Christopher Emdin

Yes, Black Males are Different, but Different is Not Deficient

Stop pretending that all students are alike; teaching to their differences will improve their chances for academic success.

Tailoring Science Outreach through E-Matching Using a Community-Based Participatory Approach

In an effort to increase science exposure for pre-college (K-12) students and as part of the science education reform agenda, many biomedical research institutions have established university-community partnerships. Typically, these science outreach programs consist of pre-structured, generic exposure for students, with little community engagement. However, the use of a medium that is accessible to both teachers and scientists, electronic web-based matchmaking (E-matching) provides an opportunity for tailored outreach utilizing a community-based participatory approach (CBPA), which involves all stakeholders in the planning and implementation of the science outreach based on the interests of teachers/students and scientists. E-matching is a timely and urgent endeavor that provides a rapid connection for science engagement between teachers/students and experts in an effort to fill the science outreach gap. National Lab Network (formerly National Lab Day), an ongoing initiative to increase science equity and literacy, provides a model for engaging the public in science via an E-matching and hands-on learning approach. We argue that science outreach should be a dynamic endeavor that changes according to the needs of a target school. We will describe a case study of a tailored science outreach activity in which a public school that serves mostly under-represented minority students from disadvantaged backgrounds were E-matched with a university, and subsequently became equal partners in the development of the science outreach plan. In addition, we will show how global science outreach endeavors may utilize a CBPA, like E-matching, to support a pipeline to science among under-represented minority students and students from disadvantaged backgrounds. By merging the CBPA concept with a practical case example, we hope to inform science outreach practices via the lens of a tailored E-matching approach.

Citizenship and social justice in urban science education

This article describes, and then applies a newly developed framework for classroom citizenship as an entry point into addressing social justice issues in urban science classrooms. The author provides in‐depth descriptions of cogenerative dialogues, coteaching, and cosmopolitanism (3Cs), and presents this triad of tools as an approach to research/practice that addresses full participation of youth in an urban physics classroom. By describing the 3Cs, in an urban classroom, the author presents under‐discussed issues that inhibit urban youth from fully participating in urban science classrooms, as an inhibitor to social justice within the classroom.

Reality Pedagogy and Urban Science Education: Towards a Comprehensive Understanding of the Urban Science Classroom

The approaches to research and practice in urban science education discussed in this chapter are primarily based on the outcomes of multiple research studies within urban high school classes in New York City. Beginning from a discussion of the positioning of students of colour within urban settings in science education research and practice, I expand upon approaches to research and practice that have yielded positive results with students of colour in urban science classrooms and present both an ideological perspective on the relationship between science education and urban science education and practical ways to gain more profound understandings of the urban science classroom.

Hip-Hop Based Interventions as Pedagogy/Therapy in STEM: A Model from Urban Science Education.

This paper aims to argue that providing youth of color with opportunities to explore content while reflecting on and sharing mental health concerns is an under-focused dimension of teaching and learning that has the potential to positively impact these students’ academic achievement in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines,This paper used a qualitative study to interrogate a teaching/learning model through a hip-hop-based science program.,Because urban youth of color are traditionally most disengaged in STEM and also the ones who are the least likely to seek or be provided with mental health tools/services, it is suggested that there is a connection between their low academic achievement and the absence of opportunities for them to address emotions that impact their academic success. Furthermore, if these youths come from communities where mental health stressors are highly prevalent, and teaching is most restrictive, a model for teaching that considers practices that address both their academic and mental health needs becomes necessary.,This work does not intend to devalue or undermine the role of school counselors or traditional teachers. It is believed that the role of the school counselor or social worker when youths identify themes that go beyond the scope of personal challenges is significant and that these professionals should be made available when engaging in this type of work. It is also believed that the educator who may not be privy to hip-hop can successfully engage in this type of activity with STEM students. Finally, the use of science as an exemplar for engaging in this work does not indicate that the other STEM disciplines cannot or should not explore this type of model.,The paper outlines a model that other educators/researchers may use and suggests ways that this brand of research may be implemented by scholars across the country.,Through the implementation of the hip-hop-based science program as an intervention in science classrooms, students are provided the opportunity to bolster science content knowledge and knowledge of self. In addition, utilizing the hip-hop-based science program created an avenue for teachers to develop better understanding of students and their full socioemotional selves. This is especially necessary in STEM education where perceptions of students’ decisions to not engage in the disciplines are directly related to our collective unwillingness to present the subject matter in a way that goes beyond the glorification of its stoic and “old white” history.,This paper suggests a new dimension of STEM research through an exploration of hip-hop culture and youth emotions.

