Maintaining that urban teaching and learning is characterized by numerous contradictions, this book proposes that there is a wide range of social, cultural, psychological, and pedagogical knowledge that urban educators must possess in order to engage in effective and transformative practice. It is necessary for teachers in urban schools to be scholar-practitioners, as opposed to bureaucrats who only follow rather than analyze, understand, and create. Ten major sections cover the myriad issues of urban education as it exists today: context of urban education, race and ethnicity, social...

While the authors of this book were team teaching a course called -High and Low Art: Good and Bad Taste-, the -Sensation- controversy at the Brooklyn Museum broke out. This controversy not only shaped their course, but had larger implications for art, culture, and education in general for the twenty-first century. By asking serious aesthetic and cultural questions about art and teaching, this book explores the power of art to shape both our emotions and our intellect."