Download or read book Educational Resilience in inner city America written by Margaret C Wang and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-10-12 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of life in inner-city America and the education of its people is often recounted as a tragedy; the ending is often predictable and usually dire, highlighting deficiency, failure, and negative trends. As with most social problems, children and youth in the inner cities are hit hardest. But this dismal view is only half of the full picture. The cities of our nation are a startling juxtaposition between the despairing and the hopeful, between disorganization and restorative potential. Alongside the poverty and unemployment, the street-fights and drug deals, are a wealth of cultural, economic, educational, and social resources. Often ignored are the resilience and the ability for adaptation which help many who are seemingly confined by circumstance to struggle and succeed "in the face of the odds." This book helps to broaden the utilization of ways to magnify the circumstances known to enhance development and education, so that the burden of adversity is reduced and opportunities are advanced for all children and youth -- especially the children and youth of the inner cities who are in at-risk circumstances. The focus is on: * raising consciousness about the opportunities available to foster resilience among children, families, and communities, and * synthesizing the knowledge base that is central to implementing improvements which serve to better the circumstances and educational opportunities of children and families. This volume is intended for a wide audience of readers, but particularly those who are in a position to shape public policy and deliver educational and human services.

Download or read book Inner City Struggles written by C.R. Rhyne-Brett and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2006-08-10 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inner City Struggles tells the hardcore reality of three brothers (C Loc, TJ, and Lil Willie) growing up in these wicked LA streets. The story begins in the summer of 1985 and concludes in the year 2002. This street fiction work of art covers gang life, pimping, gambling, sex, drugs, family values, political issues, and religion. Journey with C Loc, TJ, and Lil Willie as they travel down the bumpy road of life and become men right before your eyes. Roberta the mother of the boys is the glue that keeps the family together. She displays her tough love tactics and strong will perseverance to raise her sons in to model citizens as well as taking care of her ill father. All the highs and the lows will have you glued to your seat in suspense. Welcome to the world of hood life.

Download or read book The Struggle and the Tools written by Ellen Cushman and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the daily lives of a group of inner city residents, focusing particularly upon their language use and other types of literate strategies used to gain resources, access to social institutions, and respect.

Download or read book Stagnant Dreamers written by Maria G. Rendon and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2019-12-31 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2020 Robert E. Park Award for Best Book from the Community and Urban Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association Winner of the 2020 Distinguished Contribution to Research Award from the Latino/a Section of the American Sociological Association Honorable Mention for the 2020 Thomas and Znaniecki Award from the International Migration Section of the American Sociological Association​​​​​​​ A quarter of young adults in the U.S. today are the children of immigrants, and Latinos are the largest minority group. In Stagnant Dreamers, sociologist and social policy expert María Rendón follows 42 young men from two high-poverty Los Angeles neighborhoods as they transition into adulthood. Based on in-depth interviews and ethnographic observations with them and their immigrant parents, Stagnant Dreamers describes the challenges they face coming of age in the inner city and accessing higher education and good jobs, and demonstrates how family-based social ties and community institutions can serve as buffers against neighborhood violence, chronic poverty, incarceration, and other negative outcomes. Neighborhoods in East and South Central Los Angeles were sites of acute gang violence that peaked in the 1990s, shattering any romantic notions of American life held by the immigrant parents. Yet, Rendón finds that their children are generally optimistic about their life chances and determined to make good on their parents’ sacrifices. Most are strongly oriented towards work. But despite high rates of employment, most earn modest wages and rely on kinship networks for labor market connections. Those who made social connections outside of their family and neighborhood contexts, more often found higher quality jobs. However, a middle-class lifestyle remains elusive for most, even for college graduates. Rendón debunks fears of downward assimilation among second-generation Latinos, noting that most of her subjects were employed and many had gone on to college. She questions the ability of institutions of higher education to fully integrate low-income students of color. She shares the story of one Ivy League college graduate who finds himself working in the same low-wage jobs as his parents and peers who did not attend college. Ironically, students who leave their neighborhoods to pursue higher education are often the most exposed to racism, discrimination, and classism. Rendón demonstrates the importance of social supports in helping second-generation immigrant youth succeed. To further the integration of second-generation Latinos, she suggests investing in community organizations, combating criminalization of Latino youth, and fully integrating them into higher education institutions. Stagnant Dreamers presents a realistic yet hopeful account of how the Latino second generation is attempting to realize its vision of the American dream.

