The increasing racial, cultural, and ethnic diversity among the populations attending urban schools poses a significant challenge to providing quality public education. Similarly, few would dispute that, in order to meet this challenge effectively, teachers must acquire the cultural competency for creating productive and inclusive learning…

What teaching practices foster inquiry and promote students to learn challenging subject matter in urban schools? Inquiry-based instruction and successful inquiry learning and teaching in project-based science (PBS) were described in previous studies (Brown & Campione, [1990]; Crawford, [1999]; Krajcik, Blumenfeld, Marx, Bass, & Fredricks,…

Urban public schools and their teachers are under siege. From increased standardization, privatization and testing to a growing number of students whose needs are not being met by schools, urban public school teachers face a daunting task. Without a space in which to critically examine their daily experiences within schools, many well-intentioned…

This article reports the findings of a research study that investigated the knowledge base and the perceptions of professional competence of 115 general education teachers as they relate to the inclusion of students with physical disabilities. Members of the sample represented elementary and secondary teachers who were teaching in rural, urban,…

How can the "revolving door" at the nation's high-poverty schools be slowed down? How can diversity be taught in teacher preparation that relates to teaching and learning? How can teachers learn to use the diverse urban classroom as a rich asset? By focusing on reconceptualizing general education studies, addressing key urban understanding and…

This article reports the findings of a collective case study of 2 low-performing, predominantly minority urban schools. The research shows that principals were able to improve the quality of parent-teacher relationships using multidimensional strategies that addressed the needs of teachers and parents. The findings suggest that strategies to…

A teacher education program designed to adequately prepare preservice teachers to instruct culturally and linguistically diverse students in their classrooms is described. Under the supervision of a professor and a graduate assistant in a required methods course at a private midwestern Christian university, 24 preservice teachers, who use a…

This study examines six teachers' responses inside and outside of their classrooms to increasingly mixed messages about how they should develop the literacy of California's youngest and most at-risk students. While they must develop highly developed knowledge and skills to teach literacy in linguistically diverse classrooms, they must also adhere…

The purpose of this case study was to document the journey of three novice career change science inductees as they became middle-level science teachers in urban low socioeconomic status (SES) schools and included post-internship employment status data on all nine science teachers who completed the alternative certification program, up to the time…

This second volume, the follow-on to "Teaching Music in the Urban Classroom, Volume 1: A Guide to Survival, Success, and Reform," extends the conversation to include educational leadership, teacher education, partnerships, and school reform. As with Volume 1, classroom music teachers, inner city arts administrators, well-known academics,…

This article discusses the use of Esmeralda Santiago's autobiography "When I Was Puerto Rican" (1994b) as the foundation for an experiential learning project that brought two language communities: suburban college students studying intermediate Spanish and urban Puerto Rican students in an English-as-a-second-language (ESL) class. The…

The recruitment of qualified teachers is an immense and demanding job, particularly for high-poverty urban schools. Urban schools often turn to the common practice of recruiting teachers who are under qualified, most of them with no teaching experience and limited training. Because of their lack of preparation, coupled with the difficult working…

The English-only initiatives sweeping the United States are mainstreaming English language learners into content-area classes designed for native or fluent English speakers, with little, if any, English as a second language (ESL) support. This spells trouble for the ever-growing population of Latinos because ESL teachers are not likely to have the…

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.…

The "ISSS Annual Conference Proceedings" is a peer-reviewed professional publication published once a year following the annual conference. (Individual papers contain references.) [For the 2009 proceedings, see ED504973.]