Addressing the problems of urban education: An ecological systems perspective

ABSTRACT

Many urban school districts have been beset by a variety of problems including low achievement, high dropout, and disciplinary referral rates. Frequently, efforts to improve urban education are focused on interventions at the student, school, or district level. However, urban scholars recognize that many of these problems are embedded in urban poverty and related issues, including residential racial segregation, housing and food insecurity, and high levels of residential mobility and criminal justice system involvement. Ecological systems theory can help to explicate some of the mechanisms through which poverty and related problems adversely affects educational outcomes, and to identify systemic changes likely to lead to improved educational outcomes. This article describes how housing and criminal justice systems are interrelated with urban education, and examines these dynamics in Nashville, Tennessee. We then describe several multi-sectoral change efforts to improve urban education in Nashville, including their effects and limitations.

Acknowledgments

This manuscript was supported by Cooperative Agreement Award #2016-CK-BX-K002 from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the investigators and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NIJ.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The strategies that we critique here, while prevalent, do not typically originate from educators or educational researchers. They are most often politically driven approaches. Other more promising strategies exist that are focused on classroom and school-level changes, but few if any have had the prevalence of the more politically driven approaches to education reform. Furthermore, in some cases, promising strategies (such as small schools) are taken as silver bullet solutions by policy elites and then quickly abandoned when they fail to “fix” all of the issues facing public education systems (e.g., Schneider, 2016).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maury Nation

Maury Nation is a professor in the Department of Human and Organizational Development at Vanderbilt University. His research is focused on developing schools and neighborhoods that promote positive youth development and academic success. He has a special emphasis on addressing issues affecting youth of color and urban school districts. Current research includes a project focused on understanding the contributions of neighborhood and school on the development and perpetuation of racial/ethnic disparities in school discipline and achievement, and a project to prevent youth violence by helping youth develop critical consciousness and become civically engaged.

Brian D. Christens

Brian D. Christens is an associate professor in the Department of Human and Organizational Development at Vanderbilt University. He studies systems change efforts and how different organizational approaches to civic action can lead to different outcomes.

Kimberly D. Bess

Kimberly D. Bess is an associate professor in the Department of Human and Organizational Development at Vanderbilt University. Her research investigates the ways in which community-based organizations serve as agents of social change through place-based initiatives and interorganizational collaborative networks.

Marybeth Shinn

Marybeth Shinn is a Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair and professor of Human and Organizational Development at Vanderbilt University. She studies how to prevent and end homelessness and create opportunities for groups that face social exclusion.

Douglas D. Perkins

Douglas D. Perkins is a professor in the Department of Human and Organizational Development at Vanderbilt University. He has studied urban neighborhood crime, disorder, revitalization and the role of community attachment and participation. His current research focuses on the global development of applied community studies.

Paul W. Speer

Paul W. Speer is a professor and chair of the Department of Human and Organizational Development at Vanderbilt University. His research interests focus on community organizing, social power, and community change.