This paper is a report of work conducted at an urban elementary professional development school in the eastern US. John Dewey's explication of "educative experiences" is applied to describe curriculum involving small animals as a basis for teaching science inquiry processes, particularly the process of observation. The analysis is qualitative and…

This article describes introductory practices used to prepare future urban teachers to implement critical literacy strategies in their classrooms. Based in a teacher education program designed to prepare teachers for urban multicultural settings, the authors provide an overview of critical approaches to literacy instruction, a rationale for why…

This article explores youth participatory action research as a promising instructional practice with the potential to reverse the depoliticizing and "softening" of multicultural education. It demonstrates how, with its explicit commitment to action, youth participatory action research can help to improve the educational experiences and…

This article describes how the promotion of purposeful mathematical discussions can enhance young mathematicians' construction of knowledge and their explanation of strategy use.

In this article, I present a qualitative analysis of third graders' experiences with a unit from their district-mandated commercial reading curriculum in which the children made strong connections between a fictional account of a Depression-era farm family's economic hardships and their own 21st century lives in a city with one of the highest…

Although beloved of some chemists and physicists, science demonstrations have been criticized for stifling inquiry and assisting teachers to maintain a power differential between themselves and students in the classroom. This interpretive study reports the unexpected positive learning outcomes for urban science students in two chemistry classes…

Presents the purpose and value of teacher involvement in play, its possible contributions to creativity and socialization. (AJ)

An innovational educational program is analyzed. (CK)

This dissertation investigates how teaching in a hands-on science center contributes to re/shaping one's teaching identity. Situated at the New York Hall of Science (NYHS) in Queens, New York, my research approach is to conduct a critical ethnography where the focus is on improving the teaching and learning of science for all involved. In…

Institutional behavior can be seen as a dynamic balance between driving and restraining forces operating oppositionally. To shift the balance toward change in the 24 inner-city schools of the Model School Division, this experiment in innovation trained 300 District of Columbia public school teachers in new curriculum materials and methodologies…

The articles in this issue range from a description of starting a successful free school in a St. Louis ghetto to a suggestion for suing the public school system for failing to provide adequate education. Personal experiences of a teacher suspended for his radical approach to teaching, of a substitute teacher in a class to teach English to the…