other educational institutions. Currently she is
and adviser for educational projects, particularly in the field of educational assessment.
She has focused her studies in this latter field and the results have been reported in sev-
eral publications and events. She is the vice-president 2006–2008 of ANPEd (National
Association for Education and Research). sanzakia@usp.br
Bob Teasdale is the Director of the PRIDE Project at the University of the South
Pacific (USP), having worked on projects in the Pacific region for over 25 years. Bob
is from Adelaide, South Australia, where he taught at Flinders University and was
active in research and consultancy in the fields of indigenous, cross-cultural, compar-
ative and international education, and in values education. From 1997 to 2003 he was
Director of the Flinders University Institute of International Education.
Guillermina Tiramonti hold her undergraduate course in Political Science at the
Universidad del Salvador and received her M.A. on Education at Facultad Latinoamericana
de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO). Since the year 2000 she is the Director of FLACSO
Argentina. She is also Professor and Academic Coordinator of the “Master in Social
Sciences and Education” at FLACSO and Professor of Educational Policies and
Member of the Academic Board at Universidad Nacional de La Plata. She has worked
as consultant for numerous national and international organisms (Latin American
States Organization –OEI-, ECLAC, National Agency for Public Administration –
INAP-, and World Bank). She has written four books, edited other four and is author
of several articles on education and education policies published in Argentina and
abroad. Her last publication as editor is La trama de la desigualdad educativa.
Mutaciones recientes en la escuela media, Buenos Aires: Manantial, 2004 (The plot of
the educational inequality. Recent mutations in middle school).
Lyn Tett is Professor of Community Education and Lifelong Learning at the
University of Edinburgh. Her research interests are the factors such as class, gender,
“race” that prevent people from participating in education and the action that can be
1226 Biographical Statements

taken to develop more inclusive institutions. She and her research team have been
investigating the role of multi-agency educational partnerships in promoting social
inclusion since 1998. Her latest books are Adult Literacy, Numeracy and Language:
Policy, Practice and Research (Open University Press) edited with Mary Hamilton and
Yvonne Hillier and Community Education, Lifelong Learning and Social Inclusion
(Dunedin Academic Press).
Pat Thomson is Professor of Education and Director of Research in the School of
Education at The University of Nottingham and an Adjunct Professor at the University
of South Australia. She worked for 25 years in community schools in neighborhoods
made poor, 20 of them as deputy principal and principal. She was also a senior public
servant in the state education system responsible for policy and planning. Her research
interests centre on questions of power, place, pedagogy and identity and current
research projects focus on the creative arts, inclusion and school change and on provi-
sions for students excluded from school. Her publications include Schooling the
Rustbelt Kids: Making the Difference in Changing Times (Allen and Unwin, Australia;
Trentham, UK, 2002) and with Barbara Kamler, Helping Doctoral Students Write:
Pedagogies for Supervision (Routledge, 2006).
Agnès van Zanten is a Senior Researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique. She works at the Observatoire Sociologique du Changement, a research
centre of Sciences-Po Paris. She is also the director of RAPPE (Réseau d’Analyse
Pluridisciplinaire des Politiques Educatives), an international network on educational
policy. Her main research areas are the reproduction and transformation of social
advantage in education, elite education, the organizational and professional dynamics
of schools and local public action in education. She is also interested in qualitative
research methods and international comparisons. She has published several books and
many articles on the sociology of education and on her topics of interest. Her most
recent publications include, L’école de la périphérie. Scolarité et ségrégation en
banlieue (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 2001), Les politiques d’éducation
(Paris, PUF, 2004) and Sociologie de l’école with M. Duru-Bellat (Paris, Armand
Colin, 3rd ed., 2006).
Diana Gonçalves Vidal is an Associate Professor of History of Education at School of
Education, University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil, where she received her Ph.D. Her
research and writing have focused on the history of schooling and its culture in Brazil
(from the late nineteenth century until the beginning of twentieth century), and also on
historiography of education. She runs her projects at NIEPHE (Núcleo Interdisciplinar
de Estudos e Pesquisas em História da Educação/Interdisciplinary Group of Studies and
Research in History of Education) with the support of CNPq Agency. Presently, she is
the 2003–2007 elected President of SBHE (Brazilian History of Education Association).
She is author of Cultura Escolar (School Culture, Autores Associados, 2005) and
co-author of As Lentes da História (The History Lens, Autores Associados, 2005).
Trinidad Molina Villegas is a Doctoral Student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign, pursuing a degree in Educational Policy Studies. She is a first-generation
immigrant-college student from Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico. Although part of her
 Biographical Statements 1227

childhood was spent in Mexico, she was also raised in San Jose, California, where she
attended high school and community college. She went on to transfer to the University of
California, Irvine, where she completed her B.A. in Sociology, and minored in Chicano/
Latino Studies, and Spanish. Some of her research interests include the educational
experiences of undocumented immigrant students in the U.S., issues of race, language and
culture in evaluation, and Latina/os in higher education (access, retention, persistence and
degree completion).
Philip Woods is Professor of Leadership and Educational Management, in the School
of Education, University of Aberdeen. He has written and researched extensively on
educational policy, leadership and governance, as well as exploring issues of creative
social action and governance in sociological theory. Current research interests include
democracy and educational leadership, related forms of leadership (such as distributed
and collegial leadership), diversity and collaboration amongst schools, alternative
forms of education, and entrepreneurialism and public values in the drive to modern-
ize educational organizations and their leadership. He is the author of Democratic
Leadership in Education, published in 2005.
Rui Yang is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education, Monash University. He
received his undergraduate education in English and Masters and Doctoral education
in Comparative Education. He has taught and researched at Shantou and Hong Kong
Universities in China and Sydney, Western Australia and Monash Universities in
Australia.
Benjamin Zufiaurre is Professor of Education and Head of Department for
Psychology and Pedagogics at the Public University of Navarra (Spain). His main
fields of interest include Curriculum Studies, Teacher Professionalism, Educational
Evaluation, Gender and Multicultural Educational Perspectives, and Social and
Professional Development. He has published more than 50 articles in journals, both in
Spanish and in English, and also books on the following topics: educational reform in
Spain (1982–1994); comprehensive school, professional development and social jus-
tice; didactics of women teachers; educational evaluation and school participation;
democratic evaluation and cooperative school projects; infant school teaching as a job
for women; infant school women teachers: who they are?; how can we change educa-
tion without taking account of teachers: reflections on 35 years of Change in Spain
1970–2005; modern society and multicultural challenges; and education and cultural
diversity.
SUBJECT INDEX
1998 Integrated Household Survey 116
A Nation at Risk 309, 330, 861, 862
Abolition of Corporal Punishment Act 163
Aboriginal students 251
Accountability 251
Achievement gap 361, 773, 797, 806, 884,
933, 934, 1109, 1115, 1169, 1171
Adult schools 52
Advancement Via Individual Determination
(AVID) program 887, 889
Affirmative action 222, 256, 518, 693,
698, 699, 700, 782, 811
Affirmative Action Agency 259
Affirmative action legislation 253
African National Congress 104
Afrol News 117, 125
Agency 53, 214, 260, 262, 357, 360, 363,
370, 374, 375, 389, 392, 407, 447, 450,
453, 459, 487, 490, 500, 623, 670, 682,
788, 852, 853, 855, 875, 877, 916, 934,
935, 938, 939, 940, 965, 968, 973, 1010,
1017, 1033, 1045, 1055, 1059, 1062,
1063, 1068, 1072n.2, 1114, 1133, 1135,
1136, 1164, 1213, 1226
Agency, human 373
Agency, social 373, 374, 375
Algebra Project 888–891, 892, 898
Allocation system 688, 689
Anti-child culture phenomenon 148,
152–153
Anti-racism 253, 261, 404, 811, 979, 990,
996–997, 1002n.13
Antiracist education 381, 403, 811
Anti-racist education 964, 996,
975n.9, 1000
1229
Anti-semitism 403, 788
Apartheid 6, 7, 92, 94, 96, 100, 102,
106, 107, 109, 111, 112, 146, 147,
148, 149, 151, 152, 154, 162, 179n.3,
779, 798
Apartheid, post- 6, 7, 8, 91, 94, 103–110,
111, 112
Apartheid city 96–97, 101, 102,
103–110, 111
Argentina 563, 575, 576, 747, 748, 749
Arts-based methodologies 148, 155, 156
Asian Development Bank 330
Assessments 376, 575, 578n.10, 615, 627,
790, 875, 1052
Assimilation 54, 252, 259, 427n.6, 527,
790, 829, 833, 949
Association for the Development of
Education in Africa 20nn.12, 23
At risk, schools 4, 92, 189, 818, 1020,
1053, 1055
At risk, students 189, 199, 215, 224, 226,
391, 484, 497, 540, 550, 891, 981,
1145, 1146
Atlas Linguistique de l’Afrique Centrale
(ALAC) 53
Atlas Linguistique du Cameroun
(ALCAM) 53
Attractionist 408, 485, 481, 482, 483,
480–500, 500nn.1, 7, 14, 15, 17
Australian Ethnic Affairs Council 254
Australian Youth Surveys (AYS) 361
Autonomies 505, 507, 515, 517, 518
Autonomous, communities 418, 420, 421,
27nn.2, 3, 428n.6, 508, 514
Autonomous, governments 408,
505–517
1230 Subject Index
Basel Missionaries 28
Bilingualism 61, 63, 64, 66–69, 95, 267,
783, 791
Bilinguals 51, 61, 62, 63, 371, 383, 388,
437, 455, 717, 718, 829, 834, 918
Bilinguals, true 61
Blackies 468, 477
Black/white gap 985, 986, 987, 1166
Blantyre 115, 126
Boarding schools 40–44, 45, 52, 95, 321
Brazil 572–573, 581, 601, 619
Brazilian Law for Education Guidelines and
Norms, the 602
Brazilian Ministry of Education 606
British Birth Cohort Study (BCS) 361, 363
British colonial government 26, 31
British Department for International
Development 214
British Secretary of Finance 215
Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems
Theory of Human Development
148, 152
Brown v. Board of Education 794, 860,
866, 877, 1200
Capital 3, 7, 9, 10, 58
Capital, cultural 7, 79, 118–119, 122, 123
Capital, human 9, 20n.16, 28, 31, 225
Capital, social 79, 195
Catchment areas 433, 517, 518, 1204
Central Bureau of Statistics (Kenya)
142n.1
Central Province 7, 66, 130, 132, 134, 208
Centralization of the government 61
CEPAL 568, 577n.9, 578nn.10, 14, 665,
666, 690
Change 7, 11, 12, 19nn.4, 7, 31, 66, 76,
78, 79, 83, 84, 86, 100, 106, 110,
121, 122, 123, 130, 131, 151, 153, 164,
177, 210, 231, 234, 252, 260, 261, 266,
269, 274, 292, 306, 311, 314, 316, 330,
344, 354, 356–357, 367, 373, 387, 390,
391, 419, 450, 516, 565, 573, 629, 653,
654, 655, 671, 696, 697, 712, 740, 753,
790, 805, 806, 809, 871, 910, 915, 935,
950, 971, 1027, 1028, 1065, 1086,
1100, 1110, 1116, 1147, 1167, 1170,
1184, 1185
Child abuse 148, 743
Child development 137, 152, 361,
713, 1020
Chile 573, 577, 641–643, 645–660
Chinese Communist Party 232
Chinese language 56, 1186
Chisomo children’s club 117
Christian missionaries 25, 323
Christian religion 28, 35, 44
Citizenship 448–449, 451–453, 459–460,
574, 583, 584, 782, 888, 969
Citizenship, political 87, 448
Citizenship, social 448
Citizenship, urban 447–460
City technology colleges (CTCs)
953, 1013
Class line 233
Classroom, instruction 53, 163, 442,
497, 554
Classroom, management 145, 100, 145,
178, 191, 280, 403, 443
Clean cities 295–297
Code mixing 63–66
Code mixing, grammatical 65–66
Code mixing, lexical 64
Code mixing, syntactic 65
Code switching 63–65
Co-essentiality 148, 153, 164
Co-existentiality 148, 153
Colombia 574, 665–667, 674, 677, 679,
681nn.3, 15, 20, 682n.22
Colonial, administrations 26, 30, 37, 40,
45, 80, 122, 130
Colonial, government 25, 26, 30, 31, 32,
40, 43, 80, 82, 122, 130
Colonial, ideologies 207, 208, 268–269
Colonial, language 15, 16, 49, 50–52, 71
Colonial Merchant Society 40
Colonialism 15, 71, 87, 130, 267, 269,
283n.2, 322, 1057
Colonization 222, 269, 282, 322, 323, 751
Commission for Racial Equality 998, 999
Common Entrance Examination 62
Common Principles 232
Common Schooling 302
Communality 423, 456, 528, 529, 531, 534
Compensating policies 667, 668, 681n.13
Compensation 507, 508, 512, 518,
868, 877
Compensation, coordinated 507, 508, 512

