ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on conceptualizations of urban in relationship to geography and space. It offers a discussion on identity and African American families and fathers in low-income urban settings. The chapter discusses parent and family engagement in urban schools, and the significance of narrowing the cultural mismatch between schools and families. The urban context of today is both similar to and different from that of cities of the past – as inequity persists, there is increased access created through new methods of study and technology. Urban assumes that space itself is contingent on the people who occupy it. The definitions of families differ culturally and demographically. An anthropologist, a sociologist, a psychologist, a legal scholar, and an economist may each bring common references to their definitions, but attach different meanings. Families constitute a fundamental social system that promotes, disrupts, or mediates the experiences of its members and in which there are exchanges of knowledge, resources, and services.