Download or read book The Truly Disadvantaged written by William Julius Wilson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2012-06-29 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An assessment of the relationship between race and poverty in the United States, and potential solutions for the issue. Renowned American sociologist William Julius Wilson takes a look at the social transformation of inner-city ghettos, offering a sharp evaluation of the convergence of race and poverty. Rejecting both conservative and liberal interpretations of life in the inner city, Wilson offers essential information and several solutions to policymakers. The Truly Disadvantaged is a wide-ranging examination, looking at the relationship between race, employment, and education from the 1950s onwards, with surprising and provocative findings. This second edition also includes a new afterword from Wilson himself that brings the book up to date and offers fresh insight into its findings. Praise for The Truly Disadvantaged “The Truly Disadvantaged should spur critical thinking in many quarters about the causes and possible remedies for inner city poverty. As policymakers grapple with the problems of an enlarged underclass they—as well as community leaders and all concerned Americans of all races—would be advised to examine Mr. Wilson’s incisive analysis.” —Robert Greenstein, New York Times Book Review “The Truly Disadvantaged not only assembles a vast array of data gleamed from the works of specialists, it offers much new information and analysis. Wilson has asked the hard questions, he has done his homework, and he has dared to speak unpopular truths.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review “Required reading for anyone, presidential candidate or private citizen, who really wants to address the growing plight of the black urban underclass.” —David J. Garrow, Washington Post Book World

Download or read book A Chance to Win written by Jonathan Schuppe and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-05-07 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist follows an embattled Little League team in inner-city Newark, revealing the complex realities of life in one of America's most dangerous cities.

Download or read book Inner city Kids written by Alice Mcintyre and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2000-11 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Urban teens of color are often portrayed as welfare mothers, drop outs, drug addicts, and both victims and perpetrators of the many kinds of violence which can characterize life in urban areas. Although urban youth often live in contexts which include poverty, unemployment, and discrimination, they also live with the everydayness of school, friends, sex, television, music, and other elements of teenage lives. Inner City Kids explores how a group of African American, Jamaican, Puerto Rican, and Haitian adolescents make meaning of and respond to living in an inner-city community. The book focuses on areas of particular concern to the youth, such as violence, educational opportunities, and a decaying and demoralizing urban environment characterized by trash, pollution, and abandoned houses. McIntyre's work with these teens draws upon participatory action research, which seeks to codevelop programs with study participants rather than for them.

Download or read book More than Just Race Being Black and Poor in the Inner City Issues of Our Time written by William Julius Wilson and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2010-03-22 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A preeminent sociologist of race explains a groundbreaking new framework for understanding racial inequality, challenging both conservative and liberal dogma. In this timely and provocative contribution to the American discourse on race, William Julius Wilson applies an exciting new analytic framework to three politically fraught social problems: the persistence of the inner-city ghetto, the plight of low-skilled black males, and the fragmentation of the African American family. Though the discussion of racial inequality is typically ideologically polarized. Wilson dares to consider both institutional and cultural factors as causes of the persistence of racial inequality. He reaches the controversial conclusion that while structural and cultural forces are inextricably linked, public policy can only change the racial status quo by reforming the institutions that reinforce it.

Download or read book Code of the Street Decency Violence and the Moral Life of the Inner City written by Elijah Anderson and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2000-09-17 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unsparing and important. . . . An informative, clearheaded and sobering book.—Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post (1999 Critic's Choice) Inner-city black America is often stereotyped as a place of random violence, but in fact, violence in the inner city is regulated through an informal but well-known code of the street. This unwritten set of rules—based largely on an individual's ability to command respect—is a powerful and pervasive form of etiquette, governing the way in which people learn to negotiate public spaces. Elijah Anderson's incisive book delineates the code and examines it as a response to the lack of jobs that pay a living wage, to the stigma of race, to rampant drug use, to alienation and lack of hope.

Download or read book The Analyst in the Inner City written by Neil Altman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2011-08-24 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1995, Neil Altman did what few psychoanalysts did or even dared to do: He brought the theory and practice of psychoanalysis out of the cozy confines of the consulting room and into the realms of the marginalized, to the very individuals whom this theory and practice often overlooked. In doing so, he brought together psychoanalytic and social theory, and examined how divisions of race, class and culture reflect and influence splits in the developing self, more often than not leading to a negative self image of the "other" in an increasingly polarized society. Much like the original, this second edition of The Analyst in the Inner City opens up with updated, detailed clinical vignettes and case presentations, which illustrate the challenges of working within this clinical milieu. Altman greatly expands his section on race, both in the psychoanalytic and the larger social world, including a focus on "whiteness" which, he argues, is socially constructed in relation to "blackness." However, he admits the inadequacy of such categorizations and proffers a more fluid view of the structure of race. A brand new section, "Thinking Systemically and Psychoanalytically at the Same Time," examines the impact of the socio-political context in which psychotherapy takes place, whether local or global, on the clinical work itself and the socio-economic categories of its patients, and vice-versa. Topics in this section include the APA’s relationship to CIA interrogation practices, group dynamics in child and adolescent psychotherapeutic interventions, and psychoanalytic views on suicide bombing. Ranging from the day-to-day work in a public clinic in the South Bronx to considerations of global events far outside the clinic’s doors (but closer than one might think), this book is a timely revision of a groundbreaking work in psychoanalytic literature, expanding the import of psychoanalysis from the centers of analytical thought to the margins of clinical need.

