This book examines the maligned students who populate urban schools and finds a talented group of resilient young people who deserve the support of the larger society. The editors and authors explore the ways such students are undermined, in the process developing new ways of teaching based on an understanding and appreciation of them. Contemporary political leaders have used the fear of the poor, non-white, and immigrant «city kids» we study here to push racist and class-biased social and educational agendas. This book challenges these tactics, while laying out a pedagogy of respect and hope.

The Editors: Joe L. Kincheloe is the Canada Research Chair in the Faculty of Education at McGill University. He is the author of numerous books and articles about pedagogy, cultural studies, education and social justice, racism, class bias, and sexism, issues of cognition and cultural context, and urban education. His books include Teachers as Researchers; Toil and Trouble; Getting Beyond the Facts: Teaching Social Studies/Social Sciences in the Twenty-First Century; The Sign of the Burger: McDonald’s and the Culture of Power; Critical Pedagogy Primer; Critical Constructivism Primer; and Rigour and Complexity in Educational Research: Conceptualizing the Bricolage (with Kathleen Berry). His co-edited works include White Reign: Deploying Whiteness in America (with Shirley Steinberg); 19 Urban Questions: Teaching in the City; and the Gustavus Myers Human Rights award winner: Measured Lies: The Bell Curve Examined (with Shirley Steinberg). Kincheloe is very concerned with the politics of knowledge as it relates to the socio-cultural, political, psychological, and educational dimensions of contemporary life. It is from this perspective that he approaches urban education. kecia hayes was a MAGNET Scholar at the CUNY Graduate Center where she received her Ph.D. in urban education. Her research focuses on how social policies and practices impact the educational experiences of children and parents of color in urban communities. kecia’s dissertation examined the educational experiences of court-involved youth. She has taught graduate courses at the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution of Teachers College, Columbia University, and was an educational consultant with the NYU School of Education Metropolitan Center, as well as the Center for Social and Emotional Education. kecia has provided research assistance for The Colors of Excellence: Hiring and Keeping Teachers of Color in Independent Schools (Pearl Rock Kane and Alfonso J. Orsini, eds.); co-authored a chapter in 19 Urban Questions: Teaching in the City (Shirley Steinberg and Joe L. Kincheloe, eds.); and is a co-editor of The Praeger Handbook of Urban Education and Metropedagogy: Power, Justice, and the Urban Classroom.