Teaching for Citizenship in Urban Schools

Edited by:
Antonio J. Castro, University of Missouri
Alexander Cuenca, Indiana University
Jason Williamson, University of Missouri

A volume in the series: Teaching and Learning Social Studies. Editor(s): William B. Russell, University of Central Florida.

Published 2020

As the civic engagement gap widens across lines of race, class, and ethnicity, educators in today’s urban schools must reconsider what it means to teach for citizenship; however, few resources exist that speak to their unique contexts. Teaching for Citizenship in Urban Schools offers lessons and strategies that combines the power of inquiry-driven teaching with a funds of knowledge approach to capitalize on the lived civic experiences of urban youth and children.

Teaching for Citizenship in Urban Schools presents six strategies for making civic and social studies education relevant and engaging: using photovoice for social change, conducting culturally responsive investigations of community, defining American Black founders, enacting hip-hop pedagogy, employing equity literacy to explore immigrant enclaves, and drawing on young adult fiction to teach about police violence. Written by some of the leading scholars in the field, each chapter includes an overview of the strategy and lessons for both elementary and secondary students. As a whole, these lessons draw on neighborhood resources, facilitate cultural exchanges among students and teachers, create community networks, and bridge schools and communities in a shared mission of building a just and inclusive democracy.

This book is for anyone who values student-centered, inquiry-driven, and culturally-sustaining pedagogies that foster a deeper understanding of citizenship within a diverse democracy.

CONTENTS
Introduction. Acknowledgments. Teaching for Citizenship in Urban Schools, Antonio J. Castro. How Can I Serve as a Voice for My Community? Using Photovoice to Cultivate Young Agents of Change, Sarah A. Mathews. Culturally Responsive Investigations of Communities: Honoring Funds of Knowledge and Community Spaces, Rebecca C. Christ and Adrian C. Clifton. Do We Need to Redefine Who We Classify as Founders? Black Founding Fathers and Mothers of the United States, LaGarrett J. King and John A. Moore. Hip-Hop Pedagogy, Lauren Ray. Teaching Immigration in Urban Contexts, Ashley Taylor Jaffee and Jeremy Hilburn. Teaching Police Violence Through Young Adult Fiction, Antonio J. Castro and Jason Williamson. Funds of Knowledge and Civic Education in Urban Classrooms, Alexander Cuenca.