Compensation, intensive 507, 508, 512,
513, 519
Compensation Royal Decree, the 505
Compensatory education 406, 408,
505–519, 626–627, 1041
Competencies, basic 368, 369, 535,
574, 712
Competencies, citizens’ 43, 306, 676
Competencies, work 553, 555, 574
Complex hope 970–972, 974
Compulsory education 236, 237, 239, 245,
246nn.4, 5, 302, 339n.5, 492, 509, 511,
686, 742
Compulsory Education Act of 1870 288
Confucian societies 345, 348
Consumerism 326–367
Convention on the Rights of a Child 155
Corporal punishment 163, 177
Critical consciousness 969, 970
Critical literacy 383, 390, 391
Critical Race Theory (CRT) 811
Cultural, capital 7, 118–119, 126, 235,
426, 668, 669, 681n.11, 842, 844–846,
852, 890
Cultural, differences 252, 499, 530,
855n.9, 899n.3, 1057, 1148, 1204
Cultural, dissonance 831
Cultural, heritage 55, 67, 371, 530, 851
Cultural, relativism 255, 262
Cultural, struggle 75
Cultural Revolution 235–236, 352, 360
Culture, national 75–88, 417
Curriculum 28, 35–39, 43, 44, 84, 85, 88,
145, 151–152, 154, 162, 177, 178, 254,
281, 282, 325, 326, 327, 331, 334, 337,
338, 390, 403, 433, 609–611, 744n.3,
854, 862, 873, 876, 1012, 1153,
1177, 1180
Curriculum, literary studies 62
Curriculum reformation 321, 325,
326, 336
DDT 288
Declaration on Education For All 292
Deficit theory 886, 899n.3
De-industrialization 384, 464, 517, 1049
De-institutionalization 360, 363, 367
Department for Education and Skills (DfES)
1020, 1052, 1113
Subject Index 1231
Department of Education 150, 158, 163,
594, 867, 875, 876
Department of Linguistics, University of
Yaounde 53
Deprivation Theories 626–627
Deprived Urban Children 285–303
DeSeCo Project 368
Desegregation 866, 877, 889
De-traditionalization 360, 363, 367,
368, 370
Dialogue for Civic Action (DCA)
913–914
Dialogue journal 156–157
Diaspora, African 19, 56
Difference 8, 28, 55, 57, 63, 88, 110,
112, 116, 133, 134, 138, 140, 155,
197, 241, 244, 245, 254, 261, 262,
263, 277, 351, 385, 387, 424, 433,
442, 451, 452, 456, 465, 497, 500,
526, 529, 530, 532, 545, 547, 562,
563, 570, 603, 613, 666, 668, 669, 670,
681n.9, 707, 727, 729, 736, 759n.3,
781, 783, 795, 806, 809, 837, 844, 846,
850–853, 871–872, 913, 930, 936, 948,
949, 981, 995, 1001n.3, 1011, 1016,
1045, 1081, 1082, 1083, 1084, 1087,
1088, 1098, 1111, 1112, 1129, 1148,
1149, 1152, 1170
Dinaledi project 151–152
Diourbel province 183
Disadvantaged Schools Program 252
Discrimination, gender 211, 351, 353
Distributive justice 3, 7, 132, 133,
535, 962
District Education Plan 126
Dominant culture 118, 425, 476
Drop-out 205, 209, 210, 213, 848
Drop-out, rates 134, 213, 507, 526,
827, 831
Durban 91–113, 145–179
Durban City Council 96, 100, 101,
107, 111
Dutch schooling 26, 29, 524, 531
East Asia 222–223, 305–317, 343, 350,
354, 356
Economic Structural Adjustment
Program 78
Education, free 205, 216, 217
1232 Subject Index
Education, primary 117, 620–625,
686–696
Education, reforms 307, 641, 647, 653,
864, 1007–1024
Education, resources 234, 241
Education, system 117–118, 657, 748,
920, 929–930, 986, 1117
Education, urban educational 26, 29, 39,
43, 53, 77, 864, 905–924, 930,
931–940, 943–954, 959–976,
1105–1108, 1123–1136, 1139–1154,
1157–1171, 1175–1181, 1183–1190,
1191–1198, 1199–1202, 1203–1208
Education Act of 1961 326
Education Action Zones (EAZs) 953,
1019, 1113–1114, 1115
Education as a Fundamental Right
291, 302
Education Partnership Boards (EPBs)
1132–1134
Education Reform Act 945, 950, 964, 985,
1009, 1010, 1011, 1013, 1017, 1082
Educational, access 7, 78, 82, 134, 136,
232, 448, 573, 623, 677, 678, 680n.2,
864, 918, 968, 1200
Educational, dualism 323–329, 331
Educational, inequality 135, 252,
509–513, 525, 706–707
Educational, institution 330, 678,
681n.18, 708
Educational, justice 232, 235
Educational, policy 407, 432, 507–508,
647, 655–657, 671–678, 709, 794–798,
938, 995, 1080, 1118
Educational, progressivism 260
Educational, reform 547–549,
566–578, 655
Educational, revolutions 235, 967
Educational opportunity, equal 133
Educational Reform 80, 81–86, 689–691,
950–954, 983–986
Educational resources, unequal distribution
of 238, 245
Educational system, French 432
Effective Provision of Pre-School Education
(EPPE) 1098
E-learning initiatives 506
Elementary and Secondary Education Act of
1965 (ESEA) 860, 861, 862, 908
Elementary education, at Cape Coast 28
Elite education 233–234
Enculturation 483, 489–491
English, as second language (ESL) 381,
384, 918
English as an Additional Language
(EAL) 991
English language 16, 179n.6, 388
English language, Pidgin-English 6, 52, 53
ENS (Ecole Normal Supérieure) 63, 188–189
Entrepreneurial universities 224
Environmental Education 297
Equal opportunity 139, 256, 260,
686, 834
Equality, survival 133
Equity 20nn.7, 14, 139, 140, 224, 227,
233, 238, 245, 249, 251, 253, 255,
256–257, 258–262, 302, 423, 518,
536n.2, 568, 658, 665–682, 689, 691,
696, 697, 861, 863, 886, 898, 980, 995,
998, 999
Equity, educational 132–134, 139, 223,
232, 567, 574, 578n.13, 644, 665–682
Equity, pedagogical 574, 665, 679–682
Equity in education 3, 7, 132–134
eThekwini 91, 92–93, 99, 104, 107,
108, 111, 112n.4
Ethic of care 883, 885–887, 891, 893, 898
Ethnic diversity 254, 456, 980, 1165, 1204
Ethnic identity 130, 837
Ethnic minorities 129, 258, 355, 949
Evaluation 312, 354, 362, 612–615,
625–626, 633, 649, 672, 673, 676, 677,
678, 679, 707, 719, 742, 775, 873,
900n.13, 905–924, 1019, 1062, 1067
Evaluation, language of 906–909
Evangelization 51
Evening schools 232, 405
Exclusion 451, 453, 456–459, 464, 483,
602, 630, 702n.19, 749, 939, 991–1002,
1108, 1113, 1139, 1140
Faculty Student Mentor Program (FSMP)
887, 891–893
Federal Labor 252, 256
Federal Linguistic and Cultural Center
(FLCC) 61, 62
Femocrats 253
First official language 56, 57, 59

First World Conference on Muslim
Education 332, 337
First-language instruction 53, 54, 59
Formal education 9, 19n.2, 49, 122, 494,
620, 728
Formal schooling 25, 44–45, 405, 406, 734
Fragmentation 570, 576, 578n.11, 679,
750–753, 755
Free Primary Education 117, 123
French Agency for Cultural and Technical
Cooperation (ACCT) 53
French language 52, 61
Full Day Classes (FDC) 645
Full Time Schools (ETC) 690, 694, 700
Gang violence 157
Gender, equality 344, 346, 348–349, 351
Gender, inequality 347–354
Gender discrimination 211, 351
Gender Empowerment Measure
(GEM) 347
Gender equity reform 253
Gender equity units 253
Gender gap 345, 347–354
Gender roles 349, 355–357
Gender-related Development Index
(GDI) 347
Gentrification 384, 386, 399, 769,
1079, 1201
German language 51
Ghana 5, 19nn.1, 3, 4, 23, 25, 26, 33,
34, 35
Ghetto 465, 476, 779, 780, 781, 785, 786,
789, 794, 798n.1, 810
Global knowledge economy 184
Globalization 16, 221, 223, 225, 231,
245–246, 291, 305–317, 367–368,
370–372, 373, 391, 399, 407, 449, 508,
566–567, 576, 577n.6, 671, 709
Glocalisation 407, 413–428
GNP 116, 132, 136, 399, 464
Gold Coast 5, 25–45
Government of Kenya 136, 138, 140, 208,
213, 217
Government of Malawi 127
Government of the Hong Kong Special
Administrative Region (HKSAR) 308
Grade repetition 143n.4, 607, 622,
702n.15
Subject Index 1233
Graduation rates 237, 365, 518
Graduation rates, non- 506, 509, 511, 512,
513, 514, 517, 518
Grassroots information campaigns 58
Great Reforms 252
Greater Diourbel Middle School 188, 189,
191, 199, 200n.2
Group Areas Act 97, 98, 100, 107, 149
Heads of households 116
Hegemony 5, 87, 109, 303, 326, 329, 331,
338, 625, 671
Heterogonous classrooms 439
High culture 118–119, 265, 374, 382
High modernity 363, 368, 370
Higher education, inequalities
239–243, 244
Higher Normal School for Teachers 63
Higher standards 235, 449, 1015, 1167
Hip-hop 389, 786, 789, 792, 793, 794, 795
Hip-hop, global tribe 407, 463, 475
Historical materialism 206
HIV infection 145, 148, 157, 175
HIV prevention 156
HIV/AIDS 117, 124–125, 137, 1184
Homogenous classrooms 94, 696
Hoshangabad Science Teaching Program
290, 1223
House Resolution 4437 924
Human ability 670
Human capital theorists 125
Human Capital Theory 20n.16, 257,
335, 728
Human development 8, 131, 148, 152,
344–345, 347, 516, 603, 626, 641, 678,
685, 738
Human Development Index (HDI) 345,
347, 514
Human development performance 131
Human Rights Watch 158
Identity formation 3, 6, 9, 75, 77, 275,
355, 363, 368, 370, 374, 402
Ideology 325, 780, 886, 888, 894, 896,
965, 1031
ILO 141, 727
Imam-Khatib schools 328, 329,
335, 339n.5
Immigrant reception programs 506, 518
1234 Subject Index
Immigration, first-generation 826,
830, 918
Immigration reform 918
Inclusion 124, 256, 451, 452–453,
456–459, 506–508, 511–512, 518, 634,
749, 1109, 1139, 1140, 1145
Inclusion of street children 120, 124–125
Indian People’s Tribunal for Environment
and Human Rights 295
Indigenous language 6, 15, 16, 49, 50, 54,
56, 57, 58, 61, 71, 80, 274
Individualization 260, 261, 367, 368, 370,
371, 373, 551, 553, 753–755, 759
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
(PL 94-172) 860–861, 871
Industrialization 208, 232, 234, 322, 343,
348, 349, 351, 354, 372, 564, 583, 619,
620, 910, 947, 1008
Industrialization, mass 208
Inequalities, higher education
239–243, 244
Inequalities, urban-rural 231–246
Inequality, educational 135, 252, 509–513,
525, 706–707
Inequality, social 129, 477, 562, 578n.10,
680, 707, 1022, 1095
Informal education 212, 408
Informal settlements 8, 108,
113n.11, 205–217
Inner London Education Authority (ILEA)
945, 951, 952, 953, 959, 962, 964,
975nn.9, 13
Incentive distortion 516, 517
Institutional racism 987, 990, 997
Integrated Community Schools (ICS)
1144, 1145–1147, 1148
Intelligence, interpersonal 176
Intelligence, intrapersonal 176
Intelligence, multiple 176, 1012
Intercultural education 425–427, 517,
527, 718
Inter-cultural education 717
Internal minorities 399, 499, 1215
Internalization 315
International Association of Conference
Interpreters (IACI) 61
International Islamic University 332
International Monetary Fund (IMF) 17,
20n.11, 21n.20, 82, 227
Intersectionality 405
Islam Hadhari 332, 339n.7
Islamic education 222–223, 332,
334, 337
Islamic revivalism 327, 331, 334
Islamization 327, 331, 332, 333
Islamization, of knowledge 321, 331,
332, 333
Islamization, of language 331, 333
Islamophobia 403
Kamal Attarturk, Mustafa 324
Kenyan Government 136, 138, 140, 208,
213, 217
Key-point school system 237, 244
Kiandutu 209
Kibera, Nairobi 9, 207, 209, 215–216
Kwetu Home 213
Labor markets 374, 562, 727, 729,
730, 732
Lack of course books 191
Language processing skills 56
Language processing skills, reading 56
Language processing skills, writing 56
Law of Compulsory Education 236, 239
Law of Unification of Instruction 324
Learning, disadvantage 936, 937,
1033–1035
Learning, transfer 1031, 1033
Learning cycles 572, 601–616, 1031,
1033, 1038
Learning environment, un-conducive
205, 1115
Learning problems 625–626, 628, 629,
630, 633, 649, 679, 1057
LEM Strategy 656
Life Orientation Learning Area 177
Life pathways 359, 360, 364
Life skills education 176
Lines of flight 252
Linguistic flight 56
Linguistic liberalism 51, 67
Literacy 78, 83, 116–117, 232, 280, 335,
346, 381–392, 603, 610–611, 626, 634,
666, 833, 949, 969, 970, 1011, 1034,
1063, 1089
Literacy education 381, 382, 383, 386,
387, 389, 390

