This handbook is a resource for parents, community members, teachers, and administrators who want to make a difference in their urban schools. Breault and Allen provide a way for stakeholders to see the roles they can play in building civic capacity for change in urban schools and communities. It also offers critical background information to help stakeholders recognize the complexity and necessity of their efforts. The authors organized this book around the need for beginning, continuing, and enacting conversations to emphasize the need for stakeholders to build relationships with one another in order to advocate for and act on behalf of urban students and communities. While this book eschews prescriptive and simplistic solutions, it does offer ways in which stakeholders create and support an infrastructure for change in their schools and communities. For example, this book helps stakeholders navigate the bureaucracy of urban school districts, build collegial communities of inquiry within schools, develop systematic ways of gathering important data schools and communities, organize the energy and efforts of those who want to get involved, seek out, and utilize various resources, and then use the infrastructure of knowledgeable and collegial stakeholders to bring about change. The authors realize how daunting these challenges may seem for stakeholders who want to make a difference in their schools and communities. In response, they offer images of positive changes including schools, parent associations, and networking strategies used in urban communities today as glimpses of what is possible through hard work, collaboration, and an imaginative spirit.

Professional Development Schools: Researching Lessons from the Field provides a comprehensive analysis of PDS research that can aid PDS stakeholders in designing and sustaining meaningful research in their partnerships. Breault and Breault used an extensive qualitative meta-synthesis to examine the research over the past 20 years. Their comprehensive review of 300 studies provides a.deep understanding of the challenges and potential within PDSs. The authors offer analysis regarding key elements of PDSs and highlight strong studies including a large-scale, multi-site study and studies using mixed methods and action research effectively. They also highlight exemplary studies showing how pilot studies are effective ways to research new partnerships, how theory can lead to greater abstraction, and how metaphor can clarify complex relationships. This book is an essential resource for all stakeholders involved in professional development schools.

Curriculum as Spaces can be viewed as a holistic approach to education, conservation, and community development that uses place as an integrating context for learning. This book introduces foundational principles that ask us to imagine the full realization of curriculum spaces and show us how to examine the philosophical and cultural roots of these most essential principles.

The Red Light in the Ivory Tower: Contexts and Implications of Entrepreneurial Education critically analyzes the operational behaviors of prestigious and prestige-seeking universities, particularly within the context of budget shortfalls and increasing competition. The book challenges entrepreneurial activities within universities by exploring the costs of such ventures in terms of honoring commitments to faculty and students while maintaining integrity of institutional purpose. The book offers six case studies that illustrate the organizational behaviors influenced by prestige indicators. Ultimately, the book challenges readers to address the complex issues of leadership and power within the context of social, political, economic, and historical influences within higher education. By asking difficult questions about the entrepreneurial behaviors of prestigious and prestige-seeking universities, stakeholders can reimagine and reclaim a sense of purpose that can ultimately influence organizational identities and thus the degree to which their universities support and serve their students, faculty, and community.