Through a case study of the Los Angeles city school district from the 1950s through the 1970s, Judith Kafka explores the intersection of race, politics, and the bureaucratic organization of schooling. Kafka argues that control over discipline became increasingly centralized in the second half of the twentieth century in response to pressures…

This article uses the metaphor of the achievement gap to make transparent, discuss, and critique the analytical frame/lens used in the articles to analyze urban education. Doing such an analysis is essential to producing an additional lens that has utility in theory and practice. It facilitates a historical analysis of urban education and leads to…

This volume of transformed research utilizes an activist approach to examine the notion that nothing is apolitical. Research projects themselves are critically examined for power orientations, even as they are used to address curricular problems and educational or societal issues. Philosophical perspectives that have facilitated an understanding…