Until the last quarter of the 20th century racially explicit policies of federal, state, and local governments defined where whites and African Americans should live. Today's residential segregation in the North, South, Midwest, and West is not the unintended consequence of individual choices and of otherwise well-meaning law or regulation but is…

Whereas increased scholarly attention is focusing on contemporary school closings, noticeably absent is the placement of this scholarship within the historical context of Black people's social experiences. This paradigm shift would reveal a much longer history that has had devastating consequences for Black people. In this article, we identify…

The present study employs a geospatial analytical approach to studying the evenness-clustering and isolation-exposure dimensions of segregation in the context of the St. Louis, Missouri, metropolitan region. In contrast to global indicators of segregation, this approach focuses on the evenness and isolation dimensions at the local level to…

Harris-Stowe State University is a relatively small university located in Missouri's largest metropolitan area. Yet the students at Harris-Stowe are clearly different from the students at the other eleven Missouri public universities. The student body of Harris-Stowe is predominantly African American, over 85 percent. Harris-Stowe State University…

Using Harvey's (2012) "Spaces of Capital: Towards a Critical Geography" and Sharp's (2009) Geographies of Postcolonialism as theoretical approaches and Gordon's (2008) "Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the Fate of the American City" as historical context, a graduate-level critical geography of urban higher education class…

This co-authored qualitative case study explores the problem of teachers connecting with their students especially at the middle school level. While research has established the need for teachers to better understand the background experiences of their students, more research is needed to explore the value of place-based professional development…

In "Striving in Common," Jennifer Jellison Holme and Kara S. Finnigan seek to build a bridge between two largely disparate, yet interconnected, conversations--those among education reformers on the one hand, and urban reformers on the other. In this carefully considered volume, the authors show how the challenges faced by urban schools…

This co-authored qualitative case study explores the challenge of teachers connecting with their students at the middle school level, especially when White teachers serve predominantly African-American students in large urban metropolitan areas like St. Louis, Missouri. While research has established the need for teachers to better understand the…

Despite the strong relationship between geography and education policy, educational research tends to draw from other fields of inquiry such as economics, political science, and history. This special topics collection centers the usefulness of geography and place in educational policy research. The introduction explains the rationale for the…

As the early twentieth century's restrictive social policies and poor economic conditions relegated African Americans in St. Louis, Mo. to high poverty neighborhoods, parents were forced to enroll their children in substandard segregated schools. Meanwhile the African American population increased in size from 108,765 (11.4 percent) in 1940 to…

Ferguson, like many at-risk suburbs, has largely been lost in discussions of the geography of opportunity. The authors conducted a descriptive epidemiological case study of Ferguson and its surrounding region with a focus on health and education indicators. Drawing from a variety of community data sources, they used geospatial methods to…

Examines changes in patterns of Black-White housing segregation in St. Louis (Missouri) between 1980 and 1988 using data from the 1988 Dress Rehearsal Census. St. Louis exhibited a persistent pattern of segregation from 1940 to 1980. Finds the city remains quite segregated compared to 1980 national averages. (DM)

1980 census data for the Saint Louis, Missouri, metropolitan area indicated (1) no change in central city desegregation and only a modest decline in suburban segregation; (2) rapid Black population growth in suburbs with low segregation indexes (signifying a possible racial turnover); and (3) repetition of central city segregation patterns in the…

Assesses the state of black residential segregation since the court case "Shelley v. Kraemer." Focus is placed on metropolitan areas generally and on St. Louis and Detroit, in particular. It is concluded that blacks have made little progress in reducing segregation in housing since the 1948 court case that outlawed restrictive covenants…