Literacy levels 117, 146, 382, 610, 949
Local authorities (LAs) 1128–1136
Local education authorities (LEAs) 945,
950, 951, 953, 981, 1020, 1089, 1110,
1116, 1118, 1119n.5, 1129
London County Council (LCC)
951, 952
Longitudinal studies 361, 1080, 1084
Longitudinal Survey of Australian
Youth (LSAY) 361, 362,
364, 366
Madrasah 223, 321–338
Malawi 7, 19n.1, 115–127
Malawi Congress Party 122
Malawi Education Status Report 116
Malawi Government’s Policy and Investment
Framework (PIF) 119
Malawi Poverty Reduction Paper 116
Malaysia 311, 314, 323, 324,
326–327, 332
Marx, Karl 781, 968
Mass education 233–234, 1124
Massification 76, 257, 563
Matric endorsement 146
Mau Mau war 208
Middle school 183–201, 888, 889
Migratory movements 419, 424
Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) 361
Millennium Development Goal 117, 126
Millennium Development Goal of Universal
Primary Education 117
Ministry of Education 85, 123, 124, 127,
190, 234, 235, 237, 241, 309–311, 351,
529, 606, 623, 641, 656, 657
Ministry of Education in Singapore
309–310, 311
Ministry of National Education 53
Misinterpretation of multiparty democracy
121–124
Mission school 40, 53, 251
Missionary schools 51
Mixed blood children 251
Modernization 328, 338, 370, 567, 723n.3,
734, 779, 781
‘Moodu-moodu’ 193, 195, 200–201
Mosaic multiculturalism 255
Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) 78
Subject Index 1235
Multi-agency working 1109, 1139, 1140,
1141–1144, 1145–1154, 1164
Multicultural and Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islanders Education 253
Multicultural education 254–255, 407,
715, 783, 812, 846
Multiculturalism 249, 254–255, 259, 414,
421, 782, 811, 996
Multilingualism 19n.4, 68, 267
Multi-party democracy 121
Multiplicity 49, 51, 71, 263, 370, 377n.1,
585, 718, 1190
Muluzi, Bakili 122
Muslim 24, 222, 250, 260, 472,
525, 527
Muslim, education 223, 321–339
Nairobi Province 130–131
National Board of Education (ANEP)
688, 698, 701, 701nn.1, 5, 702nn.8,
11, 15–18
National College for School Leadership
(NCSL) 1050
National Council for Educational Research
and Training (NCERT) 287
National Education Forum of 1995 68, 71
National Educational Longitudinal Studies
(NELS) 361–362
National identity formation 3, 6, 9
National Language Education Program of
1967 53, 55
National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS)
361, 362, 364
National Policy for the Education of
Girls 253
National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) 205
National Science Council (NSC) 309
National Service Training Centers 86
National Statistical Office 116, 345
Nationalist Party 96
Native language 51, 53, 59, 67, 69, 71,
681n.3, 836, 872
Neighborhood nationalism 451–453, 459
Neoliberal policy 224
Neoliberalism 262, 390
New Labour Government 932, 933, 938,
939, 940, 1088, 1128, 1131, 1135,
1145, 1157, 1160, 1204
New managerialism 257
1236 Subject Index
New South Wales Anti-Discrimination
Act 253
No Child Left Behind Act 809, 814
Nomadic students 484
Nomadism 400, 483, 484, 485, 489
Non-governmental organization 205, 212,
226, 355, 743
Non-school learning settings 894
Normal School 570, 594, 599n.6, 709–724
Norms and Standards for School
Funding 150
North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) 250, 575, 733, 734
Office for Standards in Education
(Ofsted) 934, 992, 995, 1010, 1011,
1082, 1089, 1092, 1099, 1114, 1129
Office of Multicultural Affairs 259
Official language 59, 62, 69, 70, 72n.12,
80, 233
Olympic Primary School 9, 215–217
Ominde Report of 1964 139
“Operation Bilingualism” 62
Operational Research Project for Language
Education in Cameroon 53
Oral tradition 56
Organization of Islamic Conferences 332
Outcomes-Based Education (OBE)
151, 177
Overcrowding 120–121, 126, 127,
161, 207
P-900 Schools Program 653
Participation and Equity Program 253
Pedagogic management 651, 653
People’s Religious Schools 334
People’s Republic of China 231, 246n.1
Peripheral schools 619
Pesantren 321, 322–323, 327, 329,
330–331, 336, 337
Pillarization, Dutch 524
Plural School 610, 613–614
Polarization 438, 442, 723n.10
Policy recommendations 139, 861
Pondok 321, 323, 324, 329–331
Population distribution 26, 565, 695
Postmodernity 367, 368, 370, 377n.1
Primary education, free 117, 123, 205,
215, 216
Primary School Leaving Certificate
Examination 118
Principle of equity 139
Problem solving skills 56
Professional development 535, 543–544,
632–633, 644, 655, 656, 659n.3,
724n.23, 767, 863, 867, 868, 1012,
1050, 1055, 1064, 1066, 1067, 1095
Professional perspectives 432, 434, 1148
Protection of Fundamental Rights and
Freedoms of Individual 138
Psychological evaluation 626, 633
Public Education Ministry (SEP) 717
Public expenditure 9, 11, 20n.19, 21n.19,
50, 132, 238, 256–257, 509–510, 511,
643, 691, 1018
Public expenditure on education 9, 50,
643, 1018
Public policy 137, 306, 313, 315, 317,
774–775, 794, 938, 1058, 1059, 1061,
1159, 1167, 1189
Public policy, local 206
Public policy, national 206
Pupil attainment 1016, 1056, 1095,
1096, 1153
Push-outs 205, 209, 213
Quality education standards 184
Quality teaching 184, 199
Quasi-market 930, 1010, 1013–1016,
1018, 1028–1029, 1110, 1113
Queensland 255–256, 390
Racial diversity 782, 1165–1166
Racial groups 98, 112n.2, 206
Racialization 842, 849
Racism, European 403
Racist incidents 989
Reform, standards-based 1089
Regional schools 52
Religious education 223, 228, 260, 324,
325, 327, 330, 333–334
Republic of Cameroon 67
Retention rate 120
Revised National Curriculum
Statement 150
Rift Valley Province 7, 130, 131,
132, 135
Rural-urban migration 121, 208, 270

Saturday schools 405, 191
School climate 8, 183–201
School effectiveness research
1081–1085, 1087
“School Ordinance” 53
School performance 193–195, 490, 492,
498, 540, 625, 866, 875, 908, 985,
1017, 1081, 1111
School reform 775, 798
School safety 4, 8, 878
Schoolmaster 28
Schools, alternative 294, 302, 860, 866
Schools, anomic 439–440
Schools, bottom strata 936–937,
1030–1031, 1034, 1035, 1036, 1037,
1038, 1040, 1043, 1117
Schools, charter 787, 817, 862–864, 1112
Schools, committed 439–440
Schools, entrepreneurial 437, 441
Schools, extended 29, 99, 527, 1039,
1044, 1164, 1165
Schools, full service 1039
Schools, functional 1065
Schools, Graded 572, 582, 588–589,
590–592, 598, 615
Schools, home 581, 585–588, 937
Schools, isolated 589, 590, 605
Schools, magnet 866
Schools, mixed 409, 432, 437–439, 442,
525, 528, 531, 535
Schools, monument 588–589
Schools, municipal 291, 572, 606, 608,
609, 610, 614, 642, 652
Schools, pre- 57, 400, 455,
865–866, 1098
Schools, single teacher 553, 586, 604
Schools, state 25, 424, 433, 436, 442, 449,
614, 953, 1124
Schools, traditional 104, 436–437, 441,
442, 607–608, 866
Schools, voucher 569, 672
Schools, working conditions in 608, 612,
613, 646
Schools Commission 252, 1015
Schools facing challenging circumstance
(SFCC) 1052, 1057, 1058, 1061
Secular education 325, 328, 332, 686
SED Plan 672
Segmented assimilation theory 829, 837
Subject Index 1237
Segregation 431–444, 476, 477, 525, 526,
528, 540, 565, 566, 575, 578n.12, 658,
687, 695, 698–702
Segregation, socioeconomic 525
Segregation, residential 687, 698, 702n.19
Sekolah Agama Rakyat 334
Sekolah desa 324
Sekolah Menengah Agama Negeri 334
Selective acculturation 829, 835
Sessional Paper No. 10 of 1965 137
Shebeens 149, 154, 159–160, 175
SIMCE system 658
Singapore 224–225, 226, 227, 309–310,
311, 343, 345, 346, 347, 348, 349, 350,
351, 352, 353, 354, 360, 363, 369,
370–377
Singapore Life Pathways Project 360, 376
Singapore Management University (SMU)
310, 311
Situated learning 739–741, 742
Small learning communities 867
Social advantage 133
Social capital 335–338, 439, 524, 752,
813, 833, 912–913, 914, 973–974,
1146, 1163, 1164
Social competence 176–177, 491
Social disadvantage 133, 147, 374, 931,
934, 1088, 1096, 1098, 1139, 1159
Social inequality 129, 562, 578n.10, 680,
707, 1022
Social justice 249–263, 302, 448, 507,
531, 535, 939, 962, 963, 969, 971, 999,
1022, 1045, 1139–1141, 1152,
1157–1158, 1169–1171
Social justice, policies 257, 1139
Social justice in education 132, 139, 255
Social mobility 32, 216, 251, 680, 749,
806, 845
Society for International Development
(SID) 131
Socioeconomic groups 133, 660n.7
Socioeconomic status 551, 623, 832
Socio-economic status households, high
116, 615, 893
Socio-economic status households, low
697, 773
Son preference 353, 354
South African Constitution 155
South African Schools Act 150
1238 Subject Index
South African War 96
Special education 872
Special educational needs (SEN) 981, 991,
1029, 1140
Standard Assessment Tasks (SATs)
1088–1089, 1092, 1094
Standard school-leaving certificate 146
State’s Religious Secondary School 334
Stephen Lawrence Inquiry 980, 983,
990, 997
Street children 117, 124–126, 127,
211–214, 215, 708
Structural adjustment programs 11, 213
Student assessment 193, 508, 540
Student discipline 195
Students, rural 78, 194, 238, 240, 241, 242
Substance abuse 148, 274
Subtractive schooling 786
Suburban, inner- 841–842, 843, 846, 849,
850–855
Suburban, outer- 842, 845, 850–855
Sure Start programs 1093
Symbolic power 118, 669
Taiwan 308–309, 311, 345, 346, 347, 348,
349, 350, 351
Targeted action 516, 1020
Target Group Deepened Interviews 187
Teacher allocation 689
Teacher characteristics 187
Teacher development 656, 1063–1064
Teacher education 391, 401, 403, 409,
449, 539–556, 570, 575, 608, 632,
705, 709, 710, 712, 713–716, 719,
720–722, 723nn.10, 12, 15, 16,
724n.22, 975n.9
Teacher education, cooperation 542, 543,
548, 550, 551
in-service teacher 403, 554, 632
in-service teacher, training 409, 539,
542, 543, 554, 555–556, 576, 632
Teacher education, reform 539, 541,
544–550, 556, 570
Bologna process 539, 545, 546
Center for Teacher Education 549
Commission for Teacher Education
544, 548
Reform of Teacher Education in Hamburg
546–549
school placements 542, 549
school development 540, 550–556, 1063
school development, research projects
551–552, 556
Teacher preparation 710, 1050
Teacher stability 689, 697
Teacher unionization 868
Teacher’s Service Commission 214
Teachers, daike 239
Teachers, minban 239
Teachers’ qualification 185
Teacher-student relationship 651
Teaching methods 192, 660n.13, 952
Teenage pregnancy 145, 148, 361
Tertiary education 49, 117, 146, 313,
351, 365, 517
Theory of speech production,
Watsonian 57
Thika 209
Third Human Development Report 131
Torridzonian Society 39
Trading centers 24, 322
Training, on-the-job 730, 731, 734,
737–738, 741, 742
Transformative Curricula 289–291
Transitional Bilingual Learning Community
(TBLC) program 918, 919
Transitional school 302
Trilingualism 68
Tunza Dada 213
Umlazi Township School 145, 148, 154
U.N. Convention on the Rights of the
Child 138
Underteacher 197, 198
UNDP 645
Undugu Society of Kenya (USK) 9, 205,
212–217
UNESCO 16, 21n.24, 49, 57, 69, 72nn.4,
9, 275, 313, 577n.9
UNICEF 124, 214, 660n.7
Unit for the Measurement of Educational
Results (UMRE) 691, 693, 702
United Democratic Front 122
United Nations 141, 415, 564,
596, 1184
University of São Paulo (USP) 606
University of Yaounde I 53, 54, 62,
63, 1210

University Teacher Training School 188
Upward Bound (UB) 890–891
Urban boarding schools 40–44, 52, 276
Urban disadvantaged 938, 1089, 1113,
1151, 1153, 1161
Urban education, reforms 75–88, 871
Urban elite 119, 386
Urban Foundation, the 102
Urban history 943, 946
Urban jungle 780, 789, 792
Urban pedagogies 1035–1041
Urban policy 207, 208, 210, 1118
Urban poor 94, 108, 111, 132, 135, 210,
211, 213–214, 272, 292–293, 294,
788, 790, 863, 879
Urban poverty 211, 216, 272, 453
Urban schools, developing countries 115
Urban squatters 295
Urban suburbs 841
Urban township 146, 149, 164, 175,
178, 1183
Urban township, environment 147,
159, 161
Urban township, learner 164
Urban township, schools 146, 147,
151, 161
Urban townships, life 147, 149, 150, 152,
157, 158, 159, 161
Urbanization process 23, 621
Uruguay 574–575, 685–702
Subject Index 1239
Vernacular languages 51, 278
Vernacular schools 324, 330
Village schools 52, 324, 454
Vmbo schools 526
Voucher, schools 569, 672, 674–676
White Australia 249, 251
White Australia Policy 250
White Paper 2005 1015–1016, 1044,
1135, 1167–1168
White schools 78, 104
White supremacy 783, 810, 812
Women, education of 344
Women, status of 344, 347, 354, 356
World Bank 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15–18,
20nn.9, 11, 13, 17, 21n.20, 23, 211,
241, 295, 343, 562, 564, 567, 568, 1186
World Bank and International Monetary
Fund 213, 907, 1186
Youth Cohort Study (YCS) 981, 983, 985
Youth culture 381, 384, 387, 391, 404,
473, 476–478
Youth literacies 384, 390
Zero tolerance policies 847–848
Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic
Front 81
Zimbabwe Schools Examination
Council 84
AUTHOR INDEX

Abad Marquez, L. V. 416, 421, 422, 428 Amaral, T. P. 634

Abagi, O. 129, 132, 143 Ames, L. 1957
Aboutaleb, A. 526 Amrein-Beardsley, A. 869
Achilles, C. 1063 Amutabi, M. N. 138, 139
Ackland, H. 1081 Anache, A. A. 634
Adams, J. E. 870 Andaló, C. S. A. 631, 632
Adanu, S. 32 Anderson, B. 398, 1178
Adebowale, S. A. 3, 15, 19n.1 Anderson, C. S. 185
Adnett, N. 1010, 1111 Anderson, D. 26, 45
Adnett, P. 1110 Anderson, E. 789, 792
Adorno, T. 1198 Anderson, G. 1067
Aggleton, P. 1140 Anderson, N. 766
Aguiar, W. M. J. 634 Anderson, S. 1129
Aguila, E. 659 Andrade, I. R. 613
Agyemang, F. M. 28 Andreas, J. 239
Ahmed, Z. 296 Angelucci, C. B. 625
Ahrne, G. 406 Anguiano, R. 361
Aitchison, J. 1108 Anisef, P. 844, 846
Al-Attas, S. M. N. 332, 339n.6 Annan, G. 995
Alavarse, O. 618 Ansell, D. 1064
Alba, R. D. 825 Anyon, J. 399, 401, 404, 805, 807
Aldaz, I. 420 Aparicio Gomez, R. 414, 421
Alexander, J. 388 Apple, M. W. 85, 92, 907
Alexander, R. 225 Apple, M. A. 290
Al-Faruqi, I. R. 331, 339n.6 Archer, L. 405
Algina, J. 361 Arelaro, L. 623
Alkins, K. 870 Arendt, H. 1195, 1198
Allen, A. 846–847, 850 Argyris, C. 697
Allen, J. 91 Arnaut, A. 710, 723n.9
Allen, R. E. 148 Arnesen, A. 400
Alloway, N. 381 Arnold, E. 409, 549
Almeida Filho, N. 577 Arnot, M. 402
Altbach, P. G. 269 Arroyo, M. G. 608, 631
Altet, M. 632 Asante, M. K. 872
Althusser, L. 628 Ashcroft, B. 269
Altrichter, H. 552, 554 Ashenden, D. 1057
Ålund, A. 453 Ashton, P. 361
1241
1242 Author Index

