Writing Urban Education
William Pink and George Noblit
Editorial Board
Editors
George W. Noblit
School of Education, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
William T. Pink
Dept. of Educational Policy and Leadership Studies, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, USA
Editorial Board (term expires March 1 of year listed)
Patricia Teague Ashton, University of Florida (2007)
Denise Taliaferro Baszile, Miami University, Ohio (2008)
Robert Berry, University of Virginia (2009)
Pam Bettis, Washington State University (2007)
Keonya Booker, University of Virginia (2009)
Kathryn Borman, University of South Florida (2007)
Joyce Epstein, Johns Hopkins University (2009)
Michelle Fine, City University of New York (2009)
Michele Foster, Claremont Graduate University (2007)
David Gillborn, University of London (2008)
Rick Ginsberg, University of Kansas (2009)
Odis Johnson, University of California, Davis (2007)
Bill Johnston, University of Texas at El Paso (2009)
Robert Miller, University of Michigan (2008)
Jerome Morris, University of Georgia (2008)
Laurence J. Parker, University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign (2007)
Maike Philipsen, Virginia Commonwealth University (2009)
Paula Groves Price, Washington State University (2008)
Susan Semel, City College, CUNY (2008)
Luis Urrieta, The University of Texas at Austin (2009)
Jane Van Galen, University of Washington (2008)
The Meaning of Urban-
You tell us!
The New Generation of Urban Education Scholars
The previous generation was largely quantitative
–had a social problems orientation.
This generation is claiming strengths and
capability in the face of oppression.
Changing methodological orientations around
paradigms. This robust discourse centers on
competing axiological beliefs.
How to get ready to write Urban Education
Develop your research methods and keep working
on them
Read and study theory so that you are facile with
the discourse-what are the arguments in the field
and how are you working in, with, against them.
Positionality is assuming greater importance.
There is no one way to write
Urban Education: quantitative,
qualitative, theoretical, practical.
Some write more of an analysis;
some more narrative.
Read the literature as exemplars for your
writing—find studies that are templates.
Review of Articles:
Borman et al. (2007). Final Reading Outcomes of the
National Randomized Field Trial of Success for All.
AERJ.
Jowett and O’Toole. (2006). Focusing Researchers’
Minds: Contrasting Experiences of Using Focus
Groups in Feminist Qualitative Research. QR.
Find your audience-
TheUrban Review and others are
journals that focus on research
towards an equity project.
Other journals put the ―science‖ first.
Don’tthink about your research as
one article at the time.
Thinkabout your research
program—articles should derive
from the program.
Learn to rewrite to improve the
paper, not just to fix the
problems reviewers might see.
Write on two levels:
1. What the data say
2. What the data speak to in the wider
discourses.
Many do the first, but the latter makes the
difference in whose article gets published.
Embrace complexity
and contradiction
but write about it clearly.
Wayne Booth et al. (The Craft of Research, 2003)
In a research report, you make a claim, back it
with reasons based on evidence, acknowledge
and respond to other views, and sometimes
explain your principles of reasoning. There is
nothing arcane in any of this, because you use
those elements in every conversation that
inquires thoughtfully into an unsettled issue
(114).
Booth continued…
Booth et al. (2003) note that it is the responsibility of
the author to supply the answers to five questions on
your readers’ behalf.
1. What do you claim?
2. What reasons support that claim?
3. What evidence supports those reasons?
4. Do you acknowledge this
alternative/complication/objections, and how do you
respond?
5. What principle (warrant) justifies connecting your
reasons to you claim? (115)
Howard Becker (Writing for Social Scientists, 2003)
offers six elements for writing clearly
(see handout for details):
1. Active/Passive
2. Fewer words
3. Repetition
4. Structure/Content
5. Concrete/Abstract
6. Metaphors (79-89)
Booth et al. (2003) also offer good
suggestions for opening and closing words
(see handout for details):
1. Open with a striking quotation, or
2. Open with a striking fact, or
3. Open with a relevant anecdote,
and
4. Close with an echo (238-240)
Make sure you research the journal
and that you have cited the relevant
studies from that journal.
want to believe we are
Editors
sponsoring a conversation.
To return: Make sure you
are explicit about the meaning
of urban in your piece.
Writing Scholarly Books—
Our series at Hampton Press
for example.
Writing Scholarly Books:
For the love of the conversation
not for the love of money.
Books need to be sufficient
and complex to require
a detailed treatment.
Books must speak to more audiences
than a journal article—so much more
needs to be developed about what
ideas you will speak to and then you
need to speak to them somewhere.
The rare dissertation
can become a book.
Find an editor who
will work with you.
Make sure a book will count for
your job. They rarely get the credit
for the amount of work it takes.
Consider editing a book as a first
book—you learn the job without
having to write it all. You also learn
that colleagues do not always deliver
when you need them to.
Books are written with words—
and you have the space to use the
words and explain all the words.
Know you audiences.
A good scholarly book is one that someone
will use in a graduate class.
You certainly want your peers to see it as a
―Must Read.‖
Be provocative, poignant.
Books are hard to finish.
Make concrete plans about time
allotted and stick to them.
you let your writing time be invaded,
If
the book can be stalled.
Anticlimax:
Indexes
Prefaces
Covers
Copyediting
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