To challenge deficit thinking concerning immigrants and refugees in urban schools, we engaged members of local immigrant and refugee communities from China, Mexico, Liberia, and Sudan in focus group discussions about their prior educational experiences, their hopes and aspirations for education, and the supports and challenges they encountered in…

Using critical race discourse analysis, this study examines descriptions of a heated controversy over the proposed closure of the only primarily black high school in a large urban city. Participants included community members and the district and school leaders who were key in the controversy. Based on Foucault's analysis of power we looked for…

Review of school-community relationsuip studies in Cincinnati, Columbus, Detroit, and Washington, D.C., shows that these successful undertakings were guided by several objectives. Most important among these were (1) to develop information about means of local school-community interaction and communication and their effectiveness, (2) to become…

This dissertation is an exploratory study of a power struggle for control of public education in a large urban school system. This power struggle is examined via its exemplification in the form of a controversy over accountability within the school system. The method used for this study was the interviewing of 20 persons playing major roles in the…

This volume offers a proposal for a national desegregation study which would involve coordinated case studies of twelve to fifteen cities in which there has been substantial systemwide desegregation for 5 to 10 or more years. The following are identified as the principal components of the study: (1) a natural history of school desegregation; (2) a…