Askew, S. 1132 Barnes, H. V. 865

Asmal, K. 109 Barnett, J. 1058
Aspland, T. 1065 Baron, S. 1145, 1146
Assaél, J. 636n.15 Barranco, D. 748
Assie-Lumumba, N. T. 20nn.10, 11, 16 Barrenechea, E. 419, 420
Astuto, T. A. 872 Barreto, E. S. 623
Athey, C. 1098 Barroso, J. 567
Atkinson, D. 953 Barrow, J. 949
Atkinson, M. 1140 Bartels, F. L. 35
Atkinson, P. 627 Barthon, C. 438
Axelrod, P. 844 Bartlett, D. 1117
Ayuninjam, F. 6, 53 Barton, A. 290, 796
Azanha, J. M. P. 631, 632, 636n.15 Barty, K. 1067
Azevedo, F. de 592, 593, 599nn.3, 7 Bascia, N. 869
Bastian, J. 409, 549, 552, 554, 555
Babbie, E. 155 Bastos, M. H. C. 586
Babkes, M. 893 Baudelot, C. 628
Bacchi, C. L. 1056 Bauder, H. 843, 844
Bacchus, K. 268 Bauman, Z. 371, 419, 754, 755,
Bache, I. 316 756, 758
Back, L. 451, 452, 477 Beach, D. 406
Badger, L. 1058 Beady, C. 185
Badosa, J. 506 Beane, J. 506
Baeta, A. M. B. 625 Beauregard, R. 450
Bagley, C. 1010, 1029, 1030, 1106, 1110, Beavis, C. 388
1116, 1117 Beavon, K. S. O. 92
Baichman-Anisef, E. 844 Beca, C. E. 660n.12
Bailey, T. 873 Beck, U. 370, 371, 754
Baker, W. K. 869 Becker, H. J. 873
Baldwin, J. 816 Béduwé, C. 728, 744n.6
Balibar, E. 477 Beecher, A. 818
Ball, M. 1140 Behn, R. D. 1136
Ball, S. 432, 434, 569, 1029, 1035, 1051, Beisiegel, C. de R. 620
1056, 1072n.5, 1168 Bell, D. 811, 932
Ball, S. J. 405, 930, 1010, 1028, 1029, Bell, K. 1110, 1114
1105, 1116 Bell, L. 1056
Ballou, D. 541 Bellei, C. 660nn.6, 7
Bamgbose, A. 55, 56 Beltrao, K. I. 614
Bancroft, K. 817 Benhabib, S. 448
Bandura, A. 185, 625 Bening, R. B. 29
Bane, M. 1081 Benshoff, H. 793
Banks, J. 782, 783 Benson, K. 23, 24, 25
Banks, J. A. 996, 1000 Benson, P. 388, 893
Banks-Santilli, L. 870 Bergen, P. 336
Banton, M. 130 Berger, P. 779
Barbadillo Griñan, P. 424 Berliner, D. D. 869
Barbanti, M. L. H. 585 Bernal, D. 768
Barber, M. 867, 953, 1205 Bernal, E. 734, 735, 744n.8
Bárcena, R. 714 Bernstein, A. 92
 Author Index 1243

Bernstein, B. 436, 667, 680, 967, 974n.2, Bourdieu, P. 118, 228, 286, 419, 426, 464,
1028, 1035, 1094 566, 628, 646, 667, 668, 669, 678, 680,
Bertaux, D. 186 681nn.9, 11, 12, 751, 753, 833, 890,
Bertoni, A. 748 1033, 1069
Bessant, J. 1072 Bowe, R. 933, 1010, 1028, 1029, 1056,
Beynon, J. 846 1110, 1168
Bezanson, K. 803, 804 Bowen, F. 185, 200
Bgoya, W. 15, 19n.4 Bowles, S. 812
Bhabha, H. K. 79 Boyd, M. 845
Bhattacharyya, G. 981, 982, 1001n.6 Bradley, S. 1010
Bhatti, G. 988 Bradshaw, J. 1022
Bhavnani, R. 996 Brady, M. 149, 159
Bhengu, R. 146 Braidotti, R. 398
Bhopal, K. 981 Brain, K. 1113, 1115, 1116
Bibby, J. 45 Branch, C. 715
Biggs, J. B. 225 Brandão, Z. 625
Billah, M. M. 331, 336 Brandenberger, A. 1119n.4
Black, P. 874 Braslavsky, C. 577, 578, 749
Blackmore, J. 222, 223, 224, 227, 254, Brassard, A. 185
256, 258, 262, 381, 1067 Brault, M. C. 184
Blair, A. 981, 995, 1148 Bravo, D. 660n.6
Blair, M. 203, 995 Bray, M. 224
Blair, T. 932, 998, 1050, 1106, 1123, Bredie, J. W. B. 11, 21n.22
1130, 1158 Brehony, K. 949
Blakemore, K. P. 39 Brenan, G. 418, 419
Blatchford, P. 1063, 1083 Brewer, M. 1028
Blauner, R. 784 Bridglall, B. 506
Blazak, R. 842 Brighouse, T. 936, 940, 1007, 1019,
Bliss, J. R. 185 1029, 1030, 1066, 1092, 1093,
Blömeke, S. 548 1119n.6, 1157
Bloom, B. S. 185 Brimelow, P. 766
Bock, A. M. B. 634 Brink, E. 146
Bogdanor, V. 1129 Briones, G. B. 45
Bogliaccini, J. A. 574, 688, 696, Broadfoot, P. 435
697, 698, 699, 701nn.4, 6, Broccolichi, S. 438
702n.20 Brock, C. 268
Bogotch, I. 1067 Brodsgaard, K. E. 316
Bohannan, P. 69 Bronfenbrenner, U. 152, 153
Bond, L. 869 Brooker, L. 1033
Bonel, M. M. 609 Brooker, R. 1065
Bonilla-Silva, E. 790 Brookover, W. B. 185
Bonnett, A. 990, 1002n.13 Brooks, A. 224
Booth, S. 383 Brooks-Buck, J. 923n.1
Borman, G. D. 873 Brooks-Gunn, J. 1057
Boserup, E. 356 Brown, C. 1070
Bosker, R. J. 652 Brown, L. 818
Böttcher, W. 543 Brown, M. 790
Bottery, M. 1106 Brown, P. 971, 1028
Bounds, A. 450 Brown, S. 873
1244 Author Index

Brücher, A. 435 Calhoun, C. 333

Bruner, J. 625, 1036 Callaghan, J. 945, 1082
Brunet, L. 184, 185, 200 Callahan, R. 814
Brunner, J. J. 652 Calvo, G. 681nn.3, 4, 8, 665
Bryant, M. 951 Camargo, M. 681nn.4, 8
Bryce-LaPorte, R. 836 Camargo, R. B. de 597
Bryk, A. 774, 808, 814 Cambron-McCabe, N. 1038, 1042
Buchberger, F. 545, 546 Cameron, J. 1060
Buchmann, C. 4, 13, 21 Campbell, C. 806, 929, 939, 1000, 1132,
Buchmann, M. 359 1134, 1153, 1203
Buck, N. 970 Campbell, E. 860, 1011, 1081
Buckingham, D. 1161 Campbell, R. 969
Budd, L. 1158, 1165, 1166 Campos, B. P. 545
Bueno, B. 631 Campos, E. 1168
Bueno, B. O. 561, 578, 631, 1195 Campos, M. M. 623
Buhren, C. G. 555 Candau, V. M. F. 632
Bulach, C. 185 Canesi, P. 500n.7
Bullen, E. 1072 Cannadine, D. 943, 946
Bulman, D. 1059 Cantle, T. 1166
Bunar, N. 406 Carabaña, J. 516
Bunday, M. C. 869 Carbonell, F. 517
Burbules, N. 263, 306, 566, 923 Carmichael, S. 997–998
Burchardt, T. 1125, 1126, 1130, Carnoy, M. 76, 303, 307, 660, 728,
1133, 1134 805, 814
Burgess, E. 769, 829, 930, 1201 Carr, W. 975n.22
Burgess, S. 1016 Carrim, N. 996, 997, 1000
Burke, J. 1083 Carrington, V. 384, 385
Burke, P. 561, 577n.1 Carter, M. P. 948
Burney, D. 808 Carvalho, M. 1061
Burns, A. 850, 854 Carvalho, M. M. C. de 599n.7
Bush, T. 1051 Cashmore, E. 998
Busher, H. 992 Castel, R. 755
Busia, K. A. 30 Castells, M. 314, 315, 323, 367, 368, 384,
Bustamane, S. 563 386, 566, 930, 931, 935, 960–974
Buthelezi, T. 8, 145, 156 Castle, F. 1108, 1109, 1115, 1119n.6
Butler, T. 1028, 1030 Castleman, C. 185
Byrom, T. 1059 Castles, S. 261
Castro, M. H. G. 635n.9
Caballero, C. 981 Catani, D. B. 631
Cabral, A. 84 Cavarozzi, M. 750, 759n.1
Caddell, D. 1148 Cayton, H. R. 776
Cagliari, L. C. 627 Cazenave, N. 790
Cahill, D. 381 Cele, N. 151
Caillouds, F. 728 Cera, A. 681
Cairney, T. 1058 Cesari, J. 405
Caldeira, T. 385, 386 Challender, C. 129
Calderwood, D. 110 Champagne, P. 646
Calderwood, L. 363 Chan, L. 381
Caldwell, B. J. 1089 Chandler, T. 24
 Author Index 1245

Chapman, C. 1062, 1072n.6, 1091 Colomer, J. M. 427

Charlier, E. 632 Comaroff, J. L. 130
Charlot, B. 610 Combe, A. 552
Chartier, R. 583 Comber, B. 1058, 1072n.3
Chavkin, N. F. 833 Comer, J. P. 873
Cheah, P. 222, 225, 1178 Conchas, G. 804, 813
Chen, S. H. 309 Connell, B. 256
Cheru, F. 19n.5, 75, 79 Connell, J. 226, 270, 272, 277
Chessum, L. 949 Connell, R. 253, 1069, 1072n.4
Cheung, A. 306, 316 Connolly, P. 988
Chiang, H. C. 309 Considine, M. 308
Chimombo, J. 121 Contreras, D. 660n.6
Chisholm, H. 151 Conway, C. 226
Chittom, S. A. 185 Cook, T. 1057
Chiuye, G. 121 Cooksey, B. 131, 138
Cho, S. 349, 350 Cookson, P. W. Jr 118
Chomsky, N. 414 Cooper, D. 1108
Chow, E. N. 354 Cooper, J. 1065
Chuang, S. Q. 355 Cope, B. 251, 252, 258, 382, 383, 385,
Chung, F. 83 390, 392
Chung, Y. P. 350 Copelman, D. 950
Cigéhn, G. 406 Copland, M. 870
Clark, A. 1028 Coppel, J. 414
Clark, D. L. 872 Coquery-Vidrovitch, C. 23
Clark, P. 944 Corcoran, M. P. 453
Clark, W. A. V. 384 Cornwall, J. 995
Clarke, P. 1072n.6 Corriveau, L. 185
Claxton, G. 1012, 1031, 1035 Cosse, G. 569, 577n.7, 578n.10
Clifford, J. 417 Costello, L. 1060
Clifton, R. A. 122 Coulby, D. 398, 946, 974
Cline, T. 991 Court, D. 131, 138
Cloward, R. 789 Cowan, K. T. 869, 875
Coate, K. 1028 Cox, C. 644, 659n.1, 660n.14
Cobb, C. 888 Cox, H. 973
Cochran-Smith, M. 797, 869 Craig, G. 1149
Cockburn, C. 974n.5 Craig, H. 9, 13, 14, 18, 20n.8
Coelho, E. 425 Creemers, B. 652
Coffield, F. 1012, 1037 Crenshaw, K. 405, 810, 811
Cohen, B. 1163 Croft, D. 185
Cohen, D. 1081 Croll, E. 353
Cohen, M. 185 Croninger, R. G. 362
Cohen, P. 475 Crook, D. 950
Coldon, J. 1016 Cropanzano, R. S. 185, 200
Cole, M. 893 Crosnoe, R. 833
Cole, T. 992 Crowther, F. 1065
Coleman, J. 860, 864, 1011 Crowther, J. 1140, 1147, 1148
Collares, C. A. L. 627 Crozier, G. 1057, 1072n.3
Collins, P. 792 Cruickshank, D. P. 185
Colls, R. 944 Cruz, S. H. V. 627
1246 Author Index

Cuban, L. 582, 809, 877 Debarbieux, È. 185

Cuevas de la Garza, J. F. 731, 734, DeBray, E. H. 863, 874
735, 737 Deci, E. L. 185, 200
Cunha, L. A. 635n.5 DeCuir, J. 811
Cunningham, S. 223 Dei, G. J. S. 19nn.2, 4, 848, 996
Currie, E. 790 Delamont, S. 627
Currie, J. 307, 312 Deleuze, G. 633, 750
Curtin, P. 69 Delors, J. 279
Cuttance, P. 652 Delpit, L. 850, 855
Delvaux, B. 432
D’Souza, D. 789 Demarchi, M. 701n.2
Dadzie, S. 997 Denton, N. 779, 789, 810
Dagenais, D. 846 Derouet, J. L. 506
Dalben, A. I. L. de F. 610, 614 Desai, A. 99
Dale, R. 566–567, 577n.6, 975n.10 Desai, S. 851
Dalle, E. L. 55 Desai, Z. 19n.4
Dalvanzo, A. M. Q. 635n.9 DeSalvatore, L. 873
Danaher, P. A. 484 Desbiens, N. 185, 200
Dann, R. 953 Dessler, D. 232
Darder, A. 806, 807 Deustch, M. 766
Darling-Hammond, L. 541, 797, 869, Devine, F. 1057
883, 885 Dewey, J. 804, 885, 907
Daschner, P. 548 Dhofier, Z. 327
Daspit, T. 1058 Diamond, J. 1065
Datnow, A. 1063 Diamond, P. 1108
David, J. L. 877 Dibben, P. 1117
David, M. 402, 1057, 1068, 1071 Dickson, M. 1019, 1113, 1126
Davidoff, S. 154, 162, 176 Dieterich, H. 414
Davidson, B. 23 Dijkstra, A. 528
Davies, J. 975n.14, 1068 Dillon, J. 976n.31
Davies, N. 1110 Dingezweni, K. 107, 108
Davies, P. 1010, 1023, 1111, 1115, 1116 Dirlik, A. 222
Davies, R. J. 97, 99, 102, 104, 107 Dixon, A. 1063, 1160
Davila, A. 361 Dixson, A. 811
Davin, A. 288, 289, 948 Dobert, H. 1169
Davin, D. 351 Dobles, R. 81
Davis, A. 789 Docking, J. 1219
Davis, C. 613 Dodson, K. 361
Davis, J. 952 Doherty, K. M. 873
Davis, M. 386 Dole, S. 381
Davis, M. R. 876 Donato, R. 814
de Carvalho, M. 1061 Donnelly, K. 382
De Ibarrola, M. 570, 575, 727, 728, 729, Donzello, G. 500n.10
734, 735, 739, 744n.8 Dornan, P. 1022
De la Dehesa, G. 416, 422 Douglas, J. W. B. 1081
De Lange, N. 156, 542, 543, 546 Dovemark, M. 406
De Lucas, J. 415, 420 Dowsett, G. 1057
de Saussure, F. 70 Dowswell, G. 1149
De Zilwa, D. 308 Draelants, H. 443
 Author Index 1247

