ABSTRACT
Much has been written about the pervasive disengagement of students in urban schools, an observation that has a direct bearing on motivation for academic achievement. The following selective review examines the evidence on levels of student motivation in urban American schools. To establish the context of our review, we must first define and delimit our use of the construct urban schools. Although the term urban can be associated with culture, refinement, and highly developed civilization, as in urbane, the phrase urban schools in education research typically has a negative valence (Leonardo & Hunter, 2007). In an educational context, urban typically refers to a metropolitan area confronting a broad range of social problems, including a lack of employment opportunities and commercial services, high levels of criminal activity, substandard housing, and poor and disadvantaged residents, most of whom are members of ethnic minority groups. The term urban schools typically refers to institutions in these metropolitan areas that serve largely low-income students of color (i.e., African American, Latino, and Southeast Asian students), and the schools in these areas are perceived as the site of social problems. While the populations and social and economic challenges in some suburban areas and small cities are similar to those in large metropolitan areas (Foster, 2007), our review of motivation in urban schools will confine itself to large metropolitan districts. Although we use this more restrictive definition, we remain cognizant of the fact that urban schools are defined more often by racial and socioeconomic characteristics than by geographic location.
