Urban Education

George W. Noblit

In the United States, almost one third of all school-age children attend schools in large urban districts. It is in these urban schools where the diversity of cultures and languages is highest and where students fail to thrive. Thus, urban education is often viewed as a problem, or a set of problems, to be solved. However, it is helpful to see urban education as a manifestation of our cultural and social arrangements for education. Schools require much of parents, including that they know and accept the assumptions on which schooling works. Schools require people to accept that they are to be assimilated and acculturated if they are to succeed in schools. As Valenzuela demonstrates in his 1999 book Subtractive Schooling, middle-class families often experience schooling as “additive,” adding knowledge and skills to that which they already have, whereas poor families often experience schooling as “subtractive,” taking away cultural beliefs, Urban ...

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