Download or read book Doing the Best I Can written by Kathryn Edin and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Across the political spectrum, unwed fatherhood is denounced as one of the leading social problems of today. Doing the Best I Can is a strikingly rich, paradigm-shifting look at fatherhood among inner-city men often dismissed as “deadbeat dads.” Kathryn Edin and Timothy J. Nelson examine how couples in challenging straits come together and get pregnant so quickly—without planning. The authors chronicle the high hopes for forging lasting family bonds that pregnancy inspires, and pinpoint the fatal flaws that often lead to the relationship’s demise. They offer keen insight into a radical redefinition of family life where the father-child bond is central and parental ties are peripheral. Drawing on years of fieldwork, Doing the Best I Can shows how mammoth economic and cultural changes have transformed the meaning of fatherhood among the urban poor. Intimate interviews with more than 100 fathers make real the significant obstacles faced by low-income men at every step in the familial process: from the difficulties of romantic relationships, to decision-making dilemmas at conception, to the often celebratory moment of birth, and finally to the hardships that accompany the early years of the child's life, and beyond.

Download or read book City of Segregation written by Andrea Gibbons and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A majestic one-hundred-year study of segregation in Los Angeles City of Segregation documents one hundred years of struggle against the enforced separation of racial groups through property markets, constructions of community, and the growth of neoliberalism. This movement history covers the decades of work to end legal support for segregation in 1948; the 1960s Civil Rights movement and CORE’s efforts to integrate LA’s white suburbs; and the 2006 victory preserving 10,000 downtown residential hotel units from gentrification enfolded within ongoing resistance to the criminalization and displacement of the homeless. Andrea Gibbons reveals the shape and nature of the racist ideology that must be fought, in Los Angeles and across the United States, if we hope to found just cities.

Download or read book The Long Shadow written by Karl Alexander and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2014-05-31 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A volume in the American Sociological Association's Rose Series in Sociology West Baltimore stands out in the popular imagination as the quintessential “inner city”—gritty, run-down, and marred by drugs and gang violence. Indeed, with the collapse of manufacturing jobs in the 1970s, the area experienced a rapid onset of poverty and high unemployment, with few public resources available to alleviate economic distress. But in stark contrast to the image of a perpetual “urban underclass” depicted in television by shows like The Wire, sociologists Karl Alexander, Doris Entwisle, and Linda Olson present a more nuanced portrait of Baltimore’s inner city residents that employs important new research on the significance of early-life opportunities available to low-income populations. The Long Shadow focuses on children who grew up in west Baltimore neighborhoods and others like them throughout the city, tracing how their early lives in the inner city have affected their long-term well-being. Although research for this book was conducted in Baltimore, that city’s struggles with deindustrialization, white flight, and concentrated poverty were characteristic of most East Coast and Midwest manufacturing cities. The experience of Baltimore’s children who came of age during this era is mirrored in the experiences of urban children across the nation. For 25 years, the authors of The Long Shadow tracked the life progress of a group of almost 800 predominantly low-income Baltimore school children through the Beginning School Study Youth Panel (BSSYP). The study monitored the children’s transitions to young adulthood with special attention to how opportunities available to them as early as first grade shaped their socioeconomic status as adults. The authors’ fine-grained analysis confirms that the children who lived in more cohesive neighborhoods, had stronger families, and attended better schools tended to maintain a higher economic status later in life. As young adults, they held higher-income jobs and had achieved more personal milestones (such as marriage) than their lower-status counterparts. Differences in race and gender further stratified life opportunities for the Baltimore children. As one of the first studies to closely examine the outcomes of inner-city whites in addition to African Americans, data from the BSSYP shows that by adulthood, white men of lower status family background, despite attaining less education on average, were more likely to be employed than any other group in part due to family connections and long-standing racial biases in Baltimore’s industrial economy. Gender imbalances were also evident: the women, who were more likely to be working in low-wage service and clerical jobs, earned less than men. African American women were doubly disadvantaged insofar as they were less likely to be in a stable relationship than white women, and therefore less likely to benefit from a second income. Combining original interviews with Baltimore families, teachers, and other community members with the empirical data gathered from the authors’ groundbreaking research, The Long Shadow unravels the complex connections between socioeconomic origins and socioeconomic destinations to reveal a startling and much-needed examination of who succeeds and why.