Drake, C. 796 Elacqua, G. 1085

Dronkers, J. 528 Elder, G. 359, 1057
Drummond, M. 1063, 1160 Elias, N. 753
Dubet, F. 602 Ellett, C. D. 185
DuBois, W. E. B. 767, 768, 775n.2 Elliott, P. 870
Dubow, S. 96 Elliott, R. 1065
Dumais, S. A. 362 Ellison, L. 1059
Dumont, J. C. 414 Ellsworth, J. 1057
Dumont, L. 417 Ellwood, J. 402
Duncan, G. J. 1057 Elmore, R. F. 867, 1089
Dupriez, V. 443 Emmelot, Y. 527
Dupuch, A. 185 Englefield, S. 1054–1055
Duran, M. C. G. D. 609 English, F. 1070
Durand, C. 184 Englund, T. 406
Durkheim, E. 440 Epstein, D. 402
Duru-Bellat, M. 442, 443, 506, 517, 1226 Erickson, F. 627, 636n.16
Duschatzky, S. 752, 755 Eriksen, T. H. 312
Dussart, M. 995 Erlichson, B. A. 863
Dussel, I. 748 Esposito, I. L. 613
Duster, T. 790 Establet, R. 628
Dutton, J. 1038, 1042 Estefanía, J. 414
Dworkin, J. 893 Estrada, C. 883, 886
Dwyer, J. 810 Etzkowitz, H. 308
Dyos, H. J. 943 Eugene, E. 831
Dyson, A. H. 1058 Evans, F. 1115
Dyson, L. L. 831, 844 Evans, J. 1108, 1132
Dyson, M. 795, 796 Evans, P. B. 316
Dzimadzi, C. 121, 123 Evers, H. 322, 323
Eyzaguirre, B. 660
Eagleton, T. 970 Ezpeleta, J. 571, 627, 628, 629, 636n.15
Earl, L. 1011, 1012, 1027, 1043, 1089
Easton, J. 814 Fabian, J. 54, 72n.2
Eaton, S. 810 Fan, L. 225
Ebr.-Vally, R. 96 Fan, X. 362
Eccles, J. 893, 900n.13, 1057 Fanon, F. 269
Ecclestone, K. 1037 Fantini, M. D. 931
Eckert, P. 812 Farfán, E. 714
Ecob, R. 1010, 1082 Faria Filho, L. M. de 572, 577n.2, 581,
Edelman, P. 808 586
Edmonds, R. 652, 861, 867, 872, 1081 Farquhar, C. 1083
Edward, R. 728 Farrel, S. 1090
Edwards, M. 1070 Farrell, J. P. 133
Edwards, R. 294, 1057 Fashola, O. S. 887, 890, 891
Edwards, T. 436, 953, 965, 966, 1029, Fay, B. 960
1056, 1126 Feagin, J. 789, 790
Edwards, V. 636n.15 Federspiel, H. M. 333
Ehrenreich, B. 222, 352 Feinberg, H. M. 26, 27
Ekerwald, H. 406 Feindt, A. 552
Ekholm, M. 1085 Feinstein, L. 1021
1248 Author Index

Feres Junior, J. 577n.1 Frederiksen, J. 1081

Ferguson, A. A. 850 Freebody, P. 225, 381, 383, 1058
Fernandes, C. O. 608 Freiberg, J. 183
Fernández, M. T. 416 Freire, P. 81, 636n.20, 969, 975n.19
Fernández Santos, F. 419, 420 Freitag, B. 627, 635n.5
Ferranti, D. 562 Freller, C. C. 634
Ferrao, M. E. 614, 615 Freund, B. 96, 98
Ferrer, C. 747 Fried, L. 543, 544
Ferretti, C. 567 Friedmann, J. 371, 1187, 1188, 1189
Fichten, W. 552 Frigerio, G. 697
Fielden, E. W. 98 Frisco, M. L. 361
Fielding, M. 1028 Frost, D. 1065
Figueroa, P. 996 Fruchter, N. 808
Filer, A. 1031, 1032, 1033, 1036, 1039 Fry, R. 825, 838n.2
Filgueira, F. 685, 688, 695, 696, Fuligni, A. 832
699, 701nn.4, 6 Fullan, M. 506, 660n.11, 867, 1038, 1039,
Finch, N. 1022 1042, 1043, 1063, 1129
Fincher, R. 1060 Fuller, B. 186, 797, 814, 815
Fine, M. 847, 850, 854, 867, 921, Fullick, L. 932, 936, 940, 1007, 1019,
1060, 1072n.3 1092, 1093, 1157
Fink, D. 1061, 1063 Fultz, M. 810
Finn, P. 1058 Furlán, A. 709
Firestone, W. A. 185 Furman, G. 1152
Fishman, J. 791 Furstenberg, F. 1057
Fitz, J. 1016, 1110
Fitzgerald, T. 185 Gabriel, K. 681n.13
Flessa, J. 769, 803, 808, 809, 815 Gadbois, C. 183
Flood, P. 185 Gaebler, T. 1107
Flores, L. 716 Gaine, C. 403
Florida, R. 387 Gajardo, M. 703
Fogelman, K. 950 Galbraith, J. 969
Foner, N. 845 Gallart, M. A. 727
Fonseca, M. 568, 569 Galston, W. 813
Ford, R. 810 Gamarnikow, E. 1140
Forde, C. 1067 Gamble, A. 975n.7
Fordham, S. 786, 787 Gamoran, A. 362
Fornäs, J. 472 Gándara, P. 872
Forrest, W. 425, 426 Gandhi, L. 283n.2
Foster, M. 765, 768, 795, 803, 810, 812, Gans, H. J. 829
855n.10, 872, 883, 886, 911, 1199 Gao, Q. 235
Foucault, M. 633, 753, 785, 1051 Garcia, J. M. 827
Foxman, D. 1087 García, M. 714
Frances, B. 401 García Espejo, I. 517
Franco, C. 605, 606, 615 Garcia-Huidobro, J. E. 517n.13, 578n.13
Franco, M. L. P. B. 621, 631 Gardner, H. 176
Franklin, B. 953 Gardner, M. 1065
Fraser, J. 183 Garm, N. 401
Fraser, N. 256, 262 Garrett, G. 305
Frazier, E. F. 766 Garrett, R. M. 185
 Author Index 1249

Garrido, J. L. 720 Godfrey, R. 995

Garrison, J. 885, 886 Goertz, M. 863
Garson, P. 146, 151 Gogolin, I. 540
Gasteiger-Klicpera, B. 185 Goh, C. T. 371
Gatti, B. A. 623 Gold, E. 1070
Gay, G. 787, 883, 912 Goldberg, D. T. 996
Gaymes, A. 849, 855n.8 Goldstein, H. 1084, 1086, 1087,
Gentili, P. 569 1090, 1110
George, M. 796 Gonder, P. O. 185
Georges, P. 184 Gondra, J. G. 588
Gerard, H. 195 Gonzales, M. C. 20n.18
Gergen, K. J. 377n.1 Gonzalez, J. 833
Gewirtz, S. 933, 953, 965, 966, 1010, Gonzalez, N. 796, 893
1019, 1028, 1029, 1030, 1056, 1110, González, P. 658
1113, 1116, 1126, 1168 Goodenow, R. K. 944
Ghosh, B. 421 Goodlad, J. I. 872
Gibbs, J. P. 26 Goodman, A. 1028
Gibson, K. 1060 Goodman, J. 950
Gibson, M. A. 828, 830, 845 Goodman, M. 359
Giddens, A. 359, 363, 368, 370–371, 385, Goodman, R. 312
1107, 1108 Gootman, J. A. 883, 894
Gidney, R. D. 809 Gopinathan, S. 225
Gil Calvo, E. 419 Gorard, S. 1064, 1110, 1111, 1112
Gilbert, F. 1068 Gordon, D. M. 728, 829
Gilbert, P. 381 Gordon, E. W. 506
Gilchrist, A. 1057 Gordon, G. 122
Gill, M. G. 361 Gordon, M. 829
Gillborn, D. 261, 290, 935–936, 979, 981, Gordon, T. 402, 447
982, 983, 986, 987, 988, 989, 990, 991, Gotanda, N. 810
992, 996, 997, 1001nn.6, 9, 1002n.14, Gottdiener, M. 1158, 1165, 1166
1023, 1033, 1084, 1107, 1118n.2 Grace, G. 910, 934, 935, 936, 945,
Gilly, M. 435 950, 954, 959, 969, 970–971,
Gilroy, P. 385, 453 975nn.15, 17, 23, 24, 976n.33,
Gintis, H. 1081 1041, 1158, 1206
Ginwright, S. 812, 817 Graham, C. K. 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42,
Gipps, C. 983, 988, 992, 1084 44, 45
Girardo Pierdominici, M. C. 733, 735 Graham, S. 384
Giroux, H. A. 293 Gramsci, A. 796
Gittell, M. 814 Gray, J. 417, 1079, 1086, 1087, 1089,
Gitz-Johansen, T. 400, 455 1090, 1091–1092
Glatter, R. 1010, 1029, 1030, 1106, Grayson, H. 1056
1108, 1115 Greaves, D. 381
Glazer, N. 782, 829 Green, A. 343, 636n.16
Gleeson, B. 387 Greenberg, J. 1033
Gleeson, D. 953 Greene, J. C. 905, 906, 915
Glendinning, C. 1152 Greene, K. 1056
Glenny, M. 402 Greenfield, P. M. 911
Gobbo, F. 397, 399, 408, 481, 485, 499, Gregg, A. 842, 855nn.2, 12
500nn.1, 6 Gregory, S. 1192
1250 Author Index

Grenier, G. 829, 835 Halsey, H. 1139

Greve, B. 413 Halverson, R. 1065
Grieco, E. M. 845 Hambleton, R. 1149
Griffin, S. 793 Hameyer, U. 1085
Griffith, A. 1058 Hamilton, C. V. 997–998
Griffiths, G. 269 Hamilton, D. 585, 627
Griffiths, M. 506 Hammersly, M. 627, 636n.16
Grindal, B. 34, 36 Handa, A. 844, 849, 855n.7
Grisay, A. 185, 200 Handler, J. 814
Gronn, P. 1065 Hanna, J. W. 185
Grootenboer, P. 185 Hannum, E. 239
Grospiron, M.-F. 433, 440 Hanushek, E. A. 1011
Grosvenor, I. 949 Harber, C. 19n.6, 21n.20
Grotenhuis, S. 536 Harding, R. 944
Guarido, R. L. 634 Hardman, J. 1110, 1112
Guattari, F. 750 Hardy, L. 864
Guerrero, E. 786 Hargreaves, A. 506, 535, 1063
Guggisberg, F. G. 41 Harrigan, P. J. 907–908
Guillén, M. F. 312 Harris, A. 660n.11, 1062, 1065, 1072
Gundara, J. 981 Harris, B. 1072
Gunn, S. 1058 Harris, D. 945
Gunraj, J. 1072n.6 Harris, J. 947
Gunter, H. 1112, 1126 Harrison, C. 874
Gutiérrez, M. 681n.8 Harrison, S. 1149
Gutiérrez, R. 517 Harry, B. 872
Guttenberg, N. 870 Hart, S. 1035, 1063, 1160
Guven, I. 328, 335 Hartnett, A. 975
Harvey, B. 845
Haberman, M. 148, 886, 1034 Harvey, D. 293, 294, 386, 930, 961,
Habermas, J. 417, 747 963, 964
Hage, G. 249 Harvey, J. 806
Hagy, A. P. 362 Hatch, T. C. 867
Hajnal, Z. L. 910 Hatcher, R. 990, 1065–1066, 1147, 1149
Hakala, K. 402 Hattie, J. A. 869
Hakim, C. 371 Hau’ofa, E. 266
Hales, E. 975n.14, 1068 Hauck, F. 307
Hall, E. 1037 Hauya, R. 126
Hall, G. R. 185, 200 Hawkes, D. 363
Hall, S. 367, 368, 449 Hay, H. R. 146
Hallack, J. 728 Hay, V. 1072n.3
Hallak, J. 315 Haynes, J. 981
Hallam, S. 990–991 Hayward, G. 1170
Hallgarten, J. 1126 Heald, D. 1124
Hallinan, M. 444 Healey, J. 362
Hallinan, P. M. 484–485 Heater, D. 450
Halperin, S. 874 Heath, S. 1035
Halpin, A. 185 Heck, R. H. 185
Halpin, D. 930, 970, 1016, 1019, 1056, Heikkilä, M. 400
1113, 1114, 1126, 1129 Heinecke, W. 809
 Author Index 1251

Held, V. 1069 Holmes-Smith, C. 471

Helg, A. 679 Holton, R. J. 386
Heller, A. 416, 629 Holzer, H. 808
Hellmer, J. 552 Honig, M. I. 867
Hellrung, M. 552 Hood, C. 317
Helsper, W. 553 Hood, S. 920, 921, 923
Heneveld, W. 9, 11, 13, 14, 18, 20n.8 Hopkins, D. 1043, 1063, 1086, 1132, 1134
Henig, J. 798, 807, 808, 844 Hopson, R. K. 905, 915, 920, 923
Henriques, J. 997 Horkheimer, M. 1196
Henry, A. 845, 850, 852, 855n.9 Horsman, M. 305
Henry, M. 258 Horton, J. 837
Hentschke, G. C. 1107, 1117 House, E. 905, 921–922
Henze, R. C. 854 Houston, S. 627
Hepburn, S. 995 Howard, J. 258, 382
Herbert, J. 183 Howell, W. 809, 815
Hericks, U. 543 Howson, J. 1063
Hernstein, R. J. 766 Hsieh, H. C. 349
Herrmann, J. 555 Hsieh, J. 351
Herschberg, T. 359 Hsu, C. W. 309
Hess, F. 809 Hughes, H. 102
Hess, R. D. 766 Hughes, M. 1057, 1132
Hewes, G. M. 873 Hula, R. 798, 807
Hey, V. 402 Hull, R. W. 24, 25
Heyneman, S. P. 10, 11, 12, 20n.19 Hulse, E. V. 102
Hill, J. 981 Humphries, S. 947
Hill, P. 806 Hunt, T. 953
Hill, S. 381, 1058 Hunter, L. 769, 779, 883, 884
Hilliard, A. G. 912 Huntington, S. 766
Hilliard, F. H. 26 Hursh, D. W. 886
Hilligius, A. H. 545 Hutson, S. 359
Hillman, J. 652, 1087 Hutton, W. 385
Hillmann, K. H. 416, 417 Huxham, C. 1148
Hills, J. 1028, 1125, 1169 Huxley, M. 1060
Hilsdorf, M. L. 585, 587 Hymes, D. 185
Hirsch, B. 893, 894, 896, 897 Hynninen, P. 402
Hirschman, A. 443 Hyslop, J. 96
Hirst, P. 305, 306
Ho, C. R. 355 Irby, M. A. 883
Ho, P. S. Y. 355 Ignatiev, N. 781
Hobson, C. 1011, 1081 Ilieva, R. 846
Hochschild, A. R. 222, 352 Ince, M. 971
Hodgson, A. 1170 Inglis, C. 830
Hoffer, T. B. 362 Innis, H. A. 221, 1179
Hogan, D. 225, 359 Irvine, J. J. 885, 886, 912
Holland, J. 451 Ison, L. 981
Holland, P. 814
Hollar, D. 361 Jacobs, J. 1060
Holliday, I. 315 Jacobson, S. 384, 386
Hollingshead, A. 812 Jahreis, D. 543
1252 Author Index

