Working Families and Educational Inequalities in Urban Schools

(Same as Labor Studies M136.) Exploration of complex relationship between working-class and poor communities and inequalities in American urban schools. Drawing on multiple disciplinary frameworks that address issues of race, ethnicity, and immigration, schools viewed as sites where inequalities are produced and resisted. Review of history of exclusionary treatment and divergent conceptual frames that educational researchers have used to understand notion of inequality, access to quality public education, and how race, ethnicity, and class affect school experiences for working-class and poor communities. Look inside schools through community service learning opportunity to examine systems, structures, and everyday practices that sustain and reproduce inequality and policies that intend to remedy educational inequalities in urban schools. Opportunity to investigate issues of working-class families and inequalities as they relate to students’ own communities and experiences.

P/NP or letter grading.