Download or read book A Hope in the Unseen written by Ron Suskind and published by Crown. This book was released on 2010-08-18 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inspiring, true coming-of-age story of a ferociously determined young man who, armed only with his intellect and his willpower, fights his way out of despair. In 1993, Cedric Jennings was a bright and ferociously determined honor student at Ballou, a high school in one of Washington D.C.’s most dangerous neighborhoods, where the dropout rate was well into double digits and just 80 students out of more than 1,350 boasted an average of B or better. At Ballou, Cedric had almost no friends. He ate lunch in a classroom most days, plowing through the extra work he asked for, knowing that he was really competing with kids from other, harder schools. Cedric Jennings’s driving ambition—which was fully supported by his forceful mother—was to attend a top college. In September 1995, after years of near superhuman dedication, he realized that ambition when he began as a freshman at Brown University. But he didn't leave his struggles behind. He found himself unprepared for college: he struggled to master classwork and fit in with the white upper-class students. Having traveled too far to turn back, Cedric was left to rely on his intelligence and his determination to maintain hope in the unseen—a future of acceptance and reward. In this updated edition, A Hope in the Unseen chronicles Cedric’s odyssey during his last two years of high school, follows him through his difficult first year at Brown, and tells the story of his subsequent successes in college and the world of work. Eye-opening, sometimes humorous, and often deeply moving, A Hope in the Unseen weaves a crucial new thread into the rich and ongoing narrative of the American experience.

Download or read book Hard Lessons written by J. M. Carr and published by Yellow Rose Books by RCE. This book was released on 2014-04 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: June Cunningham was four years old when her parents were brutally murdered. Now as a brilliant young engineering student, she falls in love with the killer's next intended victim. Irene Hawkins is the estranged wife of a self-absorbed financial executive whose greed knows no bounds. June has learned to live without family and Irene has learned to deny her feelings. When they come together, everyone learns more than they ever expected.

Download or read book Terraformed written by Joy White and published by Watkins Media Limited. This book was released on 2020-05-12 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An uncompromising wake-up call. Joy White tells uncomfortable truths and blows apart our understanding of racism, crime and policing in our inner-cities. Since the 1980s, austerity, gentrification and structural racism have wreaked havoc on inner-city communities, widening inequality and entrenching poverty. In Terraformed, Joy White offers an insiders view of Forest Gate -- an urban neighbourhood in London -- analysing how these issues affect the black youth of today. Connecting the dots between music, politics and the built environment, it centres on the lived experiences of black youth who have had it all: huge student debt, invisible homelessness, custodial sentences, electronic tagging, surveillance, arrest, police brutality, issues with health and well-being, and of course, loss. Part ethnography, part memoir, Terraformed uses the history of Newham, London as an example of inner-city life across the globe and considers how young black lives are affected by racism, capitalism and austerity.

Download or read book Unequal City written by Carla Shedd and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chicago has long struggled with racial residential segregation, high rates of poverty, and deepening class stratification, and it can be a challenging place for adolescents to grow up. Unequal City examines the ways in which Chicago’s most vulnerable residents navigate their neighborhoods, life opportunities, and encounters with the law. In this pioneering analysis of the intersection of race, place, and opportunity, sociologist and criminal justice expert Carla Shedd illuminates how schools either reinforce or ameliorate the social inequalities that shape the worlds of these adolescents. Shedd draws from an array of data and in-depth interviews with Chicago youth to offer new insight into this understudied group. Focusing on four public high schools with differing student bodies, Shedd reveals how the predominantly low-income African American students at one school encounter obstacles their more affluent, white counterparts on the other side of the city do not face. Teens often travel long distances to attend school which, due to Chicago’s segregated and highly unequal neighborhoods, can involve crossing class, race, and gang lines. As Shedd explains, the disadvantaged teens who traverse these boundaries daily develop a keen “perception of injustice,” or the recognition that their economic and educational opportunities are restricted by their place in the social hierarchy. Adolescents’ worldviews are also influenced by encounters with law enforcement while traveling to school and during school hours. Shedd tracks the rise of metal detectors, surveillance cameras, and pat-downs at certain Chicago schools. Along with police procedures like stop-and-frisk, these prison-like practices lead to distrust of authority and feelings of powerlessness among the adolescents who experience mistreatment either firsthand or vicariously. Shedd finds that the racial composition of the student body profoundly shapes students’ perceptions of injustice. The more diverse a school is, the more likely its students of color will recognize whether they are subject to discriminatory treatment. By contrast, African American and Hispanic youth whose schools and neighborhoods are both highly segregated and highly policed are less likely to understand their individual and group disadvantage due to their lack of exposure to youth of differing backgrounds.