James, C. 120, 844 Kalinowski, T. 818

James, C. E. 771, 803, 811, 841, 845, 846, Kalis, M. C. 185
848, 849, 852, 853, 855n.4 Kallos, D. 545
James, R. 306, 307 Kalmus, J. 625
James, S. 1072n.6 Kamii, M. 870
James-Wilson, S. V. 850 Kamin, L. J. 636n.13
Janosz, M. 184, 185, 200 Kanyinga, K. 130
Jantzi, D. 1011, 1012, 1089 Kao, G. 361, 362, 832, 845
Jarvis, P. 809 Kapitzke, C. 225, 381, 391
Jaumandreu, G. 506 Kaplan, G. 253
Jayasuriya, K. 306 Karier, C. J. 37
Jencks, C. 1081 Karim, K. H. 388
Jenkins, A. 1112, 1115 Karlsen, G. 401
Jenkins, R. 359 Karlsson, J. 6–7, 19, 91, 104
Jennings, J. 998 Karlsson, L. 406
Jensen, A. R. 766, 1081 Karumanchery, L. 815
Jerald, C. 813 Katz, M. 790, 805, 814, 923, 944
Jesson, D. 1086, 1089, 1112 Katzenmayer, M. 1065
Jing, M. 355 Kaunda, Z. 124
Johansson, M. 406 Kay, H. 1148
John, G. 980, 981, 996 Kazal, R. 829
Johnes, G. 1010 Kazamias, A. M. 328
Johnson, C. 315 Kazi, G. 323
Johnson, D. 793 Kaztman, R. 695, 699, 702n.19
Johnson, E. P. 787 Keating, M. 931
Johnson, J. 886 Keller, B. 767
Johnson, M. 932, 936, 1007, 1011, 1027, Kelley, R. 780, 803
1028, 1042, 1043, 1044 Kelly, J. A. 869
Johnston, K. 253 Kelly, R. 933, 1112
Jones, C. 398, 945, 946, 951, 964, Kelly, W. 55
975n.11, 981 Kemerer, F. 814
Jones, E. 256 Kemmis, S. 426
Jones, G. E. 950–951 Kemp, P. 1022
Jones, G. W. 352 Kemp, S. 989
Jones, K. 421 Kendall, N. 124
Jones, M. 1063 Kendrick, A. 1145, 1147
Jones, R. 807 Kennedy, H. 1100
Jordan, B. 484 Kenway, J. 254, 261, 1072n.3
Joseph, R. 784 Kerbow, D. 814
Judge, H. 1028 Kerckhoff, A. C. 950, 952
Jupp, J. 133 Kerr, M. 1084
Kessel, M. 622
Kacmar, M. K. 185, 200 Kessler, G. 699
Kadzamira, E. 121 Kessler, S. 1057
Kahne, J. 815 Kett, J. 359
Kakatera, F. 120 Keuffer, J. 543, 548, 549
Kalantzis, M. 251, 252, 258, 382, 383, Keys, W. 1054, 1056, 1062
385, 390 Khan, L. 996
Kalb, P. E. 543 Khapoya, V. 52, 53
 Author Index 1253

Kherroubi, M. 440 Lache, M. 681n.4

Kiddle, C. 484 Ladson-Billings, G. 784, 810, 855n.1, 872,
Kim, J. I. 343 912, 996, 1000
Kim, Y. H. 348 Lahelma, E. 402, 451, 456–457
Kimble, D. 29, 30, 31, 34, 37, 40, 44, 45 Lahire, B. 583
Kincheloe, J. L. 841, 842, 850, 910, 911 Lakoff, G. 907, 908, 923n.1
Kinder, K. 1140 Lam, D. 883, 886
King, J. 785 Lam, E. 225, 1178
Kirp, D. 810 Lam, W. S. E. 388
Kirst, M. 808, 815, 877 Lambert, L. 1065, 1130
Klasen, S. 453 Lambert, M. 1065
Klein, H. 359 Lamo de Espinosa, E. 417
Klein, R. 1124, 1125, 1134 Land, R. 383, 381
Kleiner, A. 1038, 1042 Lange, H. 542, 543, 546
Klicpera, Ch. 185 Langman, J. 883
Klieme, E. 1169 Lanphier, M. 842
Klingner, J. K. 872 Lappalainen, S. 402, 455
Klinkner, P. A. 766 Lara, J. 871
Klitgaard, R. E. 185, 200 Lareau, A. 1030, 1038
Kluckhohn, C. 55 LaRocque, L. 846
Knapp, M. S. 870 Larson, R. W. 893, 900
Knill, C. 306, 316 Lash, S. 465
Koh, A. 371 Lau, L. 334
Kohli, M. 359 Lau, S. 225
Konadu-Agyemang, K. 32, 33, 35 Lauder, H. 971, 1028
Kong, L. 224 Lauria, M. 1070
Konkol, P. 868 Lauver, S. 893–894
Korff, R. 322, 323 Lauwerys, J. 944
Kornblum, W. 130 Lawton, D. 1100
Korthagen, F. 535 Lazarus, S. 154, 162, 176
Kotkin, J. 766 Le Blanc, M. 185, 200
Kovatcheva, S. 359 Le Roux, J. 146, 148, 152, 153, 157,
Kozol, J. 790, 812, 884, 885, 886, 1034 160, 161
Kramer, S. 632 Leacock, E. 912
Kramsch, C. 388 Leathwood, C. 405
Kretzmann, J. 1057 Lebelo, S. 146
Krige, S. 146 Leblond, D. 1147, 1149
Kronk, P. 383 Ledoux, G. 526, 531
Krug, A. 610 Lee, B. 990
Kryger, N. 404 Lee, C. 874, 894
Kumashiro, K. 816 Lee, H. L. 224, 371
Kunje, D. 121 Lee, M. N. N. 311
Kupfer, M. C. 634 Lee, S. J. 849
Kuthemba-Mwale, J. B. 126 Lee, V. 814
Kymlicka, W. 416, 417 Lee, Y. J. 349, 350
Leech, D. 1168
Labarca, G. 727, 733 Leeman, Y. 523, 524, 526, 527, 531,
Labissiere, Y. 831 536n.2
Labov, W. 872 Lefebvre, H. 91, 110, 1188
1254 Author Index

Legault, L. 185 López, G. 811

Lehmkuhl, D. 306, 316 Lopez, L. 816
Leithwood, K. 1062, 1065 López Goñi, I. 420
Leiulfsrud, H. 406 Lopez-Gonzalez, L. 833
Lemmermöhle, D. 543 Lord, H. 893, 900n.13
Lemon, A. 95, 96, 107 Lortie, D. 435
Lemos, C. 636n.14 Lotto, L. S. 872
Leonardo, Z. 769, 779, 780, 783, 795, Louden, B. 1058
883, 884 Louden, W. 381
Lessard, C. 435 Louis, K. S. 184, 1085
Levacic, R. 1110, 1111, 1112, 1115, 1118 Low, L. 309
Levin, B. 1011, 1012, 1027, 1043, 1089 Lowinger, L. 944
Lewin, K. M. 119, 120 Lucas, T. 1038, 1042
Lewis, D. 1010, 1082 Lucey, H. 1111
Lewis, J. 855n.10, 883 Luckmann, T. 779
Lewis, O. 766, 781 Ludwig, C. 1058
Lewontin, R. C. 636 Luke, A. 226, 381, 383, 384, 385, 1177,
Leydesdorff, L. 308 1179, 1183, 1187, 1191, 1195, 1199,
Li, J. 353, 832, 844 1203, 1204
Li, P. S. 831 Luke, C. 226, 381
Lie, S. 448, 449 Lumsden, L. 185
Lieberman, A. 444 Lundström, C. 455
Liebowitz, M. 873 Lupton, R. 933, 934, 1060, 1097, 1140
Liégeois, J.-P. 484 Luthuli, P. C. 162
Lijtenstein, S. 698, 702n.20 Luttrell, W. 792
Likert, R. 184 Lyman, L. 1070
Lim, S. G. 355 Lynch, D. 869
Lim, S. S. 371 Lystad, R. 26
Limage, L. J. 81 Lytle, J. 861, 873
Lin, A. 222 Lytle, M. H. 860
Lin, M. 1140 Lytle, S. L. 869
Lindberg, U. 472, 1224
Lindblad, S. 455 Maalouf, A. 419
Lingard, B. 258, 260 Macbeath, A. 1108
Linklater, A. 450 MacBeath, J. 1084
Linn, R. 797 Macdonald, I. 996
Linnakylä, P. 448 Macedo, D. 872
Lipman, P. 383, 813, 886, 899 MacGilchrist, B. 932, 937, 938, 940, 1010,
Lipton, M. 909 1011, 1018, 1039, 1079, 1169
Lister, R. 1060 MacGregor, K. 108
Liston, D. 885, 886 Machado, A. C. A. 634
Little, J. W. 869 Machado, A. M. 633, 634
Livingstone, K. 991 Machin, S. 1019, 1114
Lloyd, G. 1145, 1147, 1153 Macjessie-Mbewe, S. L. W. 122
Lloyd, P. C. 32 Macleod, D. 845
Lo, Y. W. 311 MacLeod, J. 444, 792
Logan, J. R. 842, 855n.3 Maclure, J. S. 36, 951
Logie, A. 1016 MacLure, M. 907
Lopez, D. 786 Maclure, R. 21n.23
 Author Index 1255

MacMaster, N. 402 Massey, D. 91, 451, 779, 789, 798n.1, 810

Macpherson, W. 980, 983, 990, 997, Masturah, I. 221, 222, 1187
1001n.4 Masud-Piloto, F. R. 836
Maden, M. 1091, 1092, 1093 Mathews, J. 870
Maguire, M. 976n.31 Mathews, J. A. 309
Mahari, J. 883, 886 Matluck, B. M. 185
Mahmood, I. P. 309 Matsepe-Casaburri, I. 109
Mahoney, J. L. 893, 900n.13 Mattos, I. H. 588
Mainardes, J. 613 Matute-Bianchi, M. 830, 832, 834
Mak, G. C. L. 222, 224, 343, 349, 350 Maughan, B. 1010, 1081
Makau, B. 131 Mavberry, M. 184
Maksum, H. 323, 324, 330 Maw, J. 402
Makumbe, J. 79 May, S. 996
Malgesini, G. 416 Mayer, K. U. 359, 360
Malone, B. 185 Mayhew, E. 1022
Maluf, M. R. 634 Mayo, M. 1150
Malungana, G. 146 Mays, J. B. 948
Manasevit, L. M. 869, 875 Mazzuca, J. 848
Manda, D. K. 129 McAllister, G. 885
Manderson, L. 830 McCallum, B. 1132
Mangan, J. 1010, 1111 McCarthy, C. 255, 404, 415
Mangena, M. 146 McCarthy, J. 92
Mapesela, M. L. E. 146 McClafferty, K. A. 577n.4, 841, 842
Marais, F. 146 McCollum, S. 148, 152
Marcoulides, G. A. 185 McConnell, B. 1016
Marcuse, H. 1195, 1197 McCready, L. 817
Marginson, S. 227, 306, 307, 308 McCreath, D. 1108
Marland, M. 953 McCulloch, G. 930, 931, 935, 943, 947,
Marsden, W. E. 946, 948 948, 949, 951, 953, 1105, 1135,
Marsh, A. 1022 1163, 1203
Marsh, H. W. 362 McCulloch, K. 1147, 1148
Marshal, J. 874 McDade, L. 792
Marshall, A. 305 McDermott, K. A. 863
Marshall, B. 874 McDowell, L. 459
Marshall, G. 322, 335 McEwan, P. 660n.6
Marshall, T. H. 448 McGlaughlin, A. 995
Martin, E. C. 26 McIntyre, D. 1063, 1160
Martin, C. A. 28, 37, 39 McIsaac, E. 848
Martin, I. 1148 McKnight, J. 1057, 1060
Martin, J. 952, 1148 McLaren, P. 92
Martin, N. 874 McLaughlin, M. W. 869, 883
Martin, P. 222 McLeod, J. 259
Martínez, A. M. 634 McNair, J. 425
Martínez, E. 688 McNally, S. 1019, 1114
Martinic, S. 660 McPartland, J. 1011, 1081
Marzano, R. J. 874 McPherson, G. 104, 113n.7
Mascall, B. 1027 McPherson, I. 1065
Masemann, V. 42 McWhorter, J. 813
Mason, J. 535 Meaney, C. S. 308
1256 Author Index

