The mission of Penn GSE Perspectives on Urban Education is to provide an interactive forum to investigate critical issues in urban education. The purpose of an electronic journal format is to provide a vehicle for fostering conversations about the complexities of urban education among practitioners, researchers, policymakers and graduate students, groups who often work in isolation from each other. We imagine that the larger community interested in these issues will use the format to provide scholarship, commentary, and critique essential for investigating critical issues in urban education. We hope that the potential for dialogue through an electronic journal will lead to increased cooperation and understanding among all those concerned about urban education.
We encourage graduate students, practitioners, policy makers and researchers to publish studies in progress, as well as findings from completed research. We welcome submissions on a wide variety of topics related to urban schooling, and will also devote specific issues to single themes. In each issue, we plan to include feature-length articles, shorter reports of studies in progress, reviews, commentaries, and opportunities to share comments and questions on the publications. We welcome additional suggestions regarding the use of this electronic format.
Amy Bach is a fourth-year doctoral student in the Reading/Writing/Literacy program in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests center around media literacy and the role localized, independent media play in democratic societies; youth-produced documentaries as social commentaries and teaching tools; and the role of visual images in community mobilization and activism.
Kira Baker-Doyle is a third-year doctoral student in the Teaching Learning and Curriculum program in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests include beginning teacher experiences, teacher networks, and teacher inquiry. She is currently involved in conducting research on the experience of first-year teachers in the School District of Philadelphia. She is also the Co-owner of John and Kira's Jubilee Chocolates, a socially-responsible gourmet food business based in Philadelphia.
Kimberly Daniel-White is a Ph.D. candidate in Educational Linguistics in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests include parental involvement in African-American and Latino communities, teachers' experiences with parental involvement, and ethnography of education.
Vinay
Harpalani is a Ph.D. candidate in Interdisciplinary Studies in Human
Development at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his bachelor's
degrees in biological sciences (1996) and psychology (1997) from the University
of Delaware, and a Master of Science in Education (1999) and Master of
Bioethics (2004) from the University of Pennsylvania. Vinay's academic
interests lay in the area of critical race studies, focusing on racial
stereotypes and academic achievement, and the political, legal, and scientific
construction of racial ideology and race discourse in America.
Cheryl
Jones-Walker is a doctoral student in the Teaching, Learning and Curriculum
program. She came to Penn after teaching elementary and middle level in
three different environments. She also worked as a school change coach
for a non-profit committed to improving education K-12. Her research interests
include teacher and student identity, urban school reform, and collaborative
professional development.
Katherine Schultz is an
associate professor of education in the elementary teacher education program
in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.
A former teacher and principal, her research interests include urban teacher
education; the study of literacy, discourse and identities; adolescent
literacies in and out of school; and the education of girls and women.
Her recently published book, Listening: A Framework for Teaching Across
Differences, which documents her empirical research over the past
decade in K-12 settings and teacher education, provides a conceptual framework
for envisioning teaching as listening.
Anne Burns Thomas is a middle school teacher in the School District of Philadelphia. She received a PhD in the Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum Program of the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests include teacher retention and teacher networks.
The review board reads and assesses all submissions and makes recommendations to authors for revisions.
Review Board Members include:
Valerie Adams
Sara Allender
Elizabeth Argo
Kira Baker-Doyle
Anne Burns Thomas
Carolyn Chernoff
Amber Chester
Noah Drezner
Page Fahrig-Pendse
Anna Gallant
Mihyon Jeon
Erika Kitzmiller
Meagan McGowan
Paige Moore
Stacy Olitsky
Charis Price
Julie Riordan
Brett Shiel
Tamara Warhol
Katie Wester Neal
Kelly Wissman
Sherri Wu
Susan Zief