Re-"place"-ing the "Urban" in Urban Education: A Geographic Analysis of Urban Educational Environments Across America

• In Event: Roundtable Session 57
  In Roundtable Session: Policies and the Sociopolitical Environment: Impacts on Lives and Outcomes

Abstract

This paper provides a detailed account of the state of urban educational environments in contemporary America. By linking nationwide data on American schools with community and business pattern information, I situate urban schools in place and examine the organizational and demographic conditions of the communities in which urban schools are located. I argue that conventional uses of the word “urban,” as a basic category of schooling, have been displaced, moving, however subtly, from geographic to imagined space. These displaced conceptions have undermined scholarly efforts to understand the diversity of urban educational environments, regionally, demographically, and organizationally. The analysis presented in this paper recovers the hard lines of urban geography and privileges its diversity in relation to urban schooling.

Author

• Alvin Pearman, Vanderbilt Peabody College