Meghir, C. 1019, 1114 Mok, I. A. C. 225

Mehan, H. 883, 884, 885, 886, 887, Mok, K. H. 305, 306, 307, 308, 311, 312,
889, 890 314, 316
Mehta, J. D. 361 Moletsane, R. 156
Meira, M. M. 634 Molina, A. S. 634
Melhuish, E. C. 1098 Moll, L. 796, 893, 1033, 1036, 1058, 1061
Mello, G. N. 632, 636n.22 Moller, G. 1065
Mello, S. L. 625 Mona, V. 149, 179n.4
Memmi, A. 83, 784 Monbiot, G. 974n.4
Mencken, H. L. 769 Montgomery, P. A. 827
Meneses, E. 723n.8 Montibeller, L. 634
Menter, I. 965, 975n.8 Montoya, Y. 185
Meo, A. 453 Montt, P. 660n.12
Mercer, J. 910 Mood, A. 860, 1011, 1081
Merino, B. 872 Moore, A. 535
Merson, M. 969 Moore, D. 361
Merz, C. 1152 Moore, R. 930
Merziger, P. 552 Moore, T. G. 315
Metso, T. 451 Mora, M. T. 361
Meyer, H. 552 Moraes, R. C. 566
Meyer, J. 432, 576n.6 Morás, L. 687
Mignolo, W. 577n.1 Mordaunt, E. 1140
Mijares, A. 734, 739 Morduchowicz, A. 748
Mijares Ruiz, A. 731, 734, 739 Moreno, L. 413, 422
Miles, M. 1085 Moreton-Robinson, A. S. 261
Milewa, T. 1149 Morgan, S. L. 361, 362
Miliband, D. 953, 1055 Moriarty, B. J. 484–485
Miller, H. 953 Morrell, F. 952, 962
Miller, T. 448 Morrell, R. 95
Miller-Kahn, L. 809 Morris, B. 1067
Millett, R. A. 915 Morris, R. J. 943
Millington, J. 1010 Morrison, A. 995
Millward, A. 1140 Morrison, D. R. 344
Mina, A. 681n.3 Morrison, I. 94
Mingat, A. 443 Mortimore, P. 185, 652, 933, 1011, 1031,
Mingione, E. 466 1081, 1082, 1083, 1084, 1087, 1094,
Minow, M. 803 1097, 1099, 1100
Miretsky, D. 868 Moseley, D. 1037
Mirón, L. F. 577n.4, 911, 932 Moses, R. 887, 888
Mirza, H. S. 981, 982, 983, 986, 987, Moss, G. 118, 1163
1000–1001, 1002n.14, 1023 Mouton, J. 155
Mishra, R. 413 Moyana, T. 81
Mitchell, C. 156 Moyo, S. 79, 85, 207
Mitchell, T. R. 577n.4, 841 Moysés, M. A. A. 627
Mitrulis, E. 607 Muijs, D. 1091, 1094, 1095
Miyeni, E. 147, 149, 164 Muir, K. 784
Mizala, A. 660n.6 Mujis, D. 660n.11
Modell, J. 359 Muller, C. 361, 833
Modood, T. 402, 403, 404 Muller, J. 150, 151
 Author Index 1257

Mumford, L. 265 Noguera, P. 783, 806, 812, 813, 847, 884

Mungazi, D. 76, 82, 83, 84 Nolan, K. 399, 401, 404
Munn, P. 1158, 1153 Norman, J. M. 185
Muñoz, G. 569, 571, 578n.12, 650, Northcott, M. 975n.18
651, 660n.7 Novak, J. 797
Munro, J. F. 32 Nóvoa, A. 632
Murillo, F. J. 652, 660n.11 Nozaki, Y. 293
Murphy, J. 864, 869 Nsapato, L. 119
Murray, C. 766, 789 Ntshangase, D. 146
Muspratt, S. 381 Nunan, D. 388
Myers, D. 891 Nunes, C. 592
Myers, K. 1079 Nuñez-Estrada, H. R. 577n.5
Nussbaum, M. 515, 886
Nagata, J. 327, 332 Nuttall, D. L. 1084
Nagle, J. 599n.7 Nyamnjoh, F. B. 15, 19n.2
Nair, S. 415, 416, 419, 420 Nyathikazi, T. 113
Nakagawa, K. 912
Nalebuff, B. 1119 O’Neill, S. 893
Nathan, G. 363 O’Connell, A. 803, 804
Ndiaye, M. 200 O’Connor, M. 975n.14, 1068
Ndoye, A. K. 8, 183, 188 O’Connor, R. A. 322
Ndoye, M. 184 O’Hara, P. 1140, 1148
Nee, V. 825 Oakes, J. 784, 885, 886, 909, 990, 1063
Neill, S. 1056 Oancea, A. 1170
Nel, J. G. 102 Oberti, M. 438
Nell, M. 121 Obolenski, A. 552
Nelson, J. 790 Ochieng, W. 131
Nelson-Barber, S. 912 Oelkers, J. 542, 546, 548
Neubauer, R. 613 Offner, P. 808
Neubeck, K. 790 Ogbu, J. 787, 813, 829, 830
Neumann, E. 636n.15 Ogot, B. 131
Neves, M. M. B. J. 593, 634 Ohmae, K. 305
Newman, J. 1135, 1148 Öhrn, E. 397, 402, 406, 457, 1191
Newman, K. 1075 Olagnero, M. 453
Newsam, P. 975n.13, 1029 Olds, K. 223
Newson, J. 307, 944 Oliveira, B. de 594, 1195
Neysmith, S. 803, 804 Oliveira, R. 577
Ngara, E. 83 Oliveira, R. P. de 597
Nguyen, C. 183 Ollila, L. O. 845
Nherera, C. M. 77 Olsen, L. 812
Nhlengethwa, S. 146 Onafowora, L. 855n.10, 883
Nieto, S. 783, 996 Ong, A. 450
Nixon, H. 1058 Ooi, G. L. 221
Nixon, J. 1146 Openshaw, R. 293
Njeuma, M. 54 Oppenheimer, D. 790
Noble, G. 308 Orfield, G. 810, 864, 866
Noblit, G. 885, 886 Orfield, M. 807
Noddings, N. 883, 885, 886, 898 Orlofsky, G. F. 873
Noden, P. 1110 Ornstein, M. 842, 855n.6
1258 Author Index

Orr, M. 798, 807 Pearce, N. 1166, 1168, 1170

Ortega y Gasset, J. 418, 420 Pedescleaux, D. 798, 807
Osborn, M. 435 Peel, J. D. Y. 23
Osborne, D. 1107 Peel, M. 387
Oser, F. 542, 546 Peele-Eady, T. 775, 883, 893, 897
Osgood, C. E. 57 Peller, G. 810
Osler, A. 460, 992, 995 Pelletier, L. 185
Oucho, J. 130, 131 Pels, T. 527
Ouston, J. 185, 1010, 1081 Pempel, T. J. 306
Overman, L. T. 873 Peñalva, A. 397, 399, 404, 413, 414, 422,
Owen, C. 981 423, 428n.6
Owusu, G. 26 Peng, S. S. 832
Oyugi, E. 129 Penney, D. 1110
Pennycook, A. 389
Pacione, M. 1060 Pérez, J. 516
Pahl, R. 930, 961 Perez, J. G. 796
Painter, M. 315 Perez, L. 835
Palmer, H. 847 Perlman, J. 825, 833
Palmu, T. 451 Perrenoud, P. 616n.2
Pampallis, J. 104 Perry, G. 562
Pandey, S. 336 Perry, J. 1022
Pang, V. O. 883, 885, 886, 898, 899 Persell, C. H. 118
Pantoja Palacios, J. 731, 735 Peshkin, A. 324
Paparelli, R. 625 Peters, G. 313, 316
Paquay, L. 632 Peterson, A. 453
Paquette, D. 148, 152 Petrie, P. 1163
Parada, R. H. 362 Pewewardy, C. 912
Pardo, M. 660n.6 Phelan, T. J. 841
Parekh, B. 995, 1001n.2 Phoenix, A. 402
Parent, S. 184 Pieck, E. 707
Parish, W. L. 352 Pierre, J. 306, 313, 316
Park, A. 238 Pile, S. 91, 1178
Park, R. 930 Pindani, D. G. 123
Park, R. E. 829 Ping, Y. 362
Parker, A. 1128 Pink, W. 812, 1175
Parker, L. 788 Pitt, J. 1058
Parker, W. C. 524 Piven, F. 789
Parkes, J. 184 Planas, J. 728n.6, 744
Parsons, C. 995 Plewis, I. 363, 990, 1083
Passeron, J. C. 118, 628, 667, 1069 Podgursky, M. 541
Paterson, A. 146 Poggi, M. 697
Patto, M. H. S. 622, 625, 627, 628, 629, Poglinco, S. M. 873
631, 632, 636nn.13, 15 Pogrow, S. 873
Patton, M. Q. 921 Polesel, J. 260
Patton, P. 252 Poliak, N. 752
Paulle, B. 526 Pollard, A. 636n.16, 1031, 1032, 1033,
Pavlenko, A. 388 1036, 1039
Paxton, W. 1166, 1168, 1170 Pon, G. 849
Peacock, A. 1069 Popkewitz, T. S. 448, 455
 Author Index 1259

Portelli, J. 815 Regan, D. E. 1134

Portes, A. 791, 825, 826, 829, 830, 831, Reich, E. 728
832, 833, 834, 835, 838, 845 Reich, R. B. 305
Portillo, G. 563 Reid, I. 1113, 1115, 1116
Portin, B. S. 870 Reid, J. 391, 1058
Portz, J. 807, 808 Reid, J.-A. 381
Posch, P. 552 Reid-Walsh, J. 156
Powell, M. 1152 Reihl, C. 1062, 1065, 1072
Power, S. 930, 1010, 1016, 1019, 1028, Reimers, F. 21n.20, 666–668, 680, 681n.6,
1029, 1044, 1056, 1106, 1113, 1123, 702nn.21, 22
1126, 1128, 1129, 1140 Reinhart, A. 843
Presmeg, N. 844 Reitz, J. 811
Preston, V. 843–844 Ren, C. Q. 238
Préteceille, E. 438 Rendall-Mkosi, K. 149, 159
Prieto, P. 400 Rennie, L. 254
Pring, R. 1124 Rex, J. 930, 961
Propper, C. 1016, 1125 Reynaga Obregón, S. 728
Prosser, R. 1084 Reynolds, D. 652, 1011, 1080, 1082, 1084,
Pruyn, M. 886 1086, 1095
Puamau, P. Q. 265, 269, 276, 283n.4 Reynolds, E. 34, 39
Puiggrós, A. 563–564, 567 Reynolds, H. 251
Purdue, D. 1149 Reynolds, P. 652
Purvis, J. 949 Rhodes, A. W. 307
Putnam, R. D. 913, 914 Rhodes, R. A. W. 1134–1135, 1136
Ribbens, J. 1057
Qin-Hilliard, D. B. 850 Ribeiro, S. C. 623, 624, 636n.11
Queirolo, R. 688, 697 Rice, J. K. 362
Quinn, J. 883, 893 Rich, W. 808
Richards, C. E. 185
Raczynski, D. 641, 650, 651, 654, 660n.7 Richards, G. 636n.13
Radcliffe, S. 76 Richards, M. H. 893
Radford, D. 95 Richardson, J. G. 923n.1
Rado, E. R. 31, 45 Richardson, R. 986
Raftopolous, B. 76, 79, 80 Riddell, R. 934, 936–937, 938, 940, 1027,
Rager, B. K. 920 1043, 1044, 1093, 1111, 1161
Rama, G. 690 Riddell, S. 1141, 1152
Ramesh, M. 316 Rifkin, J. 414
Rampal, A. 226, 285, 290, 292, 302, 303 Rigg, J. 293
Ranson, S. 92 Riley, K. 1064, 1129
Rasbash, J. 1084 Rinehart, J. S. 185, 200
Ravitch, D. 944 Ritter, G. W. 894
Rawls, J. 3, 7, 132, 133, 667, 962 Rivalland, J. 1058
Rayou, P. 437 Rizvi, F. 250, 255, 258, 261, 997
Razpotnik, S. 427n.4 Robbins, B. 222, 225, 1178
Razzaque, K. 1149 Robelen, E. W. 867, 878
Reay, D. 405, 970, 1057, 1072n.3, 1111 Robert, L.W. 122
Reeder, D. 945, 946, 947, 950, 975n.12 Roberts, K. 1028
Reese, E. 790 Roberts, R. 415
Reeves, J. 1067 Robin, D. 1085
1260 Author Index

Robinson, C. D. W. 68 Russell, H. 1151

Robinson, P. 915, 1009, 1021, 1098 Russo, C. J. 872
Robles, F. 759n.3 Rutter, M. 184, 185, 1010, 1017, 1081,
Robson, E. 1038–1039, 1145, 1152 1082, 1083
Robson, G. 1028, 1030 Ryan, J. 148, 152, 1070
Rocha, A. D. C. 625 Ryan, R. M. 185, 200
Rocha, M.L. 634
Rockwell, E. 571, 627, 636n.15 Sa’eda, B. 222–223, 228, 321
Rockwell, J. 627, 628, 629 Sachs, J. 258
Rodger, R. 943–944 Sack, R. 12
Rodgers, J. P. 34, 43 Sacks, J. 973, 976n.29
Rodríguez, H. 701n.2 Sadembouo, E. 68
Roe, A. 448 Safia Mirza, H. 405, 1001
Roe, E. 804 Sagor, R. 185, 200
Roediger, D. 781 Said, E. W. 87
Roellke, C. F. 362 Salamon, L. M. 313, 316
Rofes, E. 814 Saletti Salza, C. 500
Roff, W. R. 326 Salonen, T. 466
Rogers, C. R. 186, 886 Sameroff, A. 1057
Rojas Mata, M. R. 731, 734 Sammons, P. 652, 1010, 1082, 1084, 1086,
Rolff, H. G. 555 1087, 1098
Rollow, S. 814 Samoff, J. 5, 12, 13n.7, 20n.17, 21, 76, 185
Rolnik, R. 565, 577n.5 Sampson, A. 149
Romaguera, P. 660n.6 Sandell, R. 421
Román, M. 660n.7 Sanderson, V. 1057
Romero, L. A. 747 Sandham, J. L. 873
Rosaldo, R. 708, 718 Sandoval, E. 709, 721, 724n.22
Rose, J. 947 Sangsue, J. 183
Rose, N. 450 Santos, A. A. C. 634, 636n.21
Rose, S. 636n.13 Santos, B. S. 566
Rose, T. 796 Santos, D. P. 614
Rosen, E. 177 Santos, M. 577
Rosenau, J. N. 312 Saqib, G. N. 323
Rosenthal, L. 810 Sargent, T. 239
Ross, E. W. 886 Sarlo, B. 747
Roth, W. M. 290 Sassen, S. 399, 437, 972
Rothstein, R. 806 Saul, R. 771, 841, 848
Rothstein-Fisch, C. 911 Savage, M. 1028
Rovell, D. 787 Savoie, A. 185
Rowan, B. 432 Sawaya, S. 632
Rowles, D. 1129 Sawer, M. 253
Roy, S. 294 Sayão, Y. 634
Rozelle, S. 238 Scanlan, L. 893
Ruck, M. 847–848 Scanlan, T. 893
Rui, Y. 231, 312 Scanlon, D. 944
Rumbaut, R. G. 825, 829, 830, 831, 832, Scharpf, F. W. 306
833, 835 Scheerens, J. 652, 1082
Rummery, K. 1152 Scherler, K. 549
Russ, J. 1091 Schick, C. 811–812
 Author Index 1261