Hip-Hop Cypher in Group Work

ABSTRACT Group work holds significant value in communities that face mental health disparities. Although there is an array of research that supports the use of group therapy as a therapeutic medium, populations such as urban youth of color are often unable to access these services or fully benefit from them. To compensate, some communities have developed their own cultural methods of healing. In this article, the authors argue that by using expressive methods of healing social workers can accentuate the power and potential of groups with these populations.

On Building Bridges: Cultural Agnosia, HipHopEd, and Urban Education

Abstract In this article, the author describes a lens for engaging in research and practice in urban education rooted in deep cultural understandings of the concept of building bridges and the impact of cultural agnosia.

An Examination of Gendered Violence and School Push-Out Directed Against Urban Black Girls/Adolescents: Illustrative Data, Cases and a Call to Action

ABSTRACT This article focuses on Black girls/adolescents, a frequently neglected group, given a dominant focus on Black males and their risk status within the school-to-prison pipeline. This article provides a framework for the analysis of the gendered violence to which Black girls/adolescents are subjected while urging a shift in focus from individual-level behavior to a focus on social contextual, structural, and social determinant factors; this means a shift from focusing on proximal factors to distal or upstream factors operating as underlying mechanisms. Both illustrative data and cases are presented and analyzed to highlight how racial disparities in suspension, expulsion, and discipline—which disproportionately negatively impact Black girls/adolescents compared to White girls/adolescents—necessitate a major call to action to close these disturbing gaps.

It Doesn’t Matter What You Think, This is Real: Expanding Conceptions About Urban Students in Science Classrooms

We are at a point in time in the field of science education where many of the recommendations for improving teaching and learning are presented in very interesting and innovative ways. Researchers have various avenues to present their work and have developed the ability to utilize various means to disseminate it. There are conferences, symposia, journals, online journals, professional organizations, and even blogs that support the sharing and discussion of the outcomes of science education research. However, despite the innovations in the realms of presentation and dissemination, many of the approaches to science education are firmly rooted in pre-established precedents and accepted preconceptions. In other words, the outcomes of research are often new representations of old ideas developed in times past to connect students from a specific time and very specific demographic to science. Whereas science education research and practice appears to be inclusive, the view of urban populations as participants in science is not as expansive. For example, burgeoning areas of interest include the teaching for inquiry and the nature of science. These areas have a space within the framework for connecting marginalized youth to science but do not attack what is at the core of students’ exclusion from full participation in the discipline. Educators and researchers who nest their actions and practices in existing approaches often replicate past practice and engage in actions that reify age-old approaches to the discipline. These educators often engage in work based on what they think of the students in the classroom and not on what are the true reflections of students’ experiences. This is the case with the focus on teaching only for disseminating content and strict classroom management that has been closely tied to instruction in the science classrooms where I have conducted research.

Destroying the Spectacle in Urban Education

In 2004, rapper Mos Def released an album entitled The New Danger, which stunned many album critics who were expecting the hard-hitting beats and rhymes that were synonymous with traditional rap albums and Mos Def’s previous work. On the album, he experimented with funk, rock, and soul music and covered subject matter that ranged from the commercialization of Hip Hop by corporations to loss and heartbreak.