A supplemental text with a fresh, bold edge, Challenges of Urban Education includes a range of topics from quantitative analyses of student demographics to the description and analysis of urban high school students' creative writing. The book bridges the dualisms of local and global, theory and practice, and structure and agency. It furthers the advancement of "the new sociology of education" by making connections between the social context of urban schooling and the lives of the individuals who are affected by it.

"This book synthesizes many of the current issues facing urban schools. I was particularly intrigued by the way it shed insight into specific pedagogical approaches that validated the culture of many urban youth by infusing their culture into the curriculum. Such examples of culturally responsive pedagogy are needed to engage urban students in learning. The book illustrates the disconnection that so frequently exists between the lived experiences of urban youth and the school curriculum while simultaneously showing how some teachers have made connections between the two resulting in powerful pedagogy." -- Grace Cureton Stanford, Penn State University

Contributors include Michael W. Apple; Anthony Gary Dworkin; Pamela Fenning; harry Handler; David Keiser; Karen A. McClafferty; Peter McLaren; Roslyn Arlin Mickelson; Theodore R. Mitchell; Raymond A. Morrow; Marianela Parraga; Margaret K. Purser; Ayman Sheikh-Hussin; Sid Thompson; Laurence A. Toenjes; Carlos Alberto Torres; Eugene Tucker; Amy Stuart Wells; Geoff Whitty; and Jim Wilczynski.