Schlesinger, J. 782 Silva, Z. F. 613

Schmoker, M. 874 Silveira, P. 594, 688, 697
Schneider, B. 774, 871 Silver, R. 156
Schneider, M. 660, 841 Silverman, D. 185, 1072n.1
Schön, D. 697, 907, 909 Silvestrini, E. 500n.8
Schrag, P. 806 Simmons, W. 808
Schrim, A. 891 Simon, B. 947
Schugurensky, D. 306 Simon, E. 1070
Schweinhart, L. J. 865 Sims, B. 893
Schweittzer, J. 185 Singer, P. 728
Scott, D. 98, 100 Singh, J. 309
Scott, I. 306, 316 Siraj-Blatchford, I. 991, 1098
Scott, J. 322, 335 Sistrunk, W. E. 185
Sears, A. 806, 807 Sivanandan, A. 996
Seashore, L. K. 184 Skeggs, B. 405
Sebring, P. 814 Skelton, C. 401
See, B. 1064 Slaugher-Defoe, D. 912
Sefton-Green, J. 385 Slavin, R. 652
Segarra, J. A. 81 Slee, R. 1052, 1084
Seguin-Levesque, C. 185 Sleeter, C. 783
Selescovitch, D. 61 Slobin, Dan I. 57
Semmens, R. 1140, 1145, 1147 Smith, A. 185
Sen, A. 3, 133, 343, 348, 353, 357 Smith, B. 1038, 1042
Sene, D. 201 Smith, D. 947, 1058, 1083
Senge, P. 1038, 1042, 1100 Smith, K. 847
Sennett, R. 386, 754, 1107 Smith, M. 809, 1146
Sergiovanni, T. J. 1152 Smith, N. 1016
Sernhede, O. 399, 404, 405, 408, 463, Smith, R. 944
472, 476 Smith, T. 869
Sewell, T. 995 Smylie, M. A. 868
Shah, B. P. 411 Snyder, B. A. 873
Shah, S. 403 Snyder, I. 388
Shamsi, S. 991 Soares, M. 627
Sharan, A. 295 Soja, E. W. 385
Sharma, K. 296 Solano-Flores, G. 912
Sharp, C. 1056, 1071 Solmon, M. A. 184
Sharp, P. 843, 844, 950 Solomon, R. P. 841, 847
Sharp, R. 636n.16, 974n.3 Somerville, J. 867
Sharpe, B. 843 Sorenson, A. B. 362
Shaw, J. 1028 Soudien, C. 996
Shen, F. X. 862, 877 Sourang, M. 184
Shephard, A. 1028 Sousa, C. P. 631
Shields, C. 1069–1070 Sousa, S. Z. 603, 606, 611, 612
Shimahara, N. 443 Souza, C. 631
Shipman, V. C. 766 Souza, D. T. R. 573, 619, 631
Short, P. 185, 200 Souza, M. C. C. 631
Shultz, M. 125 Souza, M. P. R. 619, 631, 634
Sigelman, L. 844 Souza, R. F. de 589, 590, 598
Silva, R. N. 613 Sowell, T. 789
1262 Author Index

Spence, N. 1149, 1150 Subrahmanian, R. 132

Spencer, S. 950 Subramanian, S. 851
Spiegelhalter, D. 1087 Sugarman, S. 814
Spillane, J. 1065 Sukhnandan, L. 990
Spinks, J. M. 1089 Suminto, A. 327
Spivak, G. 785 Supovitz, J. A. 873
Spoehr, A. 265, 270 Suriano, J. 748
Spours, K. 1170 Sutz, J. 307
Spring, J. H. 308 Swann, L. 981, 989
Srinivasan, R. 295 Sweeny, J. 185
St. John, E. P. 911, 932 Sylva, K. 1098
St. Denis, V. 811–812 Sylvester, C. 81, 85
St. Louis, K. 796
Stack, C. 816 Tada, I. N. C. 634
Staniec, J. F. O. 362 Tadadjeu, M. 54, 57, 67
Stankovik, S. 427n.4 Taggart, B. 1098
Stanton-Salazar, R. D. 834 Taguiri, R. 183
Stead, J. 1145, 1147 Takanishi, R. 912
Steel, D. 1124 Talbert-Johnson, C. 872
Steele, C. 787 Tamboril, M. I. B. 636n.21
Steffgen, G. 185 Tan, J. 311
Stein, L. 807 Tan, T. M. 309
Steinberg, L. 184 Tan, W. L. 309
Stephenson, J. 545 Tanamachi, E. R. 628, 634
Stephenson, K. 1016 Tapia, J. 1061
Stepick, A. 829, 830, 831, 832, 835, 836 Tardiff, M. 435
Stepick, C. D. 831, 832, 835, 836 Tartuce, G. L. 567
Stevens, J. J. 184 Tassoni, E. C. M. 634
Stevenson, D. 385 Taylor, C. 1110, 1112
Stewart, K. 1028, 1169 Taylor, J. 1010
Stewart, M. 1149 Taylor, M. 1135, 1149
Stickard, J. 184 Taylor, N. 150, 151
Stiglitz, J. E. 224, 315, 316 Taylor, S. 258, 261
Stoll, L. 1010, 1061, 1079, 1086, Teasdale, G. R. 221, 224, 265, 279,
1089, 1091 280, 283n.3
Stone, C. 807–808 Teddlie, C. 1011, 1080, 1082, 1084, 1095
Stott, A. 1140 Tedesco, J. C. 671, 680
Stovall, D. 1259 Teed, D. 831
Strathern, M. 1056 Teese, R. 92, 260
Stroka, W. 1169 Teixeira, A. 593, 594, 595, 596, 599nn.3,
Stromquist, N. 911 7, 8
Stronge, J. H. 185 Tenorth, H. E. 543
Stuart, J. 156 Tenti, E. 671
Stubbs, M. 627, 636n.16, 1068 Terán, O. 747
Stufflebeam, D. L. 921 Terhart, E. 747
Stulberg, L. 814 Tesser, P. 526
Suárez, D. 569, 571 Tett, L. 934, 939, 940, 1021, 1031, 1044,
Suarez-Orozco, C. 801, 850 1109, 1139, 1140, 1141, 1146, 1147,
Suarez-Orozco, M. 801, 828, 830, 831 1148, 1149, 1150, 1151, 1152, 1163
 Author Index 1263

Thaman, K. H. 281 Trinidad, M. 413

Thernstrom, A. 884 Trondman, M. 402, 406
Thernstrom, S. 884 Troper, H. 842
Therrien, A. T. S. 624 Troyna, B. 990, 991, 996
Thiam, A. 200n.5 Trumbull, E. 911
Thiara, R. 97 Tsang, A. K. T. 355
Thiebaud, M. 184 Tsang, M. S. 239
Thierack, A. 546 Tschekan, K. 555
Thin, D. 583 Tsoka, M. G. 124
Thloloe, J. 146 Tsolidis, G. 250, 254, 255, 263
Thomas, K. 810 Turner, B. S. 450
Thomas, R. G. 30 Turner, E. 1067
Thomas, R. M. 910 Turner, V. 312
Thomas, S. 1083, 1090, 1101 Turrittin, A. 844
Thompson, F. M. L. 947 Turtel, J. 382
Thompson, G. 305, 306 Tyack, D. 591, 944
Thoms, D. W. 952 Tyler, P. 1140
Thomson, P. 251, 387, 934, 937, 1030, Tymms, P. 1011
1034, 1049, 1053, 1056, 1057, 1058,
1059, 1063–1064, 1067 Uhlenberg, P. 359
Thrupp, M. 441, 970, 974, 975n.25, 1011, Useem, E. 878
1034, 1051, 1052, 1066, 1072n.4, 1082, Usher, R. 294
1084–1085, 1095, 1096
Tienda, M. 362, 832, 845 Valberg, M. J. 185
Tiffin, H. 269 Valdes, G. 791
Tikly, L. 19n.2, 981 Valencia, R. 766, 833, 1072n.3
Tiramonti, G. 561, 570, 576, 747, 752 Valenzuela, A. 786, 812
Tisdall, K. 1146 Vallely, P. 975
Tizard, B. 1083 van Dijk, T. A. 402, 403
Tizifa, J. 126 Van Greunen, E. 153–154, 161, 162,
Toalster, R. 1053 164, 176
Togneri, W. 1129 Van Hook, J. 827
Tokai, E. 280, 283n.3 Van Velzen, W. 1085
Tokman, V. 727 Van Zanten, A. 399, 400, 405, 407, 431,
Tolonen, T. 450 432, 433, 434, 435, 436, 437, 438,
Tomlinson, S. 830, 975n.14, 989, 1009, 439, 440, 500, 523
1052, 1068, 1072n.3, 1083, 1084, Vangen, S. 1149
1099, 1169 Varela, J. P. 701n.2
Tooley, J. 1123 Varghese, L.S. 849, 852
Tordoff, W. 44 Vaughan-Williams, P. 620
Torrado, S. 748 Veiga, C. G. 583
Torrance, N. 1011, 1012, 1027, Verma, G. D. 296
1043, 1089 Verma, S. 893
Torres, C. 306 Vermeulen, B. P. 524, 528
Torres, R. 566, 807 Viadero, D. 878
Touraine, A. 417 Vianna, H. M. 614
Toutounji, I. 990, 991 Vidal Vila, J. M. 418
Tractenberg, P. L. 1132 Vidovich, L. 312
Trainor, R. 949 Vieluf, U. 540
1264 Author Index
Villalpando, O. 768
Villavicencio, D. 731
Villela, H. 586, 599n.6
Vincent, C. 1072n.3, 1141
Vincent, G. 583
Vincent, K. 460, 1053
Vinjevold, P. 150, 151
Vinson, K. 886
Visco, I. 414
Vlaeminke, M. 951
Volante, L. 1024
Vorpe, G. 183
Vulliamy, G. 1140, 1148
Vygotsky, L. 1031
Wacquant, L. 228
Wade, R. 308, 316
Wagner, R. 1149, 1150
Waisanen, F. B. 45
Walberg, B. 183
Walberg, H. J. 878
Waldinger, R. 825–826, 833
Walford, G. 953
Walker, D. 1065
Walker, R. 156
Walker, V. S. 886
Walkerdine, V. 405
Wallace, C. 359, 360, 870
Wallace, J. 1146, 1163
Wallerstein, I. 416–417
Wang, F. 356
Warnier, J. P. 417
Warnock, M. 425, 1140
Warren, M. 788
Warren, S. 986
Wason-Ellam, L. 832, 833
Waterman, C. 1123
Watkins, D. A. 225
Watkins, K. 129, 186
Watling, R. 992, 1126
Watson, B. 887, 888, 889
Watson, N. 1011, 1012, 1027,
1043, 1089
Watson, S. 386
Watters, J. R. 68
Weaver, J. A. 1058
Webb, R. 1140, 1148
Wee, C. J. W.-L. 361, 372
Weekes, D. 995
Weffort, F. 630
Wei, H. 356, 855n.5
Weikart, D. P. 865
Weikart, L. A. 872
Weiler, H. N. 292
Weill, S. 1196
Weindling, D. 1050, 1051
Weiner, G. 397, 398, 402, 406, 1052,
1084, 1191
Weiner, L. 774
Weinfeld, F. 860, 1011, 1081
Weinstein, E. 177
Weinstein, G. 931
Weir, K. 381
Weis, L. 402, 1060
Weiss, L. 316
Welch, A. 307
Wells, A. S. 1063
Wells, M. 1058
Weng, F. Y. 311
Werbner, P. 402
Wertsch, J. V. 426
West, A. 1114
West-Burnham, J. 1114
Westheimer, J. 815
Westwood, S. 76
Whitaker, B. 336
White, A. 992
White, G. 307
White, P. 1064
White, S. 1151
White, V. 253
Whitmore, K. 1061
Whitty, G. 436, 907, 929, 930, 931, 933,
939, 953, 964, 965, 966, 975n.8, 1010,
1019, 1028, 1029, 1030, 1031, 1039,
1056, 1084, 1094, 1097, 1099, 1100,
1106, 1113, 1123, 1126, 1129, 1140,
1157, 1203
Whyte, M. K. 352
Wieder, A. 151, 154
Wiese, A. 769, 775n.1
Wigfall, V. 1029, 1210
Wilcox, B. 1089, 1090
Wiliam, D. 874
Wilkin, A. 1140
Wilkinson, R. 1060
Williams, D. T. 39
Williams, J. 1016, 1029
 Author Index 1265

Williams, R. 270, 444, 448 Yang, Y. R. 348

Willis, P. 404, 792, 1060 Yates, L. 254, 256
Willis, S. 254 Yeakey, C. C. 923n.1
Willms, J. D. 1084 Yeatman, A. 252, 257
Wilmott, R. 1051, 1066 Yee, G. 808. 809, 815
Wilson, D. 1016 Yeoh, M. 316
Wilson, R. 222 Yeung, A. S. 362
Wilson, W. J. 465, 766, 781, 789, 790, 807, Yonezawa, A. 312
860, 909 Yoshikuni, T. 80
Windschitl, M. 535 Youdell, D. 290, 991, 1001n.9
Winkley, D. 1068 Young, D. 842
Winter, H. J. J. 339n.8 Young, I. M. 448
Wirth, L. 751, 766, 769 Young, M. F. D. 929
Wise, C. 27–28 Young, R. 268
Wisenbaker, J. 185 Young, S. 316
Witkow, M. 832 Youngs, H. 185, 1192
Wohlstetter, P. 863 Yuan, Z. G. 244
Wolfendale, S. 1146 Yuen, J. 818
Wolff, M. 943 Yun, J. T. 864, 866
Wong, C. 238 Yuval-Davis, N. 450
Wong, J. 315
Wong, K. 964 Zapata Barrero, R. 420
Wong, M. 843–844 Zhang, C. 845
Wong, S. F. 315 Zhang, Y. L. 237, 241, 242
Wood, A. 986 Zheng, Y. J. 315
Wooden, W. S. 842 Zhou, M. 826, 829, 830–831, 833, 835,
Woods, G. J. 1116, 1118, 1119n.8, 838, 845
1126, 1131 Zibas, D. 567, 568, 569,
Woods, N. 305 578n.10
Woods, P. 636n.16, 1029 Zibetti, M. L. T. 634
Woodward, K. 377n.1 Zief, S. G. 894
Wright, C. 990, 995, 1001n.6 Ziegler, S. 754
Wright, D. 832 Zimmerman, D. 1065
Wright, N. 1066 Zine, J. 848
Wright Mills, C. 960, 970, 975n.16 Zoltner-Sherer, J. 1065
Zufiaurre, B. 397, 399, 404, 407,
Yair, G. 434 413, 414, 416, 421, 422, 423, 425,
Yang, Q. 356 426, 428
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