UCLA

Historically, traditional public schools have been microcosms of the broader neighborhoods in which they are embedded. These schools reflect the race, class and cultural backgrounds of the local community where they are situated. However, over the past three decades, traditional public schools have been implicated in the rise of educational privatization and market-based approaches to education reform and urban restructuring. In order to respond to threats posed by privatization, teachers and administrators, especially those serving students of color and low-income students, must understand and be able to respond to the contextual idiosyncrasies and nuances that manifest inside the school building. Neighborhood conditions do profoundly impact the teaching and learning environment of schools. Educators attempting to transform those schools should take into account those conditions and seek to connect school change strategies to those conditions.

Utilizing the scholarship on community engagement in urban contexts as an empirical and intellectual springboard, this qualitative case study seeks to first understand the social, political and cultural dynamics that have shaped the neighborhood and schooling contexts through the perspectives of multiple stakeholder groups. To do so, this study explores the perceptions of educators – teachers, administrators, and staff—in one urban high school regarding the out-of-school factors that impact the teaching and learning environment and explore how they engage the community in their approach to school reform that is linked to those factors.

Drawing from critical race theory and critical urban theory, this study demonstrates how educators contend with the out-of-school factors of poverty, student and family homelessness and market forces to embark on school reform that is directly connected to these challenges and engages local community residents in the process.