METROPEDAGOGY. Power, Justice and the Urban Classroom

Metropedagogy: Power, Justice and the Urban Classroom Joe Kincheloe McGill University and kecia hayes (Eds.) The Graduate Center, City University of New York What might it mean to develop a rigorous, just, and practical urban education? Such a question takes on new importance in the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century, as urban educators find themselves besieged with test-driven, standardized curricula promoted in the name of fairness, educational excellence, and egalitarianism. Those who promote these standardized curricula fail to account for the unique situations and needs of particular urban students. When an urban curriculum is standardized, the students suffering from the effects of poverty, racial discrimination, and other problems are less likely to receive the specific pedagogical help they need to overcome the effects of such impediments. While there is no doubt that such students have the ability to learn, the point is that they also have special needs. Teachers need the curricular freedom, the professional respect to address these special requirements. Metropedagogy, constructed as a critical pedagogy for urban education, addresses these concerns.